Kemintiri
Sobriquet:
Appearance: In her “true” form Kemintiri is 4 ft 6 in tall with dusky skin, long, straight black hair and eyes that appear very serpent-like. Even without her powers Kemintiri may possibly be the most beautiful woman in the world, as many men and women have dropped to their knees with instant love and devotion to serve her.
However, Kemintiri is the ultimate pretender. With her mastery in Obfuscate, Auspex, Serpentis and other disciplines, she is able to assume the role of any Kindred and perform it to perfection. She has done this innumerable times over the ages, with aliases too many to count.
Behavior:
Contents
Her History
Egypt - The 19th Dynasty - circa. 1300 B.C.E.
Kemintiri was born during the 19th dynasty, in the reign of Seti I. The Pharaoh marked his reign by calling himself the Son of Set, exalting the red god. The Pharaoh promised Set to build a great temple in his honor, if the god ensured the long reign of Pharaoh's own son, Ramesses. The temple was built, and the most beautiful women in the land served as priestesses to honor Set. Among these was the young Kemintiri. Kemintiri rose quickly in the ranks of the priestesses, for she was not only beautiful, but intuitively supreme in the politics of the temple. Set himself took a liking to her. This was not the only attention she received, as she also gained the attention of the Cult of Isis.
At the time, Set did not have complete control over the cults of Egypt. Opposing him was the cult of Isis, keepers of the Spell of Life. Isis herself was dead, but her son, Horus, had risen from the dead as a mummy by the power of the spell of life. Set coveted the spell of life greatly, and so he wanted to place a retainer loyal to him within the cult of Isis and steal the secret of the spell. For this task, he chose Kemintiri. She agreed.
In the cult of Isis, Kemintiri learned much of the magic taught by the wizards. After a decade of patient study, she finally learned the secret of the spell of life. She would have taken the mystery to Set, but then Horus awoke from his death cycle, and Kemintiri was suddenly fascinated by this creature and the stories it had to tell. Kemintiri became a true believer in the cause of Horus and the cult. And thus she betrayed Set.
Set was livid with anger once he learned of the treachery. He ordered his cult to capture Kemintiri which they succeeded to do. Kemintiri was brought to Set, incapacitated by lack of blood. Kemintiri reviled Set now, screaming that she would never reveal the secret of the spell of life to him. Set attempted to Dominate her, but her aura was suffused with white light, making her impervious to Set's power. Then Set beat her, and threatened her with exquisite tortures. All these she grimly endured. When the cultists of Isis attempted to save her, Set implemented his ultimate threat, defiling her body with the curse of Caine, forever crushing her hopes of becoming a mummy.
Laughing, Set told Kemintiri to go back to the cult of Isis who would now be sure to destroy her. She was now forever Set's own. Set however did not know that the same magic that made her immune to domination, made her immune to being blood bound. Set could still not command her to release the secret of the spell of life. Still she held on to it out of spite, challenging her new sire to destroy her. Set abused her many nights, until finally she managed to use the magic she had learned in the temple to escape.
Egypt - circa. 800 B.C.E.
Kemintiri wandered for centuries, letting her humanity slip as she prowled the caravan trails and oases. Wassail, the ultimate defeat, claimed her. Khetamon, the last surviving son of Osiris, found her. The Cult of Osiris had compassion for someone who had been made a beast, and so they captured Kemintiri, starved her to torpor, and spirited her away to India where they set upon the long task of bringing her back from Wassail. The rudimentary magic that Khetamon used for this task, would later become known as the discipline Bardo. Very slowly her cognizance returned, until she could understand who she was. Her mind, and the secret of the spell of life, was now however shrouded in partial amnesia. Kemintiri stayed with the Children of Osiris for a time, her humanity at a precarious state, until a remnant of her wassail made her frenzy and kill a number of the priests of Osiris. She once again fled.
Egypt - circa. 500 B.C.E.
Kemintiri returned to Egypt, only to find that the battle was over. The Cult of Isis had been slaughtered down to the last magus. She spent the next millennia searching for any survivors. Set on the other hand had only managed to obtain a corrupted version of the Spell of Life from the last priest, and so he ordered his followers to hunt down Kemintiri for she is the only remaining repository of the spell of life besides mummies. And in her mind, the spell is lost in the depths of amnesia.
Post Roman Britain -- circa. 400 B.C.E.
Kemintiri spent a decade as the lover of the Ventrue Methuselah Mithras. The Lhiannan tell stories of her time with Mithras and the mystical Crone that the bloodline identifies as its founder. This time, however, was not to last and she soon returned to Egypt, where she clashed with another childe of Set, the Methuselah Taweret. During the struggle, Kemintiri was knocked into the Red Sea, where she entered a Torpor that lasted several hundred years.
14th Century A.D.
Kemintiri reawakened in the 1300s. Drawing herself up to a merchant ship, she assumed the captain's identity and traveled to Mesopotamia, hoping to find again allies among the Ventrue to destroy the Followers of Set. To avoid being pursued, Kemintiri assumed the identity of a wealthy Ventrue, Rimmon, whose resources she utilized to sack several Founding Temples of the Setites and reassemble the Children of Osiris, hoping to use them as weapons against those who opposed her. The ruse, however, was discovered by Ventrue elders, who slowly spread the word of her existence to other Clans. Fearing that Kemintiri would wipe out the Ventrue and assume their money and domains, these same elders would later use their considerable influence to put her at the head of the Red List in the twentieth century.
19th Century
Quote: "We are not gods, no matter what we tell ourselves. It is a lesson we can only learn in pain. There is no Godhead. The heart of the universe is empty. Will you walk through it with me?" -- Kemintiri to Mithras
In Victorian England, Kemintiri masqueraded as Lady Ophelia Merritt, a prominent Kindred in London society. She held court at her estate and was the keeper of Elysium. This allowed her to use her mastery of Dominate and Serpentis to manipulate the London Kindred into obsessive, hedonistic pursuits. This left her to do as she pleased, until she was discovered by both the Tremere and her former lover, Mithras. Lady Regina Blake, with the help of several other Kindred and enlightened mortals, unmasked her. Mithras was so upset, he banished the Followers of Set from London.
In the Modern Nights
Quote: "The Camarilla endures to protect its members from themselves; that is the only worthy purpose it serves. But, it must one day fail, when its ancients arrive to feed at the Gehenna's table. One chair will be resereved for me." -- Excerpts from a communique between Kemintiri to Valerius Maior, circa 1990.
Kemintiri has spent her unlife ever since in dedication of recreating the spell of life. In her mind, the philosophies of the Children of Osiris have warped into an idea that all vampires must be saved from their state. For the time being this means murdering them. Some she will gift with eternal life when she finally manages to remember the spell of life. Of mortals she cares very little. Everything that is not undead is an affront to her. She also hates her own Clan with passion, seeking to destroy them as contrition to Horus.
In hopes of finding information on the spell of life, she started organizing archaeological digs in Egypt. To fund this she infiltrated the Ventrue, abducted and killed the Ventrue Justicar Michaelis in 1932 and impersonated him for a period of 10 years, until she was finally discovered by the Tremere. She fled but not before obtaining vast amounts of wealth from the Ventrue. For this outrageous act, the Camarilla made the Red List public and placed her on it as its first entry, and she has been on the top spot of the List since this time. The Ventrue will never rest until she is found. The Children of Osiris seek her as well, the abuse of their hospitality is nothing compared to the secrets of the sect she has learned. The followers of Set are making her capture as one of their priorities, stirring up rumours of her in Camarilla cities, intending to give her no rest in her travels. Even Sabbat have heard of this direct progeny of Set, and are keeping an eye out for her.
Quote: "In time, Camarilla will understand how wise it was to put me at the very top of the List. I'll continue to use Alastors as my scratching posts... Atrocities committed by any one of us strengthens the fear that we all use as weapons." -- Excerpts from a communique between Kemintiri to Valerius Maior, circa 1990.
Her long existence as an infiltrator and pawn between Set and Horus, as well as the pangs of Wassail, has begun to take its toll upon Kemintiri's sanity. Over the millennia, she usurped hundreds of identities, killing each victim so that she or he could not expose her. As each identity inevitably broke, a new set of fractured memories joined the chaos in her mind. She assumes this identities without rhyme or reason, making her dangerous for everyone in her vicinity.
Quote: "I revel in my top spot on the Red List. Do I really need to prove why I have been declared the Camarilla’s enemy number one?" -- Excerpts from a communique between Kemintiri to Valerius Maior, circa 1990.
Rumors
It is said of Kemintiri that her most ardent foes spring from her own clan, the Followers of Set, for she is a jealous ancient who hunts down and extinguishes any Setite she finds within her current hunting grounds. Darker rumors hint that the Ventrue only placed Kemintiri at the head of the Red List due to the request of certain powerful Setites to whom the Blue Bloods are deeply indebted. There is no doubt that Kemintiri is hunted by more than the Alastors and Followers of Set, but who her other pursuers are remains in question as second and third hand stories hint at a variety of supernatural beings from tribes of Egyptian werewolves to clandestine cults of true immortals.
Recent Events
In recent nights, Kemintiri is rumored to have been sighted in London, in the company of the Assamite antitribu Montgomery Coven. Kemintiri has seen the soul of her former lover within the Assamites body and together, the two conspire to send new pawns into action, fulfilling plans the two designed centuries ago.
