Quentin King III
Sobriquet: "Your Majesty" (polite & correct), "King" (neutral & largely ignored), "The Puppet Prince" -- "The Arthur Doll" -- "The Toy Soldier" (all too common of late).
Appearance: With his gelled, sandy hair and tall, muscular frame, King cuts an attractive figure. His long-lashed, hazel eyes are strangely compelling. He has a square jaw, broad shoulders and appears in excellent health. A good judge of character would deduce that he is in his middle thirties, but there is an air of defeat that follows him, which stoops his shoulders and bends his back as if he were a man three times that age. Quentin cleans up well, or rather his mortal attendants select only the best of current modern mortal fashions with which to clothe their master. He wears little in the way of jewelry. The only weapon he carries is "Excalibur," an old, engraved silver, butter knife whetted to as fine an edge as silver will hold.
Behavior: Quentin has a tendency to fixate on certain individuals, in the process he often makes intense eye contact, that in a less polite setting would be called staring. The prince also seems to have a unconscious habit of drumming his fingers, not loudly, but consistently - as if he were bored, usually while sitting at court in Elysium. In public, Quentin King stands ramrod straight, with a powerful posture and when he walks, he does so with a deliberately causal stride that suggests an unassailable dignity. Despite this, the prince is somber and seemingly without a sense of humor. While not vociferous, when Quentin does speak he is a powerful orator who easily commands the attention of all who are standing within earshot. Unlike many princes, Quentin is fond of debate and engages his subjects in formal discussions on subjects of import to his domain, his command of rhetoric and inspirational oratory usually rule the night. But if a member of his court can hold his or her own, then they have earned the prince's respect. Despite his naturally democratic tendencies, once Quentin King makes his judgment known, he will not tolerate dissent in his court, for he is the rightful monarch of his vast domain.
History: A police inspector in New York City, King was on the trail of a murderer named Skarvan, who was suspected of killing and eating a four-year-old girl. Just when King thought he was about to capture the killer, he lost him. His failure ate at him, little by little, until he became desperate for justice. He raised a crowd of concerned citizens and began an illegal manhunt for Skarvan.
In the meantime, Skarvan, an eighth-generation Malkavian, had been watching the inspector from hiding. Outraged that a mere mortal might endanger him, he planned his revenge: to Embrace and torture King. The Malkavian arranged a particularly brutal Embrace for King, one akin to Sabbat ritual, in order to drive the inspector insane.
Immediately after Embracing King, Skarvan thrust the fledgling into a deep pit and covered him in alternating layers of dirt, worms and pieces from the Kook's previous victims. Skarvan crowned the pile with the blood of his latest victim. King, frenzied and in shock from the Embrace, clawed his way up through the layers. It took him more than four hours. By the end of that time, his initial panic had changed to horror, and then to anger.
As he reached the top, he greedily lapped up the blood that Skarvan had spilled and, giggling, began to suck on the bloodless body parts. Skarvan, silently grinning from ear to ear, slit open his own throat with a jagged claw and laid his head on King's lap. As the fledgling committed his first act of diablerie, he smiled to himself, thinking how clever he had been to escape the pit. (See: The Six Knights, below, for more information on why Skarvan committed suicide.)
From the shadows of the shed emerged six vampires, applauding King. They knelt before hims and explained that he was to knight them with Excalibur (their small butter knife). King, confused and dizzy, took the knife and did so, giving each a name: Sir Praxis, Sir Sine Qua Non, Sir Pro Bono, Sir Sine Die, Sir Probus, and Sir Cum Laude.
The six Malkavians followed King to Boston, where, with the aid of his knights, he became a leader. Baladin, the Tremere prince, allowed King and his followers to stay in Boston on the condition that they help fight the Sabbat. King agreed. Soon, the Malkavians of the region saw King as the new Arthur, the Kindred destined for the prince's throne. His six knights asked for permission to be blood-bound to King and brought him new candidates for knighthood, all of them Malkavian. Little by little, King's mad army grew.
News of bloody raids on neighboring Sabbat havens began to circulate. Mortal newspapers began to carry stories of mysterious blood markings found on sheds and houses in northern New England. One journalist even attempted to connect the mysterious markings with the activities of six inmates of Bridgewater State Asylum who had escaped and disappeared a year earlier.
Baladin, of course, was watching this development. He grew greatly displeased with King and his so-called "Knights." He ordered King to stop the raids against the Sabbat. King, angered at the prince's ungrateful and untimely demands, stormed out of the chamber. Less than a week later, the Kindred community heard of Baladin's death in the Boston chantry's library.
King, with the help of his knights, took the princedom of Boston, easily defeating the weak competition that emerged out of the ensuing chaos. Seeing himself as a beacon of light and justice in these trying times, he made his court a place where beauty and justice held sway. King soon became popular among the Toreador, who still consider him an ally and even accept his judgment on art.
Unfortunately, his focus on such matters distracted him from affairs at home, and by 1895 the Sabbat problem had grown to alarming proportions. King's attention shifted from raiding Sabbat territories to preventing the Sabbat from invading his own.
It was with much injured pride and some relief that King accepted Biltmore's offer of aid. As a result of Biltmore's growing influence over the prince's decisions and activities, King's status among the American Malkavians declined; they began to view him as a British puppet.
Now, most Kindred aligned with the Americans disparagingly refer to King as: "The Puppet Prince", "The Arthur Doll," and "The Toy Soldier," King's blood-bound knights remain steadfastly loyal to him, but many other Kindred view him as a traitor. King himself, deeply resents the British presence in his domain, but he is too impotent and frightened of Biltmore to do anything about it.
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