Jarvis Acton

Sofia-Grad

Appearance: Jarvis looks like a healthy young man in his middle twenties; though he is pale from having spent so much time indoors designing at his computer. He was embraced with a late 1980s hairstyle, shoulder length hair which is usually tied back into a pony-tail and a well trimmed beard and goatee in imitation of his Victorian heroes. In public and Elysium, Jarvis wears Victorian fashions in modern materials and with a upbeat flare; he never goes anywhere in public without numerous gadgets of his own creation on his person. Unfortunately, he was embraced a bit over-weigh and though the embrace has diminished his girth, he is still 'chunky' and he can be a bit sensitive on this particular topic. In private, he can often be found in very casual attire and has been known to take 'air baths' like his hero Benjamin Franklin; Jarvis' nudist lifestyle has become something of a minor embarrassment to both Gustavus and Svetlana.

Background: Jarvis was born in London in 1961 to an indigent teen mother who didn't want him; he was adopted as an infant by an upper middle-class couple from Regents Park. Jarvis grew up wanting for nothing and received an excellent education; from the beginning it was apparent that he was both extremely creative and intelligent. Something of a precocious child, Jarvis often became bored with the monotony of the traditional school system and exhibited a disregard for authority, which often manifested as criticism of less intelligent teachers and school mates alike. This endearing trait blossomed in adolescence into full blown intellectual rebellion, which both confounded and horrified his parents and teachers; this phase of his development terminated when he and his gang of hooligans blew up their school. This stunt landed the young man in juvenile detention and cost his parents greatly; it was while incarcerate that Jarvis began to read fiction, specifically the works of K.W.Jeter, James Blaylock and Tim Powers. These fictional works which would later be classified as 'Steampunk' gave a new direction to the brilliant and creative young man; he often spent his free hours absorbing the collected works of these authors and their inspiration, nineteenth century authors like Jules Verne, H.G.Wells, Mark Twain and Mary Shelley. When Jarvis reached his age of majority, he chose to turn his creative talents to positive ends and embarked on a promising career in design and engineering; he also founded the Steampunk Society of London, which brought him to the attention of his soon to be sire - Horace Holden. At that time, Holden was the Toreador Keeper of Elysium for the Court of Avalon and in that capacity, he encountered the Steampunk Society and its founder when they used the popular Elysium sites for their retro Victorian gatherings. Horace, a self confessed imitator saw himself reflected in this eclectic group of mortals and their creative founder - Jarvis Acton. Holden did the only thing he knew how to do when confronted by true creative genius, he embraced it, after gaining the permission of Mithras, of course. Unfortunately, Jarvis wasn't as taken with Horace and after the embrace, he saw through Holden's personal glamour to the insipid man beneath, this began a feud of epic proportions and that enchanted the harpies of London to the young 'Steampunk'. It also drew the attention of Henry Stern, an ancilla Toreador of London who had long had a grudge against the vapid elder Holden; in a classic move of retribution, he took Jarvis under his wing and educated the young artiste in the etiquette and history of the Clan of the Rose. While providing an education, Henry also shielded Jarvis from his enraged sire's more creative acts of vengeance; these acts of beneficence weren't entirely selfless, Stern saw something of himself in the 'Steampunk of London'. In 2006, he saw another use for Jarvis, as his proxy in the newly minted Camarilla city of Sofia; for sometime, Henry had been trying to make contact with the League of Oradea for his own patron, the Tzimisce Methuselah Kartariya of Sri Lanka. When Stern heard through his clan-mates in Vienna that the Ventrue childe of Nova Arpad would be making a place for himself in Sofia, it was all too easy to make introductions between his pupil and Gustavus through his Viennese clan contacts. The first meeting between Gustavus (a well known aficionado of Victoriana) and Jarvis was a resounding success, cementing another alliance between the Toreador and Ventrue Clans as well as creating a real friendship between the blue blooded ancilla and the neonate artiste. When Gustavus made his move to Sofia with the permission of his sire, he took the young 'Steampunk' with him and when the moment was right, introduced Jarvis to the Court of Sofia as the architect of the Ventrue Clan's famed 'The Scion Club'. Since that time Jarvis has cemented his position in Sofia as the city's second most important Toreador; he has offered his architectural skills to Sofia's Kindred with positive results. He stands poised to rise in station with the help of his Ventrue patron Gustavus and his Toreador mentor Henry Stern; the only thing that stands in his way, is a secret alliance between his sire and the Toreador Primogen of Sofia, Svetlana Valentin. Recently, Svetlana has begun to subtly poison the Kindred of Sofia against Jarvis with ridicule of his nudist habits and rumors that his rising mortal fame is a violation of the Masquerade. For his part, Jarvis has been busy building havens for the Kindred of Sofia and insinuating himself into the Sofia city planning committee in an effort to re-vamp Sofia into a steampunk metropolis. In addition, his ties to the New Victorian Movement give him even more mortal influence and make him one of the city's most powerful neonates; though few realize the extent of his accomplishments, save for his friend and patron Gustavus.

Personality: Jarvis successfully affects the air of a genteel Victorian architect and engineer; he normally speaks the Queen's English with a modern British accent. He is a confident man, possessed by a strong sense of his own destiny; unfortunately, success has bred over-confidence and the only chink in his ego is his overstated 'portliness'. In social situations, Jarvis naturally gravitates toward the center without trying to usurp social primacy; he is more likely to take a subordinate position with influence on the main figure of authority. He hasn't forgotten his Juvenal distrust of authority figures, rather he has learned to temper it into an adult skepticism of politics as anything other than enlightened self-interest. Jarvis can be the understated life of any party, he is a well educated conversationalist and gifted in small talk. He has a genuinely pleasant mien and rarely takes offense, though after years of his sire's plotting and his mentor's many lessons in subterfuge, he can be a worthy opponent in the battle of wits that is Elysium. Jarvis is a strange hybrid of Victorian optimism and twenty-first century liberalism; rumors regularly circulate of his involvement with the Anarch Movement, but no evidence of this has been forthcoming. While open minded, Jarvis seems to have a strong moral center, perhaps a result of his fascination with Victoriana; he also seems to have adopted the Victorian need for structure and sees himself as a key factor in the orderliness of the universe. Perhaps the most significant element of his personality is his need to create items of beauty and efficiency for the betterment of society, while encouraging others to create a lasting legacy to withstand the approaching darkness of Ghenna.

Current Events: Like all Toreador, Jarvis possesses a strong sense of romanticism and of late has begun to act more mawkish; what might have brought on this sudden pique of brooding remains a topic of conversation in Elysium and at private salons throughout the city. In a somewhat uncharacteristic concern, Gustavus been trying to cheer his favorite Toreador; Svetlana Valentin's caustic criticism of the obviously smitten artiste has created a growing rift between the two primogen. And to avoid all this 'unbearable' unpleasantness Jarvis has been taking progressively longer trips to the country.

Jarvis Acton's Statistics