Esprit

Backgrounds -P- Paris

Esprit. This word alone carry waves of uneasiness among the Kindred who once went to Paris. Rumours among the Anarchs tell the Elders are involved in deadly games for nothing more than status or prestige in the balance. They are wrong. The Parisian Elders are in for Esprit.

Created centuries ago, enhanced by the Masquerade and its need for secrecy, the Esprit has so much effect among the Kindred french Cour that it permeated the mortal courts. Esprit took its true importance at the time of the Toreador Hegemony, and its influence grew even beyond the Kindred's limits. Soon, the mortal nobles started to inconsciously mimic the unseen Kindred among them. They started to wear the same luxuous clothes, developped rare and refined (and twisted) tastes, wore white powder to mimic the pale monsters among them...

And they copied Esprit.

But whatever intrigues they would create, whatever rumours they would hear and tell over and over, never the mortals would take the full measure of the Esprit, and its consequences among some of the most powerful creatures of Earth.

See Lexicon for complementary information

ESPRIT AS A BACKGROUND:

Esprit was introduced first in the Elysium: The Elder Wars as the Couture (See p37). While Couture is good enough to deal with U.S. or any other normal Kindred Elders, its definition is inaccurate when dealing with True Elders (i.e.: french Elders... Yes: The french Toreador has that kind of high --and contemptuous-- opinion about themselves...).

Esprit is a Background, like Prestige and Status. Thus it can't be raised by Experience Points. Only by Roleplaying. While Status is the measure of the Kindred's status in a said city (in France, Parisian Status extends somewhat in all the country); while Elder Status is the Kindred's status in the whole Kindred community (i.e.: Camarilla + Sabbat + Inconnu + etc.); while Prestige is the Kindred's status among his clanmates, Esprit is the status of the Kindred among the french Kindred Cour.