Léandre Antoine Allard
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Sobriquet: Leandre'
Appearance:
Age: 382 | Hair: Brown | Eyes: brown | Height: 1m71 | Apparent Age: 28 | Weight: 67Kg | Date of Birth: 1615 | Race: Caucasian | Sex: Male | RIP: 1643 |
Léandre appears as a man of medium height, but with a strong if delicate built. He has long curled brown hair falling over his shoulders, is clean shaved (he awaken each night with a musketteer-liek mustache) and has alert brown eyes. His smile is charming, even if he now appears too inhuman to appear without proper preparation anywhere he wants.
As a knight and noble, Léandre believed it is his right to wear a sword, and rarely appears without his rapier with the symbol of his family. If possible, he will appear in a tight fitting costume (a middly failed attempt to combine the today's fashion and the clothes he liked to wear when alive), or, when going out, in loose-fitting, expensive clothes (most of them designed by Arnaud), and a great coat, giving him this unmistakable highlander-like style that makes most Brujah laugh at.
Behavior: Léandre is honor-bound, and as his honor commands him to respect any and every woman, no matter the social status or even the personnal power, he is always very charming and well-versed in Etiquette. With men, the situation is somewhat different, as he see most of them (that is those of no noble origins) as under his station. While he knows his own limitations, he likes to defy them in Esprit.
He rarely shows his autocrat tendencies to any but his ghouls. While he appears as a perfectionist, he is truely in shame to have failed to avoid the 1789 Revolution, and now have the need to control everything.
History: Léandre was a noble in the court of Louis the 13th and under the regency of Louis the 14th's mother and the Cardinal Mazzarin. A Musketteer, and as such, served France with loyalty and honor. So much honor he happened once to stand against a strong and powerful lord from Venice, or something like that. No matter, the noble had challenged Léandre to duel and the two meet at midnight beside a crumbled church outside Paris.
D'Arezzo was angry at the man, for he had succeeded in charming one of his female ghouls! Even if he could stomach the fact one of his beautiful retainers made love in secret to a mortal (and in his jealousy, he didn't stomach it!), the simple fact one of his ghouls had been charmed by this mortal was an insult to his Blood, as the Blood Bond seemed to have been overriden by simple, pure mortal lust (or love, but D'Arezzo couldn't believe this could be love).
The ghoul, Elegance, was there, crying for her soul was torn. This gave Léandre enough courage to fight against D'Arezzo, who was surprised by the rage he saw in this mortal soul. But this alone wouldn't have saved Léandre. In fact, three Sabbat and their horrible ghouls, prepared for the ambush, attacked in the middle of the duel. Outraged, Léandre and D'Arezzo turned to the monsters, and despite their appearance, the two fought against the Sabbat.
D'Arezzo, powerful Elder, easily won against the Sabbat, but even if Léandre managed to kill two ghouls and was fighting for his life (and for Elegance's) a Sabbat Vampire. In the end, D'Arezzo simply killed the surviving Sabbat, thus saving the life of Léandre.
The situation was complex. Léandre had seen vampires, and thus had to be Dominated to forget it all. Or simply killed. D'Arezzo was thinking about that when Léandre turned to face him, and told him that the duel was not over. D'Arezzo was surprised to see a man who looked upon those horrors, and who was bleeding to death, asking him to continue the duel. The Elder asked why he wanted to continue the duel, and Léandre answered that honor would have it no other way: He was fighting for a lady, and he would fight to death.
After ridiculizing the young man, D'Arezzo simply Embraced him.
Thus Léandre was trust into the world of the Kindred, for his willingness to die for his honor proved him to be much like the ideal of the french Ventrue. D'Arezzo then gave him Elegance but forbidding him to embrace her. She would remain his ghoul lover if he wanted it such.
Léandre was a good addition to the Ventrue Clan, already weakened by the Anarch Wars as well as their unwillingness to accept pragmatism, and their willingness to upkeep their honor at all prices. Thus, despite the risks he took, Léandre continued to learn from his prefered disipline: War. And he learnt a lot, even participing as a warrior to some night battles. The revolution proved to be his undoing: the army turned against its masters, and in the onslaught, Elegance was executed by Guillotine.
This, and the fact the Revolution was destroying virtues he believed to be true, made him one of the strongest opponents to the new order (that is Republic and Democracy). He hoped he could avenge himself when in 1871, the Commune took the power, and he was among the first to kill and kill the Communards, be it Kindred or Kine.
Since then, he finds nothing else hold enough interest for him, and he concentrated his attention to today's warfare, making him one of the rare Elder understanding almost everything in war tactics and resources (at least up to the World War 2: The newest improvement are difficult to understand).
Notes: As a warrior and gallant, the Léandre of the past weights on today's Léandre. He can only drink the blood of a woman who loves (or lusts for) him, or the blood of a man he defeated in combat without breaking his own honor (that is, one to one combat, or even him alone against mutliple opponents, and fights with sword only!)
Lédre is now secretly in love with Katarzyna, but hides it well enough to avoid being discovered.
He has also some contacts in the army, contacts he used to give his love some bodyguards among his own army forces. He knows this is forbidden by the Prince's Law, but as he remain discreet about this influence, he hopes to avoid being discovered, and even if he was, he does nothing real wrong.
Actual Aim: To put a Legitimist Ventrue at the head of the french Clan, to guide it to the conquest of the Princedom of France.
Rumors: Léandre sometimes goes out chasing Caitiffs or even Anarchs. (False. Err... that is... He rarely goes out for such reasons, but it happens...)