Updated: 23 July 1998
Amaranthe
5th Generation Black Widow
"The First Black Widow"

	Sire:	Ladisl (353)
	Nature:	Cavalier
	Demeanor:	Loner
	Humanity:	3
	Secrets:
	Status:
	Esprit:
	Elder Status:
	Ananasi Prestige:	***

Background:

                    Nathalya Leibnik was born in a village of what would become Transylvania. In 271, the Emperor Aurelien called back his roman armies from Dacia, which became, then, free from all influence. Mortal influence, that is: The Tzimice made profit of this drawback to take the control of the Province. But, in a strictly mortal viewpoint, the Vlachs were now alone and free...

But one of the Tzimisce, Ladisl, who was given three dales and a dark castle, was bored. He then started to play at the expense of this ungrateful people, who prefered Romans to Slavics, under the futile reason the Romans effectively defended the peasants! He started, thus, to play using his Vicissitude to make some experiences. The population regretted bitterly (and more than ever!) the departure of the Romans, when bloodless and mutilated corpses were found. It was said that some people were brought back to the castle because of ridiculous motives, like talking in any way but grateful way about Count Ladisl, or even because of their beauty (Ladisl was narcissic and very jealous). The number of mutilated people was increasing steadily, despite the fact it was peace time...

In 343, Ladisl decided to marry a woman, and searched in some old occult books ideas to find a ritual which would unite him forever to a woman. In the same time, he sent his soldiers to find his beloved. The soldiers came back without success. Ladisl punished them as it was proper, asking them to secretly vote for the person who would be skinned alive in front of the others, and then, having learned to draw, gave them a picture of the woman he wanted to marry. This time, the soldiers brought back young maidens whose appearance was similar to the picture. Ladisl removed one their eyes to be sure their sight was right: How could they have thought there was some kind of similarity between those ''peasants'' and the woman of his chef-d'oeuvre (As Ladisl was, of course, an artist...).

Finally deciding it was more profitable to sacrify vlach peasants, who reproduced themselves like rabbits anyway, than good and lawful --if not really enlightened-- soldiers, he made six color copies of his original drawing. The original was now a magnifiscient painting where black, red and white gave the picture a sad and dark tone. As the soliders were combing the villages to put the pictures and find the woman, Ladisl was training: He had a marble statue representing his beloved, and he was trying to make vicissitude copies of it, using maidens his retainers brought to him.

In 351, when the reward became interesting enough, the burgomaster of one of those villages, Master Leibnik, decided to present to the Count his 15 years-old daughter, Nathalya. She was beautiful, it was true. Her hair were not red enough, her nose too round and her brown eyes not enough green. But her general appearance apparently pleased Ladisl, and her status as a burgomaster's daughter made her somewhat more noble than the general population. The betrothal was sealed with gold, and the burgomaster became very wealthy, even if his wife never forgave him for having given her daughter to the monster.

Nathalya was well treated by the castle staff: She wasn't old enough, she wasn't woman enough, even if she wasn't a girl anymore. Knowing how to read and write, intelligent, she pleased Ladisl, who look her growing, a cruel smile on his lips. Each night, he looked the young maiden before going to the crypts, were he continued his experiences with the population

To Embrace her would not be enough. He didn't want a Childe. He wanted a wife, and in his narcissic madness, he wanted a wife with his own mind. He had decided he would research a ritual to anihilate her soul and to take it: Indeed, What could be better wife than oneself, when no one is better than you?

Nathalya helped him, unknowingly. Neglected by her future husband, and happy to be so, she was attracted by a young servant who had ''won'' his place by his beauty (superior to the common peasant's beauty, but of course inferior to Ladisl's). The servant, as old as her, had the same feeling for her, and soon, their relation became intimate. When Ladisl learnt, from the mouth of one of his closests retainers, about relation between his future wife and one of his servants, his rage was such he reduced his spy into almost liquid gore.

Christianity's influence was already spreading, and Ladisl saw himself as an artist, sensible to symbolism: The Christ died under infamous torture to redeem Humanity? So she would suffer the most terrible tortures to purify her honor and win back her virginity. As for her lover, he would serve... But until then, Ladisl had to wait.

It was, for Nathalya, time of happiness: In love, and her every wishes granted, the naive maiden would havre to pay one day for these months of happiness: She was pregnant, and only 16 years old. Ladisl played with her, seeing her fight to hide her growing abdomen. She went from depressions to extrem happiness, from the moments when she feared the count would discover the truth, and the moments when Alexis, her lover, promised her he would do everything to prepare a fast flight far from the carpathians mountains. The baby was growing, and she refused the abort proposed by Alexis, who knew an old wise woman. she told him in her naïveté she would die instead of seeing the murder of her child.

The night before their flight, Ladisl finally decided to ''discover'' the truth. Shouting like a madman, he conjured the burgomaster, as well as all his staff of servants, knowing Alexis would be among them. his performance was such the burgomaster, afraid and wrathful, spat at his daughter, shouting her she was a whore. And to show they had nothing to do with all this, each servant repeated this behaviour. When one of them took her by the hair, Alexis gave on and went ot him with his knife, killing him. Ladisl didn't seem surprised or afraid. Nathalya humiliated, Alexis outraged, the picture would make a good painting, Ladisl promised himself, as guards took on Alexis and Nathalya in the deepest dungeons, from where no one came back...

He started by torturing poor Alexis in front of his ex-future-wife. Alexis' horrible screams, full of pain, hate, disgust and regret, had one aim: Nathalya had to wish for death, for her soul had to easily detach itself from her body and disappear in oblivion. Crucifixion was one of the rare things for which he was thanful to the romans. He had, these last months, imaginated numbers of similar tortures which would enhance the pain and slow the agony. The cries and lamentations of the young woman, mixed with the screams of pain of the young man were such a symphony Ladisl discovered at the moment a taste for music.

But Nathalya was still well, physically, thanks to the talents for Dominate of the Tzimisce, and because of his Vitae, her pregnancy was stabilized at the 7th month. The screams of Alexis finally bored Ladisl, and he let him alone, turning his interests to his beautiful fiancée, who now knew perfectly his supernatural talents, and among them Vicissitude, which had changed her beautiful Alexis in a monster from her deepest nightmares. Sure that Alexis would be able to see and understand the show, Ladisl decided to abort the baby. Now fascinated by surgery, he changed his hand into and devious torture instrument, and went to search the baby into the womb of the mother. As he had some difficulties to find what he sought, her pain increased tenfold each second of torture. When he finally removed the bloody, dismembered body, Nathalya was lying in a pool of her own blood, and she lost conscience just as Ladisl threw the gore on her face.

She awoke with the anxious face of Ladisl just inches from her own. Anxious for his project, of course, as he tried to talk to her to determine what remained of her mental health. At first, she was simply muttering as if madness had claimed her, but with time her depression and despair let her hate for Ladisl grow. It was the last barrier, the last frontier. The hate, and the thirst for vengeance removed, the ritual would be possible. Hate was glowing like molten metal, but soon, he knew, the metal would cool, and at that time, nothing would remain. He continued to give her his Vitae, even as he started the last changes that would make her the suitable physical body for the narcissic Ladisl.

Modeled after his statues and drawings, and after his experiences over other ''tests'', Ladisl transformed the young woman, slowly, to avoid pain that would feed her hate. But it was the moment the diabolical scheme of Ladisl failed, even if he realised it later.

Nathalya was jailed, wearing the ceremonial dress Ladisl had asked to be made for their wedding. Her hands chained to the wall, and the tombstone of her lover just out of reach: Ladisl thought that burying Alexis under the stones of the cell would accelerate her desire to die. She had, too, changed: Long fiery red hair, perfect face features, as well as green eyes with a slight supernatural air. Despite her age, stopped by the absorption of Vitae, her body was now the body of a full grown woman. Even her skin color had changed, and was then almost as pale as a Vampire's.

Nathalya effectively started to drift into oblivion, detaching herself from pain and reality. But some kind of emotion remained. Vengeance. Thirst for vengeance and justice. Behind her apparent emotionless face waited some part of her agonizing psyche, fed by the artificial love and pure hatred she felt for her tormentor, and the sincere love and shared pain she felt for Alexis. But Ladisl mistook her lack of apparent emotion for a mental death, and undertook the ritual.

No one know what had happened this night, but one thing is sure, Ladisl was never seen again alive, and the underground chambers were so charged in emotionnal hate the first Tzimisce who tried to use Auspex to discover the truth went temporarily mad, lost his memory from the experience was put to the death after his Sire discovered his arachnophobia.

Only remained one symbol: A strange spider with an hourglass on the abdomen.

Appearance:

Age:	1661	Hair:	Red	Height:	1m68
Apparent Age:	20	Eyes:	Green	Weight:	54 Kg
Date of Birth:	336	Race:	Caucasian	Sex:	Female
RIP:	353	Nationality:	None

                    Amaranthe is, in her normal form, one of the most beautiful woman who ever existed, with fiery red hair, a very pale face and flashing green eyes. Her lips are blood-red, and her silhouette is very feminine, yet still very agile. She is the summum of physical beauty, and it goes even beyond the mythical beauty mortals believe the Kindred (or the Godesses) to be. She is simply and completely awing, and undescriptible with words.

She uses Vicissitude to decrease this supernatural appearance down to 4, when she must appear in public, only reverting to normal when hunting her victim.

Role Playing:

                    Amaranthe wears always an impassive mask. No emotion appears on her face, unless she wants to fool someone... Or unless her depressive mania takes over and appaear.

She speaks in a soft voice, somewhat shy, unless she is provoked, or threatened. She has nothing to lose, and has the power to destroy most enemies, so she find the dangerous situations amusing, most of the time.

Notes:

                    She is the only one who knows about the Bloodline existence, and who search actively for other Black Widows. She already met one, and helped her to rise in Generation, as well as teaching her the Sabbat and Camarilla ways. She travels all around the world, investigating mysterious deaths of Kindred and searching for promising caitiffs.

Actual Aim:

                    To help the Bloodline grow. To avenge the innocent who can't do it themselves.

Rumours:

                   

• She is a Tzimisce who wants nothing more than Diablerie (False: She wants vengeance. She wants love, she wants to learn more about the Black Widows and she is not Tzimisce).
• There is a Wild Hunt of the Sabbat against her (True).

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