Eustace Lancaster

Eustace Lancaster is a Lasombra seeking to unify the clan under his leadership.

Biography

Eustace Lancaster remembers little of his mortal day as the centuries past have become nothing more than a faded tapestry. His personal memories only have a scattered amount of terrors and delights. Eustace remembers the courts of Henry VI, the glory of the kingdom of England. He recounts the feelings of love for his mother Mary, forced into a convent by her own family. He recounts houses warring over lands and titles, crowns drenched in the blood of devastated royal armies. What most stands out in his mind was the young love of a noble maiden and her suicide by throwing herself from the ramparts of a castle due to petty politics between houses. This memory by far is his most solidifying, forging the hatred that has driven him forward in modern nights.

Her delicate face still haunts his dreams from time to time, her name long-lost to his labyrinthine mind. Left nothing but his own machinations for power, he turned toward the courts as solace. The royal families warred with words as sharp as daggers all around him and he reveled in the violence. His aptitude within the courts was only matched by his contempt for the houses and their trivial bickering. Driven by his enmity, Eustace forged alliances with ease and broke them just as easily when the need arose. He instigated calamity after calamity between these royal lines for purposes of observation. This malice and skill garnered the attention and growing respect of his soon-to-be Lasombra sire.

Eustace was apt to use his knowledge of monarchial matters to wage into the Jyhad. He found sick gratification destroying his enemies in the Cainite courts. When given the order to orchestrate a war between the noble houses, a design mirroring inter-clan conflicts, Eustace began questioning his allegiance to his sire. Rebuked as a pathetic upstart and given the choice to either be erased from memory or follow through with his sire’s command, he set the plan into action. Eustace came to grips with his placement as a pawn in a larger game. This was his first lesson in the Jyhad, one he never forgot. Pushing King Edward IV of England into marrying Elizabeth Woodville, a woman of no great title, Eustace’s subtle actions helped motivate a new phase of the Wars of the Roses. The young Lasombra used the chaos as a front to put his own machinations in motion. He began meeting with fellow neonates conspiring to wage a war of their own. This war would free them and raise them into the leadership of Cainite society. Rebellions swept the continent, throwing centuries-old alliances into disarray.

This was when Eustace claims to have found a red flower growing in the moonlight outside his haven. Upon its consumption, he felt the blood bond to his sire snap. Bolstered by a new sense of purpose, Eustace consumed his sire. With the Anarch Revolt raging around him, once again, he waded into the panic-stricken courts rallying those to the war effort. Though wherever he went, one vampire stood in his way. Eustace’s anathema went by the name of Talley, a fellow Lasombra. Talley showed open disdain for Lancaster, seeing him as a poseur and questioned his allegiances. The knight spoke of Lancaster’s past loyalties, ones he was so quick to destroy as he saw fit. Politically crushed and discarded as a betrayer to the revolution, Eustace watched as the movement he helped create moved on without him, eventually becoming the Sabbat. He vowed to destroy Talley, as Talley had destroyed his place in the Sabbat’s foundation.

As the years flew by, Eustace observed the rise and fall of a plethora of Cainite leaders. Finding American Kindred easier to manipulate, Eustace built a formidable network of spies as he travelled city to city, never settling anywhere too long. This provided him the ability to always be a few steps ahead of any Sabbat pursuing him and allowed him a job as a traveling diplomat for the Camarilla. At the turn of the 21st century, Eustace began hearing voices, but he dismissed them. The moving shadows he saw from the side of his vision were just figments of his overactive imagination. One evening as he gathered his things in his hotel room to travel north to Washington D.C. he swayed and stumbled. Unable to control his body, Eustace bashed his face against the mirror hanging in his room. Within the shattered reflection he saw a void pulling him in. Eustace screamed in terror as his armed detail rushed into the room. Eustace, shaken but resolute, realized the vision had left him. The need to travel east possessed his mind. Later that night, after meeting with one of his network contacts, he found that Talley was moving toward Chicago with the goal to cement the Lasombra induction to the Camarilla.

Once finished with Talley and Sierra Van Burrace, Eustace plans to unify the remaining Lasombra once and for all. He sees his clan as above the political foolishness and only through independence can they finally be rid of the traps of the Jyhad. Knowing of the stories of the past, he fears that the Sabbat were correct in the eradication of the Antediluvians. The debauchery of the Sabbat hindered their goals. Only by his steady hand could their destruction definitively begin.   

Lancaster has learned of the Church of Caine “reformation”. While he cares little of their dogma, he has also heard of their feared ritae. He will gladly work in tandem with the Church if one of their ritae can rid him of this affliction plaguing his mind. The only reason why Eustace gives lip service to the Church of Caine is to keep up with the ritae that puts the Beckoning at bay in his mind. He has come up with the ritae and refuses to give his secret to anyone.

There are rumors that  Eustace has completely lost his mind. He gives out random orders to people he doesn’t even know anymore due to the condition of his Beckoning. It is only a matter of time until he gives in to the call. Eustace has no friends or allies that he could consider Touchstones to humanity. Because of this, he is barreling toward losing his battle with his inner beast.

Appearance

Eustace Lancaster’s mortal guise, a British ambassadorial assistant named Owen Tudor, has diplomatic immunity. This Mask allows him to move freely back and forth to the United Kingdom as he pleases, though he has not returned since the destruction of the Second Inquisition’s purge of Kindred in London. Believing himself entitled to the finer things in life, Eustace dresses the part. He has butlers, his security detail, agents of his information network, and his chauffeurs at his call. Eustace has never been traditionally handsome, his nose a fraction too long, his eyes small studs in his face. However, his regal bearing is often enough to impress onlookers.

Character Sheet

Sire: Henry of Castile
Embraced: 1461 (Born 1422)
Ambition: Unify the modern Lasombra clan in my image
Convictions: None
Touchstones: None
Humanity: 2
Generation: 9th
Blood Potency: 4
Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2; Charisma 4, Manipulation 5, Composure 2; Intelligence 3, Wits 4, Resolve 2
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 4
Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Drive 1, Firearms 2, Melee (Swords) 4, Stealth 1, Survival 2; Etiquette (Court) 5, Insight 4, Intimidation 4, Leadership 3, Persuasion 4, Subterfuge 3; Academics (History) 4, Awareness 2, Finance 3, Investigation 1, Politics (Royalty) 3
Disciplines: Dominate 5, Fortitude 2, Oblivion 4, Potence 4

References

• VTM: The Chicago Folios, p. 125-127