Henri Eau-de-Fleur

Henri Eau-de-Fleur is a Bone Gnawer Metis who allied with Ratkin and Nosferatu to overthrow Ventrue and Toreador during the French Revolution.

Overview

In the late 18th century, Henri Eau-de-Fleur proudly represented the "unwashed masses" of Paris... in more ways than one. When he was first brought to a Garou caern as a cub; he was too young to announce his lineage and ancestry. He had no need to howl to announce his presence, for he had a certain... atmosphere... that always preceded him. Although he had a certain talent for attracting spirits, they had taught the precocious metis two ancient Gifts he was too inexperienced to control: the Scent of Sweet Honey and the Odor of the Skunk. His command of these mystic ways truly bordered on the fantastic, for as his metis deformity, he possessed a fragrance of truly supernatural potency.

Because of his rather unusual deformity and overwhelming stench, Henri was wholly unsuited to serve the Garou Nation as other metis did. His "commanding presence" made it impossible to move quietly, carefully or stealthily around the bawn of a caern. Only the Bone Gnawer tribe would give him refuge, and even then, they still held him at arm's length. Determined to salvage a cub no one would recognize, they enlisted him to patrol the areas surrounding their Parisian stomping grounds, but insisted that he take on a permanent "special assigment" by remaining underground. Henri was trained to patrol the sewers beneath Paris, a hazardous duty no sane Garou would dare volunteer to perform.

Shunned by the Garou of the surface world, he took to the underworld like a fly to feces. Completely deadened to the ways of scent, he was oblivious to the worst funk the sewers provided. To him, urine and perfume smelled the same. Granted, he could not track prey, he could not Sense Prey, and tragically, he was completely unable to Sense Wyrm. With a lifetime to stalk the hidden city beneath Paris, however, he developed other ways of uncovering evidence of other creatures below ground.

His first rivals were a pack of Gamine Ratkin, furtive scurrying creatures that found Henri's dark fate amusing. At first, the women of their pack taunted him, romancing him with flowers and perfume. He answered by spraying urine on these gifts, though few know whether this was intended as a challenge or a complement. Yet once he stood on an equal footing with other supernatural creatures, - namely, by trudging through much and mire - he slowly learned to track them unobserved. Reporting to Bone Gnawer stomping grounds through a series of intermediaries and questionable drop points, he slowly built a story around the Mother Rat leading this pack of Gamine. With whiskers attuned to the surging force of the Wyld, their elderly leader was plotting a campaign of terror and treachery against the inhabitants on the surface. Henri didn't see this as a threat, however, but a s fact ripe with possibilities.

Henri's nose never grew keener, but his eyesight did. Befriending spirits others would find repulsive, he learned to sense unseen things around him. By causing the eyes of more sensitive creatures to water, he also learned what was perhaps one of the more unusual applications of the Gift: Blur of the Milky Eye. As he become one with the mists and vapors of the tunnels beneath Paris, he soon wafted in and out of the gatherings of another group of supernatural creatures: a Hosting of Nosferatu that infested the city, much to the consternation of Leeches above ground.

The rather fetid metis gradually described to his superiors the growing campaign of espionage between three factions of undead. The Parisian Nosferatu nursed a festering hatred of a few powerful Ventrue, blood-sucking nobility that preyed upon the inner courts of the corrupt aristocracy. He began to hear tales of the Toreador as well, effete aristes who held their noses high. The metis began to picture a grand scheme coming together, like many tunnels flowing into the same estuary, or perhaps like several steams of effluvia ready to surge into the same might river.

Only Bone Gnawers had the fortitude to endure underground raids against the denizens of the sewers. Using the information Henri had scouted, several packs flushed their prey out of the underworld... and toward each other. After both Ratkin and Nosferatu sustained heavy casualties, Henri suggest a cessation of hostilities, along with a brief alliance against a common enemy: two groups of Leeches controlling the nobility of Paris. It was an offer neither side could sniff at. Behind his now scabrous and rugose exterior, Henri had figured out a way to wash away four of the deadliest sects of enemies facing his tribe, even though they were hesitant about facing Henri.

On a warm day in May, the detritus of the supernatural world roiled from the tunnels beneath Paris to drown all opposition. Ventrue and Toreador reeled from the stench as they fled from teeth and claws. Within a month, the Leeches of Paris succumbed to overwhelming force, and temporarily lost their stranglehold on the mortal nobility. It is perhaps a coincidence that a few months after this shift in supernatural power, the weakened mortal nobility fell before their own rivals, but the Parisian metis don't think so. Drifting in the shadows, Henri Eau-de-Fleur helped turned the tide of battle in the French Revolution. Although he is gone, his memory remains, wafting through the sewers and tunnels beneath Paris.

References

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