Jeremiah Casaubon

MORTAL DAYS: THE RAKE’S PROGRESS

The aristocratic Casaubon family owned most of the West Midlands. Born to immense privilege and cursed with a keen mind, it was a family joke that Jeremiah’s first words were “I’m bored.” Nothing satisfied him or held his attention for long. He burned through books and tutors, his intellect decimating the former and his attitude the latter. When he turned twenty and was sent down from Oxford University in disgrace his father threw him out of the house. If he’d been a wiser man, he would have cut Jeremiah off financially too. Casaubon blazed a trail across Europe from Paris, to Athens, to Rome, soaking in history and culture, conducting affairs with actors and courtesans, and fighting duels over the slightest insult. Still nothing satisfied him. The only thing that came close was writing. In every new city he found a new muse, wrote a new crop of poems. Every critic who read his work winced, except the ones who laughed. Jeremiah’s verse simmered with energy and anger, out of step with the Romanticism of the age. Over time Jeremiah convinced himself that his only talents were seduction, debauchery, and spending vast sums of money. He never stopped writing, but he stopped admitting he cared about it. In Venice he found his final muse, the Toreador Nicolò Foscarini. The vampire had seen styles and artistic movements come and go, but he’d never seen anything like Jeremiah’s keen, knife-sharp rage. Casaubon’s anger enchanted him, and he became a patron and mentor to the young artist who he considered ahead of his time. The embrace was an accident: a duel over a gambling debt left Jeremiah bleeding to death on the edge of a Venetian canal, and Nicolò’s only choices were to let him die or offer him eternal life. His decision was one both men rapidly came to regret.

KINDRED NIGHTS: HOMECOMING

The Embrace did away with any artistic talent Jeremiah ever possessed. The shock of his new existence dulled his edge, which only made him more frustrated, impulsive, and intolerable. Nicolò tolerated Jeremiah’s foul temper and resentment for almost twenty years before issuing an ultimatum: either Casaubon returned to England and never troubled the fine continent of Europe again, or he would greet the dawn. Jeremiah tried London for a while, but he made enemies there too, never settling under the Mithraic reign, and eventually slunk home to Birmingham. The town had grown in his absence. The industrial revolution was in full swell and Birmingham was on its way to becoming the greatest industrial city in the world. This did not interest Jeremiah. He found the city soulless, and the Kindred who propelled it to wealth and status even worse: dull and soulless. Jeremiah spent the best part of two centuries complaining, sniping, and criticizing, never pushing his luck so much that he was punished. When, in the late 20th century, manufacturing in Birmingham died and the city sank into post-industrial despair, Jeremiah finally took an interest. Words had failed him as a medium, but maybe this was to be his art: crafting a whole city in his image. Birmingham would be beautiful and glittering, flourishing as a center of art and culture, like flowers growing out of polluted, poisoned earth. Over a hundred thousand of the kine left Birmingham and the Kindred feared that worse was to come. Jeremiah offered something badly needed: he gave the vampires of Birmingham hope that they could change, and change the humans, keep Birmingham growing and flourishing. To cut a long, sad story short, propelling the city into a new age turned out to be difficult so and Jeremiah grew disheartened. His failure weighed on him. He had no interest in running a city, but his laissez-faire rule has been good to the other clans: they’ve been able to scheme and maneuver and be the masters of their own destinies. It’s never been worth deposing him.

Casaubon still harbors a vague desire to make Birmingham something greater than it currently is. He lacks the motivation, however, and it’s exceedingly difficult to stir any passion in him.

Casaubon is jaded and bored, but not as much of a fool as his enemies assume. He has substantial hidden assets that would allow him to go to ground in Birmingham or outside it, if the need arose. He has escape routes to Edinburgh, Paris and Stockholm prepared.

One reason Casaubon is still on the throne of Birmingham is the whispered assumption that he’ll abdicate. Flattering and staying close to him seem like excellent ways to be named his successor.

Rumor has it this isn’t the first time Casaubon has flirted with spirituality; that the Fates’ predecessor controlled his actions through whispered premonitions for decades.