Lucy Armstrong
Overview
Behind the beautiful mask presented by Lucy Armstrong is the soul of an adder. When she was among the living, she was a manipulator and a nascent politician from a patrician North Shore family. Now that she's been sucked into the world of Kindred politics, she has dedicated herself to the covenant that she feels will take her farthest, and, ultimately, grant her the greatest power: The Invictus.
Armstrong is pleasant and, seemingly, forthright, but primarily as a means to see what she can get from those around her. Kindred meeting her may get the impression that she's too good, too virtuous, too sweet to be true - and they're perfectly correct. She was duplicitous even before her Embrace, but the Mekhet Vitae has only enhanced her ability (and willingness) to manipulate, lie and connive.
To the degree that she has such a thing, her patron and mentor is Norris, the Prince's spy. In exchange for his protection, Armstrong does what she can to further his aims and make him look good. Armstrong pulls a hackneyed but effective dumb blonde routine to get the information and complicity she wants, and she has suckered many a Kindred into compromising positions in the name of expediting ger advancement through ranks. While she plays dumb well, she is anything but. She always expected to attain a high position of some sort while she was alive. Now that her breathing days are behind her, she still expects to attain high position, just through different means and for a much longer period. All that's changed is who get to foot the bill for her elevation. As it stands now, she's happy to saddle any non-Invictus vampire with that bill. By and large, she avoids backstabbing other members of the First Estate; with eternity stretching out ahead of her, she doesn't want to make enemies within the covenant too quickly.
If Armstrong has one major obstacle standing between her and quick promotion, it's her family. She was a ghoul for several months before her Embrace, and her mother (Christine) began getting suspicious about the late hours Armstrong was keeping. After her death, her mother began investigating the places Lucy frequented and the people she was seen with. While the facade would have been more than enough to satisfy a casual viewer, Armstong's mother was a pampered housewife whose ample free time was spent dabbling in the occult, Her superstitious scrutiny was almost enough to pierce the Masquerade. Only the fact that two disappearances from the same family would have brought unnecessary trouble kept the Prince from dispatching Kindred to kill her.
Armstrong's mother has made it her fundamental goal to discover the truth about her daughter's death, and she has money and a modicum of political clout to throw into her investigation.
Lucy Armstrong strongly (and correctly) suspects that her mother's persistent investigations are slowing her advancement. She's intent on rectifying that, but she's not yet willing to go against Maxwell's orders and kill her mother. As her frustration - and her mother's obsession - grows, however, she may reconsider her decision.
Family History
Lucy's father was a wealthy North Shore attorney and nascent politician, and her mother was a socialite and New Age devotee. It made for an odd, but high-pressure, adolescence. Lucy felt that she was being groomed to be a partner in her father's company even at the age of 16. Not coincidentally, that was her age at the time of her first eating disorder as well.
For the most part, Armstrong had her father wrapped around her little finger. She had the "Daddy's little girl" act down perfectly. She knew how much she could get away with and how much was going too far, and she knew how to work around her mother when she had to.
Armstrong wasn't just a manipulator, however. She never backed away from taking the bull by the horns and doing what it took to put herself on top - something that surprised many of her teachers and peers.
Everything about her adolescence was aimed at making sure Armstrong was a power-player the moment she graduated high school. She turned down several top universities to accept a scholarship at the most prestigious of all: Harvard.
From undergrad, she embarked on a graduate program at the University of Chicago Law School, and it was there, on the ground of the most Gothic campus in America, that she was ushered into her Requiem. Her sire had not intended to kill her. He had simply wanted to feed from a pretty vessel that night, but he was hungrier than he realized and drank her dry.
Still, after taking responsibility for her Embrace, he did what he could to set her up well. His political fortunes went south shortly thereafter, and he disappeared from Chicago. She, on the other hand, has become a favorite lapdog of Invictus partisans.
Armstrong is a very pretty, petite woman with long, blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was Embraced at the age of 23 and still retains the clear, if pale, translucent skin of adolescence. She hides her pallor with a great Florida tan that she has airbrushed on once a week. Armstrong's fashion sense combines sorority girl sensibilities with business casual. She is partial to fuzzy sweaters.
Stats
Clan: Mekhet
Covenant: Invictus
Embrace: 1994
Apparent Age: 23
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 4, Resolve 5
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 3
Mental Skills: Academics 2, Computer 1, Investigation 1, Politics 3
Physical Skills: Brawl 1, Larceny 1, Drive 1, Stealth 1
Social Skills: Animal Ken 1, Empathy 1, Expression 1, Persuasion 3, Socialize 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 5
Merits: Allies 2, Contacts 2, Herd 3, Resources 3
Willpower: 8
Humanity: 7
Virtue: Temperance
Vice: Pride
Health: 7
Initiative:
Defense: 3
Speed: 10
Blood Potency: 1 (Vitae/turn: 10/1)
Disciplines: Auspex 3, Obfuscate 1
References
- VTR/WTF/MTAw/CofD: World of Darkness: Chicago, p. 145-147