Zhoniqua Jefferson
Overview
Stubborn, determined and unflinching, Zhoniqua Jefferson is one of the more controversial Kindred in Chicago - a remarkable feat for a Kindred so recently Embraced. She's almost too controversial for the Carthians, which speaks volumes, but they like what she's done in the South Side enough that they won't be dropping her from their roster any time soon.
Making a name for herself wasn't Jefferon's goal when she started going after pimps - revenge was. When she'd bled her old pimp dry, she went after other pimps. She had her own list of targets: any pimp who wouldn't let his girls use condoms, who got his girls hooked on drugs to control them or who hit his girls went to the top of her list. She never worried about killing them. For what they did, she felt they deserved it. She started organizing hookers throughout the South Side, creatin a network of sex workers that hookers and dancers could turn to when confronted with malicious pimps, abusive Johns or other predators - including other Kindred.
This hasn't sat well with either the Lancea Sanctum or the Invictus, both of whom see prostitutes as fast food. The Carthian Movement has long had the advantage in the South Side, but it was always an implicit arrangement. One of the many side effects of Jefferson's crusade was to harden the previously accepted boundaries, as both the Carthians and the Invictus fortified their respective fronts. Once boundaries are explicitly acknowledged, however, they can be changed, and Prince Maxwell is under pressure from many of the Sanctified as well as many of his own covenant to punish the Carthians' effrontery by messing with the feeding grounds of individual Carthians.
Regardless of covenant affiliation, Jefferson is none too thrilled with other Kindred coming down into her South Side neighborhoods to feed. This holds especially true if they look like members of the First Estate, Ordo Dracul or the Sanctified. Unbound she doesn't mind that much as they seem to understand her, and she considers several members of the Carthian Movement to be reliable allies.
Jefferson's most dependable ally, and her primary connection to Kindred "society" is Duce Carter, whom she respects and occasionally works with. His work and hers occasionally overlap; both are trying to organize their respective constituents, they just have different concepts of how to make the best use of those groups. For her part, Jefferson would like to see Carter become the next Carthian Prefect, but she fears that would just put him in line for assassination by "those mean-ass Invictus mother fuckers." Jefferson has never been to Elysium and has no intention of ever going. If she did go, she would be surprised (and really pissed off) to discover that her own sire is none other than Garret McLean, one of the ranking members of the Invictus in the city.
Jefferson isn't especially fond of the Carthian doctrine, but she hates Kindred who strike her as arrogant or racist, which includes pretty much all of the Invictus, the Ordo Dracul and the Lancea Sanctum, and she figures she can do more against them as a Carthian than as one of the unbound. She also likes the "common guy" feel of the Carthians.
Since her Embrace, Jefferson finds that she likes to get out of the city from time to time. On those occasions, she occasionally meets up with other Gangrel in the forest preserves. It's a weird thing for her, particularly since she didn't leave the South Side at all, ever, before her Embrace. Now, despite the horror stories other Gangrel tell of werewolves and other weird shit, she finds herself wondering what it might be like to leave the city entirely.
Requiem for the Street
It was a hard life, turning tricks to put food on the table and junk in her veins, but Zhoniqua Jefferson had become relatively adept at it by the time of her Embrace at the age of 28. Her sire, a particularly old and powerful Gangrel (and one whose face she would be amazed to see at Elysium, were she ever to go), Embraced her to see if one curse might counteract another. The results speak for themselves.
No longer needing to buy food or seek traditional shelter, and replacing her addiction to heroin with an addiction to blood, Jefferson's existence actually changed for the better after her Embrace. She certainly became more capable of defending herself and determining her own fate.
Now instead of giving money she's earned to pimps who do nothing, she feeds on the pimps and takes their girls as her own. Furthermore, she guards the women who work for her with a remarkable ferocity; treating one of Jefferson's girls bad is a fast train to bleed-out. She takes a much smaller percentage of her girl's take than any of the South Side's male pimps, and she insists that her girls use protection and stay off drugs. Since Jefferson had started moving in on prostitution operations in the South Side, there have been reports of a big, black dog that seems to patrol the areas around the hooker motels; that's Jefferson in her wolf form, and she's done a remarkable job of changing the way prostitution is conducted on the South Side. In her one-Kindred crusade, Jefferson is developing both a following among prostitutes and an increasing number of pimps who want nothing more than to see her dead. Little do they know they already have.
At this point, Jefferson had taken on as many working girls as she had time to protect. She would like to find another Kindred, and preferably a woman, to help her continue her pimp-retirement campaign, but this far she hasn't found anyone she trusts enough to turn part of her business over to.
Although she's not been Kindred for long, Jefferson has spent her nights in near-constant conflict. She's been shot so many times that there would be nothing left of her if she hadn't healed the damage. While she's not crazy about the violence that seems to follow her everywhere, it's benefited her in that she's been forced to learn quickly how to bend the power of her Vitae to her will. Though she never did well in school, she's taken to the Requiem remarkably well.
Jefferson's biggest disadvantage in her Requiem is that she is definitely not a team player. Given that she's a member of the Carthians, that's a bigger issue than it would be if she were associated with another, less organized, covenant. So far she's been helpful enough to the overall Carthian goal that her stubbornness has been overlooked.
Jefferson has pretty features, but, on the whole, she is not an attractive woman. She would be much more attractive were she to wear any other expression but one of resolute fatigue. She is a fighter and has had to be a fighter for years. When she was turning tricks, Jefferson would occasionally smile to attract potential clients, but she doesn't need to do that any more. Jefferson's sartorial habits have also changed now that she's no longer a hooker. The clothes she wears now she picks for durability instead of sex appeal, and she hasn't worn high heels since the night of her Embrace, trading them in for heavy workman's boots instead.
Stats
Clan: Gangrel
Covenant: Carthian Movement
Embrace: 1983
Apparent Age: 28
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 5
Mental Skills: Computer 1, Medicine 1, Investigation 2
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Brawel 3, Drive 2, Firearms 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 3
Social Skills: Animal Ken 1, Empathy 1, Intimidation 1, Streetwise 5, Subterfuge 3
Merits: Common Sense, Resources 2
Willpower: 8
Humanity: 6
Virtue: Hope
Vice: Wrath
Health: 8
Initiative: 8
Defense: 3
Speed: 10
Blood Potency: 2 (Vitae/turn: 11/1)
Disciplines: Protean 4, Resilience 2, Vigor 4
References
- VTR/WTF/MTAw/CofD: World of Darkness: Chicago, p. 149-151