Madame Akuete Latour

From Circle Of The Crone

Player: Gillian Twining, who currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Name: Madame Akuete Latour

Clan: Unknown (Clan Status 0). Thought to be Nosferatu, Mekhet, or Daeva. Rumored to be Lady V's childe or Julia Kincaid's sire.

Covenant: Circle of the Crone (Covenant Status 5)

Picture:

Location: Currently maintaining a haven in the small town of Indiana in Pennsylvania. She's known to have stayed there for about twenty years. Before that, Madame Latour was a nomad; travelling across the US and meeting many many Acolytes and other creatures for several hundred years. Recently, she suprised a number of individuals by announcing that she was giving up Senechalship of her small town and once again becoming nomadic.

Common Knowledge among the Circle:

(Background ties with Cannon NPCs approved at Master level)

Not much is known about Akuete’s mortal life or her embrace; though for most of her unlife, she was a nomad and an avid artifact searcher, teacher, and demonologist. Something of a tomb-raider, she became a gardener and renowned ritualist after she settled down a bit.

When Madame Latour traveled to New Orleans in 1830, she met Baron Cimitiere, and was awed by his grasp of voodoun and his doctrine regarding voodouisant. While he generally ignored the dogma of the Crone, Akuete took the teachings and worked to integrate them into Crone belief. Since voodoun was the ultimate adaptive morphing religion, incorporating elements from hundreds of other religions worldwide, it only made sense to her to continue evolving with the religion. She and the Baron had polite theological differences because of this, but it did not override her respect for the elderly nosferatu. She would have settled into New Orleans and stayed to assist the flourishing voodou community permanently were it not for one thing; she refused to hide her loyalty to the voodoun religion, and refused to swear oaths to Prince Vidal as he gained power in the city. Thus, she was banned from setting up permanent residence in the city, and restricted in her ability to travel through or visit the city and her voodoun allies.

She met many kindred, werewolves, mages, and stranger creatures over the course of her travels, and many were favorably inclined towards Akuete, especially those she helped rid of ghost, spirit, demon, zombie, or Lancea problems.

She traveled westward after her initial visit to New Orleans. Akuete says she saw several signs that suggested the Circle of the Crone was the coveneant for her, she had been wavering between the Lancea Sanctum and the Circle for years. Akuete was inducted into the Circle by Vivian, more commonly known as Lady V, who became one of her greatest teachers aside from Baron Cimitiere.

Akuete made huge strides in magical theory during her years of nomadic travelling, occasionally bearing strange items that would no longer be in her possesion later.

Akuete’s formost benefits to the Circle include an incredible array of friends and associates from other supernatural communities, and she is often the point of contact for entities who wish to speak to the Circle as Chorus or Acolytes themselves. She is a brilliant magical theorist, and there are few vampires alive who can match her knowledge of magic and how to manipulate magical energies in new and intriguing ways. Also, she seems to display an amazing ability to 'herd cats' so to speak, as well as possessing a great deal of common sense.

Her religious views are not common knowledge, though she has never refused to explain them to an Acolyte who's asked directly. In general, Madame Latour is seen as a crotchety old Auntie figure to the Acolytes. She'll give you her advice, but won't order you to follow it. You learn through your own mistakes, after all.

There are some stories circulating among the Acolytes about the exploits of Dr. Sirius and Madame Latour involving demon banishing with nothing but a handful of feathers and a pair of knitting needles. Other stories speak of her uncanny knowledge of the combination of Theban and Cruac Sorceries with the energies of Ley Lines, while other stories talk about Akuete walking unscated through a mass of a thousand angry ghosts on several occasions.

And she's always smiling.

Student and Teacher:

Rumors and Stories If you or your PC has heard rumors or stories about Madame Latour, feel free to post them below here.

• There are rumors Madame Latour has had "relations" with Sanctified in the past...though who and when are uncertain. Perhaps this might be...torpor dreams.

• It is rumored by some that Madame Latour's flask is a magical creation, which transmogrifies alcoholic beverages into Elder Vitae as she drinks from it.

• It is rumored that Madame Latour gained her trademark wardrobe due to her time as a backup singer with Prince and the Revolution in the 1980's.

• Madame Latour is rumored to have once gone by a different name, in a different covenant.

• Akuete is believed to have invented no less than fifty Crone rituals, several of which are believed to be derived from dark magics - or some less-than-dark magics. She refuses to comment on this however.

• Some whisper that Madame Latour is in truth the Sire to Julia Kincaid, and views the growing di Milan lineage as an extended family... or an experiment.

• Akuete has made offhand comments on occasion about her husband, but never who he is. Some say she married a demon, some say she married a loa. Some even say she married something much, much worse: one of the Lance.

• Some Acolytes whisper that the confusion surrounding Madame Latour's clan and lineage is because she's not actually one of the five normal clans... but something that predates them all.

• Akuete has posted list rules for AcolyteMail, as well as the Crone Drinking Game and recipies for rum-blood-slushies for usage in the CDG.

• Some whisper that Madame Latour began the Ordo Dracul covenant, suggesting that Vlad Tepes needed a hug from like-minded individuals, and being unable to find such worthies amongst the membership of the Circle.