Scroll & Quill News and Information
~ Anyone wishes to submit a writting please send E-mail as directed at bottom of page:
A submitted tale from the Enchantress
Submitted : 01/14/2002
~ A Tale~
Charm knows that it is a trap even as she sprints through the room. She has no choice now. Her computer virus disrupts the electronics of the building, causing lights to flicker intermittently. Somewhere behind her, Stezen's shouting draws further attention; nobody can tell which of them is the diversion and which is the threat.
Men in Black boil out of the rooms and passages, their severe suits and hats cutting an unmistakable figure. Guns emerge from shoulder holsters as the forces of order take up firing positions. Charm twitches her fingers in a rapid pattern, her virtual gloves translating each tiny movement into a command. She ducks behind a table and rolls past a file cabinet. Bullets spatter against the metal barriers while her tiny eyepiece catalogs tactical information and feeds it directly to her.
"I have her," comes David's voice over her headset. "Let's get out of here." Charm flexes her hands and the capacitors in her skintight suit release their carefully stored energy, the product of body heat, motion and magnetism all greedily sucked into potential power. Tiny micromotors charge and burst with light, spinning from her hands to dance between the suited minions of authority. High-pitched keening fills the room and strobing colors spark the air; the dissonance of light is too much even for the mirrorshaded men. Time compresses around Charm as she comes out of her roll into a leap. She draws her legs up under her, reaching under her trenchcoat for her own weapons. The inexorable dance continues as her submachine gun barks out a staccato rhythm, death death death death death, while the pistol's hammer pounds out a slower but no less avoidable litany of targets. Some of the agents are simple law enforcers, unwittingly woven into a conspiracy of which they know little. They fall from wounds to legs, chests, heads. Others are enlightened men, agents who understand the principles of order and command. They dive for cover of their own, some twisting impossibly away from the stream of bullets while others back behind corners and obstacles to shield themselves from the combination of blind ing distractions and deadly projectiles.
Charm's leap takes her over a desk to the opposite door, and she is out before they can recover. Paralleling Charm's running, Stezen weaves out of an adjoining hallway. His hair streams behind him as his feet pound on the floor, fire trailing at his heels. The archons of speed and thunder have lent him their wings, and he moves with an arcane force that no normal human can match. Aided by her suit, Charm sprints alongside him. From behind, they hear the pursuit. A single barked order brings the Men in Black to readiness. Unearthly precision returns them to cohesion, and as a unit, they move to the corridor, driven forward by conviction. Ahead, a metal door seals the way. Charm spares a glance toward Stezen, but he has no attention for her. Instead, he holds an amulet in his gloved hand. Runes that were ancient even during the reign of the Pharaohs cut a disturbing litany across the stone surface. Stezen's hand comes up as he runs, then down with a shouted syllable. The air around him seems to expand, and then a wave of motion travels outward, bursting the door apart. Metal screeches as it is forcibly separated. Neither one of the sprinters slows; they charge out to a fire escape, and spotting the black sedans below, they climb.
Bullets cut the air near Charm and Stezen while they huddle against the fire escape. Still,Charm's eye piece feeds her a constant stream of information: locations, targets, trajectories; with quick, subtle motions, she picks out the safest movements, the perfect timing and the tiny moments between shots. Stezen follows her lead, and they ascend to the roof. Ahead, sinister helicopters whir like hovering dragons of steel and plastic, ready to disgorge further agents or spew forth a stream of hot metal. One's light flashes over their position. Stezen puts his hands together and pulls a metal wand from his sleeve. Pointing to the north, he casts open the gate of Raphael and speaks a Word; Charm remembers his instructions, and she ducks down as he speaks the name of Fire. Red heat washes out from the helicopter and flame erupts from within. The copter whirls and collapses, diving between the pillars of glass skyscrapers to meet its end in the streets below.
Somewhere nearby, Charm and Stezen feel a pull. Smoke rises from the building's windows, billowing over the roof and covering it. The searchlights make ghostly swaths through the gray concealment. Looming through the smoke is David, taking erratic steps in time to the heartbeat of magic. In his arms he holds a young girl; wires and pieces of metal dangle from her limp form. Blood runs down David's hands and arms, casting a trail along the ground. Nearby, a subhuman voice mixed with a metallic whine indicates the presence of shock troops, augmented soldiers whose very bodies hide technologies that even the world's governments do not imagine. Time is up for the mystics.
Under his breath, David chants a low tune. Dirge-like, it is natural, primal, pulsing with his staggering footsteps. His feet step into his own blood and leave trails behind, while the smoke swirls about him like a raging beast that is directed only by his intensity on his destination. Charm and Stezen fall into step behind him as he walks to the edge of the building. The smoke lifts and guides David; his bloodied shoes walk on the strength of his own life. First gray, then black, the smoke surrounds the group in its suffocating embrace. Light and sound fade behind them as they are carried away to safe havens on the winds of magic.
Hot Off the presses:
Given from a undisclosed source we were sent the following imformation:
The Giovanni are respected, genteel and well-mannered. Affluent beyond imagination, Clan Giovanni traces its roots back to before the Renaissance, to a family of merchant princes. The clan still maintains its original home in Venice, in a thousand-year-loggia just outside the heart of the city. No other clan makes such a spectacle of humility and propriety as does the Giovanni. And no other clan hides its blasphemous secrets as well.
According to tales whispering in Camarilla salons and Sabbat estates, the Giovanni's money spoiled the family, and the Venetians turned to necromancy out of perverse boredom. Surprisingly enough, the family demonstrated a great aptitude for trafficking with the dead, and their newfound abilities caught the eye of a forgotten Antediluvian. The Vampire Embraced the head of the family, Augustus Giovanni, and brought him into the world of the Damned. This Antediluvian, the legends say, had a profound interest in death, and the Embrace of Giovanni and his family was intended to go further the vampire's knowledge of what lay beyond the wall of mortality.
The Ancient's plan worked better, albeit differently, than he'd intended. Augustus, a cutthroat and a mercenary merchant, saw the opportunity to seize his doddering sire's power and did so, hunting and killing all of the antediluvian's descendants as well. After drinking the Ancient's blood, Augustus became a member of the third Generation and founded his own clan, the Giovanni.
Other vampires reacted in horror, and, for a century, the "Devil Kindred" Giovanni were rooted out and destroyed wherever they went. Finally, the Giovanni sat down with the newly formed Camarilla and formed a mutual truce. This truce guaranteed the giovanni would not participate in Jyhad and would leave other vampires to there affairs. The Giovanni agreed, thus averting the genocide they surely would have otherwise met.
Along advantage pf other vampire's lack of involvement with them, the Giovanni quietly continued to amass wealthier and power, practicing their Discipline of Necromancy all the while. Few believe the clan is engaging in either practice for altruistic purposes, and recent global movements by the Giovanni have many Kindred worried. With all that money and all those harvested souls, something is on the horizon; it is an ill wind that blows out of Venice.
Members of the Giovanni clan are also of the members of the Giovanni Family, and those not embraced often serve their kindred relations as ghouls. This familiar tie - members of the clan are related by blood twice.- ensures complete loyalty on the part of Giovanni . While concentrating primarily in europe , the giovanni have recently been expanding into the world market, and the clan seems to be more prolific in recent nights.
Nicknames: Necromancers
Haven: Giovanni generally dwell in mansions and condominiums in the finer parts of town; most also maintain at least one hideaway in a sewer or graveyard.
Background: Giovanni Embrace only those from their own mortal family. Thus, all those in this clan are of Italian descent.
Appearance: Despite ( or perhaps because of ) Their horrid underground practices, Giovanni always try to maintains a front of respectability. They dress well, in conservation styles; the women frequently look matronly, while male Giovanni are often white haired, bearded and look like favorite uncles.
Clan Disciplines: Dominate, Necromancy, Potence
Character Creation: Giovanni almost always have professional concepts. Their most common Natures are Deviant and Architect, thought they may assume any demeanor. Mental Attributes and Knowledge's abilities are almost always primary. They always have at least some Resources, but can have other background they desire. Most will also have Retainers, who are always siblings or cousins in the Giovanna Family.
Weaknesses: Living creatures upon whom the Giovanni feed take twice as much damage as they otherwise should. Thus, if a Giovanni drank one Blood Point, her victim would take two health levels of damage. For this reason, Giovanni are among the most prominent blood bankers and take vitae from people who have died moments before whenever possible.
Organization: The Giovanni clan is based out of Venice, where the clan headquarters is located. Its members work together to advance the study of death, and can always call on their brethren should they be in any trouble. This is a small clan, however, and physical assistance is usually hundreds of miles away.
Wriiten by Don Kharkon Vulas was born in 1856 to a noble family in Romania. When the boy was fifteen years old, his family moved to Italy, and the city of Venice. Shortly after their journey and settling within the city, his father, Vindel, met one Lady Marlise Giovanni. His father was seduced by this wealthy, beautiful dark-skinned female member of the Giovanni clan, and so soon turned by her for her own ends.
Days following their tryst, Marlise, secretly, moved to murder Vindel's wife and child, after he himself let it known they existed and that no harm should befall them. That night, his father stumbled upon the attempted slaughter, to find his wife dead; broken and bloodied in their grand bed. Vindel found Marlise above the bed of his son, he untouched and sleeping soundly; she descending.
"Do not touch the boy." Utterly distraught and weakened, Vindel gravely swore then and there he would kill himself if the boy were in any way harmed, and thus he would be lost to Marlise for all time. The vampiress had laughed at him, and moved towards the boy, with malice shining in her eyes.
"Marlise." The hoarse crushed croak from Vindel made her note well the silver knife clutched close to his heart. It was enough to silence her. Marlise had paused, seeming to truly consider the worth of the man and his words. With a shake of head, and flash of wicked smile, she nodded.
Whatever feelings Vindel felt for Marlise were mortified from that day on. The man would never forget the sight of his wife, her corpse lying crooked and broken within their very bed, her blood tainting their sheets. Despite his desire for Marlise, those images would revile him for eternity.
Kharkon would never forget either. The boy had heard every word spoken that night, and been witness to the events thereafter in covering up the murder, for he had feigned sleep. Told was he the next day that his mother had walked away from him and his father, and that they would move to another place: the great mansion of Lady Marlise Giovanni.
It was precisely one year later, that Vindel's guilt-wracked mind helplessly informed the boy of past truths. From the fateful day a year past, Vindel himself plotted slowly the destruction of Marlise, but he knew it would be difficult. Striving to maintain the façade of his love for the vampiress, he inwardly sought to formulate plans to manipulate events. Vindel knew he had to wait however, gain allies and think properly upon his movement.
Amazingly, it was ten long years hence before he was ready—that time spent learning of Marlise, the Giovanni and their ways, but more importantly spent bringing up his son with all the memories of their mother. Of utmost importance in his timing and patience was the turning of his son—then twenty-five and untouched in all that time by the Giovanni kindred; as ordered by his father. "Destroy her if I fail," was all he had spoken. His son had simply nodded. Although Kharkon knew his father had had a relationship with the woman—and he a part in the covering up of his mother's murder—Kharkon himself had never liked Marlise. Cruel, deceitful and wicked, she had never been kind to him, while his father had.
Vindel then played his hand, making indeed a personal attempt upon the destruction of Marlise—after one unpleasant love-making session. Kharkon he had earlier bade depart, in fear of his destruction following the attack. Unfortunately, that act proved his very undoing; Marlise noting well the disappearance of Kharkon and anticipating the perhaps forthcoming attack upon her self.
Vindel's then failed attempt began his torment and suffering and humiliation of a full three years to come, Marlise trying incessantly to break the will of the then shackled man, and bend him truly unto her in love.
Three living years of hell for the man that his son, Kharkon Vulas—hidden in shadows—was well aware of and lay witness to.
Living that time in relative hiding, and learning meanwhile of his nature, he and his new gathering of young friends one night stormed the mansion of Marlise and her slaves, and indeed destroyed her and them. His father was found broken upon the cold floor of the cellar, dying—as a result of the casting of a particularly vile decrepit spell woven of vital debilitation. The weakening man whispered in disjointed syllables that only Marlise knew means to unlock the torment.
Kharkon shed tears of blood.
Marlise was destroyed. The key to unlock the spell was gone.
Hopeless, Kharkon was given hope by a close friend, who revealed an old Giovanni—named Mercutio—who had the power to raise the spirits of the dead. At great cost to Kharkon, Marlise was summoned appropriately within the fresh carcass of a dead whore. Unfortunately, when confronted, the spirit divulged only lies. Unknowing, the fabrications formed a cryptic dispell, which, when cast by Mercutio, saw only an increased haste of the decaying spell upon Vindel.
The last words of his father were almost unheard, "Live not the past my son, for it truly never was."
It ever was for Kharkon Vulas.
Women in the News
A Submission to love.
". . . from the haze walks a figure. The mists cower from the form. I see her head firstly---cascading red hair, partly obscuring her features, a shadow cast upon a delicate portrayal; a beautifully formed face with sweet inviting red lips. My attention however goes directly to her left eye. Three short lines of black darkened kohl beneath an iris of yellow-green bespeak an intelligence---and a deduced feline-like grace. In my captivated state, I walk towards and embrace her within the folds of my land . . . "
The Charmed Enchantress, Charm, is an elegant archmage of great beauty and high esteem. Currently a majestic 929 years old, she dwells in a castle that sits high up in the mist. A healer and a true practitioner of thaumaturgical rituals, her cunning and intelligence strengthened by boundless knowledge and limitless experience have ensured she has quickly ascended to her current powerful status.
For all her qualities however, it was her charm which won her the affection of a normally cold and listless nobleman named Stezen D'Polarno, For he could find a flickering fiery measure of heart and feeling within her warm embrace. In a fit of passion was a child strangely conceived, Stezen's feeling apparently having spread to enliven even his seed. The Marquis, in his need to possess her for perhaps overly selfish reasons---for such feelings he so surely knew she could offer---asked her hand. A marriage was made, falsely alleged shortly after annulled, and a child shortly born to them named Marq. Charm remained loving of her husband despite even his chaotically swinging moods between crippling hatred and tender loving.
Charm remains open, honest and radiant to this day, but of late she has become a little weary under constant plotted attacks from many enemies both known and unknown to her, for her lofty status has attracted much in the way of the foolish ambitions of others. Jealousy seems to affect those known to her also, for she enchants many with her fine words and features. It would seem but a matter of time before deadly plots are set in motion upon her husband to further cripple and weaken her, and open her up.
The Radiant Lady is however well-guarded by Reno, a hitman, and none other than her cousin, the esteemed Kilik Bladewalker. Even Stezen himself would consider dying in a modest offering for her continued existence and safety. Charm herself remains utmost wary and is sometimes overly prone to acting out in her own protection.
