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OK, let's start with the obvious here. Yes, Placida's family is that Giovanni. Obviously, she isn't a vampire, but many of her relatives are, and that's what led her to study the spheres of Entropy and Spirit. And thankfully, unlike too many of her relatives, she isn't Giovanni on both sides; her mother was a Golo.
Like so many people from the Old Country, Placida's a Catholic. A good one, too, observant and all. Her religion was something she could cling to among the strangeness of her family. And when they weren't being strange, they were being horrible. Through it all, Placida prayed, and sang, and cooked while avoiding the company of others as much as possible. An innocent in a family of corruptors, she took to the role assigned her gender by the very conservative family with a relish, becoming known as the best housekeeper in town. After all, every sinner is in need of God's love, and every woman with a stove is His agent.
Don't get me wrong: Placida had some idea of the rot at the core of her family tree. Every Giovanni does. Her innocence and introspection didn't insulate her from knowing where the bodies were buried, who was digging them up, and why. She spent many hours on her knees every night, praying for the souls of the people who raised her, the people she loved. Her family saw the bruises on those knees, and were mollified that she was being treated just like any other member of the family. This, perhaps, was God's first blessing to the pale, ethereal girl, ironic as it was.
One day, a group of three Americani came knocking at her door in the countryside outside of Venice. They asked where her great-uncle Niccolo (who was said to be 80 years old, but seemed younger than Placida herself) lived, but she remembered well the way her family worked and refused to tell them. Nonetheless, she gave them parmigiana di melanzane and beds for the night, for it was late and Christ commands his followers to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. Placida talked with them late into the night, fueled by coffee and grappa, about the nature of God and humans' duty to Him and what happened when people went against His plan and about the nature of family. Admittedly, only she and Sir Casper Singh talked about it in these words exactly; his companions preferred instead to talk of the Tree of Life spilling out the spark of life or the mathematical procession of Information from the center of a hypersphere. They worked out how to talk, anyway, and share ideas and debate them, too.
When the three were walking out of Placida's door to continue their journeys, they asked the retiring young woman if she wanted to come with them. She chuckled ruefully, and told them that she was too busy with housework. She would pray for the, she said, stumblingly attempting to translate the sentiment into five-dimensional mathematics and folk superstition. That latter seemed to impress the one it was intended to merely respect, but it was Sir Gaspar whose gaze lingered on her, brow all furrowed with unasked questions.
Her elbows were resting on her bed, her hands clasped that night, when it seemed the Lord himself had sent a rather forceful angel to answer her prayers. It turned out to be Uncle Niccolo, for whom she had just been praying. "For my health, you say?" he chuckled with cocksure anger. "After what you did?!" With a single fist and no sign of strain, Niccolo lifted Placida to dangle above the floor. Fangs slipped down from his gums, the growl deep in his throat seeming to be the very sound of their drop.
Scattered bits of incomplete prayers dribbled from Placida's lips to plop upon the floor as Niccolo drew her jugular vein toward his own thirsty lips. No matter how chill her blood ran in her veins, how paralyzing the fear that flooded her brain scrambling the ancient holy words, Placida refused to stop praying. She kept mumbling even as a fennel stalk erupted from Niccolo's chest. Her feet the floor and she almost fell as her unexpecting knees took a second to lift her weight. Niccolo, however, did fall, flat on his face, the poofy top of the fennel shaking and shedding fronds like stars dropping in the night.
Above his too-rapidly decaying body was a strange sight. A thorny, moon-colored halo encircled a dog's head, itself atop a cherubic babe's body whose chest displayed a flaming heart. Beneath the infantile chub of the child's waist, an oversized sprig of rue extended in all directions, twirling and curling and writhing and gripping the broken window's sill. Several of the branches ended in odd thing, none of which were the blossom appropriate to the branch. One flowered into a key, another into a dolphin, a snake, an owl, a rooster. A crescent moon tipped one branch, a medieval helmet with a waving plume another, but the one branch ending in a hand holding a wand kept Placida's attention for a long moment. Finally the canine face simply nodded, and the hand pointed with the wand while the entity retrieved its fennel stalk from Niccolo's body.
It pointed to Placida's front door, and she fled in that direction, stumbling down the front step into the arms of Sir Gaspar. Mumbling prayers to San Alberto il Magnifico, Placida relaxed into the American Muslim knight's embrace. Gaspar simply nodded and urged his companions to get the fuck out of there. Upon returning to Tirana, capitol of Albania, Sir Gaspar began Placida's training as a Celestial Chorister, and specifically as a Knight of Hazrat Jurjays and al-Tinnin (St. George and the Dragon).
Only about a dozen and a half Knights had survived the Week of Nightmares in July 1999. Gaspar had been one of them; though the Knights were Catholic in the majority, he had another Muslim or two to band together with and found the Tirana Adytum. They brought Catholics over to help train Placida, of course. They weren't in the conversion business, but the vampire-staking business. And they ensured that it was a Catholic to whom she was squired, a Catholic who brought her on her first Crusade, who helped her kill ~ really kill ~ her first vampire.
It was one of the Disciples of Anubis, a Gangrel who made his home outside of Cairo. "This is not glory, is not holy," Placida said, the vampire's dusty blood clotting on her shoulder. "This is purest wrath and unholy murder." She looked around to see no response from her hard-breathing comrades. "I am no knight, a forever squire. I join the Anchorites, here in the desert which first spawned them."
Placida spent 3 years in the Egyptian desert, relying only on her faith and her magick to survive. She sent an email to Sir Gaspar from a public computer in the Cairo airport before boarding a plane to the States. It read, THANK YOU.
In addition to serving as a hub for the Silver Moon Clan, the Adytum she found in this foreign country had more than its fair share of Sons of Mithras, and they joined with the Council for the Enforcement of Scientific Ethics to host a round table conference entitled "Virtue Ethics as Paradigmatic Weapons After Defeat in the Ascension War." There was one among the Etherites, a grey-haired Black man. He spoke with as much force and abandon as his fellows, but used fewer words and spoke slower. In this economy of quiet words, he recast every virtue argued for thus far as a variant of the virtue of wonder, and described this central virtue as the only one aimed at the weak chink in not just the Technocracy's armor, but the world's own calcification.
When he had nowhere else to look, his eyes rested on her.
At dinner thereafter, she approached him and he asked her what the highlight of her day had been. "Your speech," she said and, then, without devaluing wonder, tore apart his critique with an incisiveness born of years of lonely prayer. He responded with his name, Rodolfo, and the two drank much brandied eggnog together that night.
They were rapidly married, and found a cottage in a cold state where they could build their domestic paradise together. Placida's American cousin Carbone even made it to the wedding, tavelling all the way up from Boston! By this point, Placida knew what he and so many other members of the family were. Carbone seemed about as nice as a mafioso could be, and he has kept what little he knows about what Placida is from the anziani. Unfortunately, the Giovanni family has enough reasons for tracking her down and making her life troublesome, even without all the rest of the supernatural stuff. The only arguments Placida and Rodolfo got into in the not-quite-a-year before Peter also found them and they joined the former Technocrat in a new cabal was because Rodolfo didn't understand why his wife was so welcoming and warm to her bloodsucking relations.
Squire Placida Giovanni, housewife
Catechumen of the Ends of Existence, the Order of Living Beings, the Point of Origin, & the Joy of Diversity
Praecept Knight: Sir Gaspar Singh / Avatar: Cristo Bambino
Tradition: Celestial Chorus / Faction: Anchorite & Silver Moon Clanmember with influence from the Knights of St. George & the Dragon
Essence: Pattern / Arete ❇❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / Nature/Demeanor: Benefactor/Traditionalist
Essence: Pattern / Arete ❇❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / Nature/Demeanor: Benefactor/Traditionalist
Paradigm: All power comes from God, whose Creation is innately divine and alive, so have faith ~ it's all good.
All things are one thing, a living entity, the child of an omnibenevolent God, and thus Creation is ultimately benevolent. And all things within Creation (all the cells of that child's body) share in that essential nature, even those things which seem less than perfectly benevolent; everything, perhaps, has the potential of magick, but most beings never realize it. Gods and monsters exist, sure, as do pain, horror, and death; that’s cool, though, because in the end good things come from all the suffering. Death sustains life, life gives way to death, and the whole thing is a cycle that perpetrates itself in an ultimately beneficial way. We suffer because we believe we’ll suffer; if and when we adjust our attitude, the world spills out its blessings upon us. The Arts are no different, and flow not from personal achievement or intent but from faith, unity, and harmony with the Divine Will. “Awakening” is a lie. In reality, a mage’s power comes from God or His Adversary. A mage is merely the human conduit for Divine or infernal essence. All mages are thus pieces in a game of cosmic forces – favored pieces, to be sure, but still vessels of their patron’s will. A mage, then, must remain reverent of her maker, grateful for her powers, and open to the call of That Whom She Serves. It’s the power of God that flows through the mage, freed by her refusal to be bound by common expectations that lack hope; that human vessel can strengthen or weaken her devotion and belief, but the ebb and flow of power are beyond her. Magick flows from an understanding of that cycle of life and death, of ebb and flow, and one's place in it as an agent of change. The energy of that power is essentially a positive force, and a positive attitude can literally do wonders with it.
Practices: Bardism, faith, witchcraft
Through faith, all things are possible. Drawn from the Latin word fides – “loyalty, trust, belief” – faith provides comfort and power for those who believe. Faith, you see, provides the believer with stability and purpose. This is the fertile soil in which a nature-oriented, practical craft can take root; scholastic abstractions may be nice, but are unnecessary. And although magick is often seen as an egotistical practice, faith ideally removes the ego in favor of that greater Source that sang the world into being. The faithful mage sings “THY Will be done,” then acts as an expression of that Divine Will that sings through every element of Creation, altering reality through the influence of music. For a mage of faith, the actions she takes and the Arts she pursues all represent the ideals of her higher power. A faithful magus follows the tenets of her creed, maintains contact with her source through prayer, reveres the natural world, and acts – as often as possible – as an emissary of her creed’s ideals. “Keeping the faith” means pursuing virtues that supposedly please the higher power. The key is connection – connection to God, to the lyrics, the tune, the melody, between intention and execution, flesh and instrument, will and effect, passion and performance. A true bard channels God's intentions through vibrations that include sound and yet transcend mere sound, channeling His Will through harmony with light and shadow, death and life. Such a bard understands how to weave poetry, music, passion, the audience’s attention, and the divinity that courses through all things. She does not use an instrument; she becomes the instrument, and so her music is an inextricable part of who she is. A folk-oriented low magick practiced by common people who need discernible results ~ healing, fertility, divination, luck or misfortune, prosperity, clarity, physical prowess, and intercessions between the people and God that are far more intimate than what can be found at the local church ~ speaks to people on an elemental level and empowers the hymns she sings to rouse Spirits, enrich or diminish Life, alter Entropic flow and flaws, and guide the flow of Primal energy.
Instruments: Blessings & curses, blood & fluids, food & drink (many unique: Spirit), household tools, prayers, sacred iconography, voice & vocalizations (singing, personal: Entropy)
Like many Choristers, if not most of them, Placida does much of her magick by singing. Everything she does as she goes about the daily chores of the housewife, cleaning and cooking and such, she does with a hum or a song under her breath. Her voice is as gentle, ethereal, and warm as the rest of her is. It is the tune and the melody, the light pleasance of the music, that carries her prayerful magicks, much moreso than the words themselves. Non-linguistic music and nonsensical syllables evoke sublime states of mind because they seem significant even though they defy discernible language ~ this, then, is the language of the God of Nature and, thus, it shapes luck. Peter and Rodolfo have often made comments about the vibration of the strings underpinning the laws of physics, but Placida usually shakes her head at this babbling and says, "If that is what you would call the Father, who am I to argue?" Superstitions, folk traditions, and "the things we've always done" make up a large portion of Placida's magick, having been handed down from ages untold by the increasingly batty grandmothers of her grandmothers of her grandmothers of her . . . . She'll hammer six silver dollars into place around her and Rodolfo's property to keep the cops away, for example, or brew a special floor wash to cleanse tainted Resonance. She was known as the best housekeeper in the entire region even before she Awakened; that has only become more true. And what a cook she is, as well! Symbolic meals packed with metaphysical energy and intimate connection, the concrete expression of her spells. The recipes are just as ancient as her rituals, carefully tweaked and invested with personal emotion for centuries, becoming bespoke (and unique) foods offered to the spiriti and spectri and many other beings besides that can inhabit a place. Of course, since all those generations were Giovanni, the ingredients aren't always those found on the Food Network. Sweat, tears, blood, semen, saliva, pus, urine, bile, marrow, sap… through such fluids flow the essence of life, Placida's and others. Sure, they seem disgusting to most folks, but those are the Old Ways of her family, and the least of their less savory practices, moreover. Placida does make sure to inscribe her foods with or shape them into or just use her hand to form Catholic symbolism (the chi-rho, the sign of the cross, the hand of the fig, etc.) above every dish she makes in her kitchen adorned with the saints and the angels and a crucifix on every wall (and really good afternoon lighting and lush flowering herbs bursting out of pots on the windowsill) in order to align these traditions with the Will of God. The recipes themselves are cooked thus, transformed from their unappetizing base forms into something delectably sacred. And always the prayers, constant prayers with a new one for every minor act. One prayer for the opening of the bathroom door, another for the raising of the toilet lid, a third for sitting upon it followed by one for the act and more prayers for the flushing and the closing of the lid. Often they are sung, much of the time just muttered softly to herself and Jesus. It is a rare and scary time when the witch becomes the hag, and Placida channels the unbearable force of All-That-Is to curse or to bless. She often touches those she blesses, the serene love of the Almighty warming her palm and fingers while she does so. She only curses in grave situations wherein evil actions must be ended and the cursed ones be brought to repentance.
Strength ❇❇ / Charisma ❇❇❇❇ Welcoming / Intelligence ❇❇
Dexterity ❇❇ / Manipulation ❇❇ / Perception ❇❇❇❇ Intuitive
Stamina ❇❇ / Appearance ❇❇❇❇ Ethereal / Wits ❇❇
Willpower ❇❇❇❇❇▢▢▢▢▢
Alertness / Crafts ❇ Tailoring / Academics ❇ Folklore
Alertness / Crafts ❇ Tailoring / Academics ❇ Folklore
Art ❇❇❇ Singing / Drive / Computer
Athletics / Etiquette ❇ / Cosmology
Awareness ❇❇ / Firearms / Enigmas ❇
Brawl / Martial Arts / Esoterica ❇❇ Italian folk Catholicism
Empathy ❇❇❇ / Meditation ❇❇ / Investigation
Empathy ❇❇❇ / Meditation ❇❇ / Investigation
Expression ❇ / Melee / Law
Intimidation / Research ❇ / Medicine ❇
Leadership / Stealth / Occult ❇
Streetwise / Survival / Politics
Subterfuge / Technology / Science
Cooking ❇❇❇ / High Ritual ❇ / Lore ❇ Vampires
Theology ❇❇
Quintessence ❇▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ / ▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ Paradox
Resonance: Cozy ❇ / Synergy: Static ~ Traditional ❇
The Ends of Existence (Entropy) ❇❇
Some would call it luck or fate, but the end or consummation of all things is a matter of divine destiny and providence. Some believe that all of reality follows a master script that the One foresaw and constructed long ago. However, one seeress of the Silver Moon Clan is said to have asked the One’s angel what her cabal should do, only to have the angel respond “surprise me.” Therefore, she inferred that destiny and fortune are not prescribed scripts, but improvisational theaters wherein the One works with created beings to bless the world. Placida leverages the traditional work of her sudario-crossing family in a distinctly idiosyncratic use of the Entropy sphere among the Chorus. Hers is the way of homespun necromantic theurgy, the lares and the penates honored through millennia of Catholicization but not forgotten. Such uses of magic are frowned upon, and in truth the Chorus’ structures do not often accommodate such methodologies very well.
The Order of Beings (Life) ❇❇
Placida believes that God loves and cares for all living beings, longing for them to reach a blissful perfection. Base Life can be altered through the laying on of hands, the application of holy scriptures and phylacteries, the use of potent scriptural words, or most powerfully through a really good meal.
The Point of Origin (Prime) ❇❇
From God come all things, and so the worshiper of God dedicates themself to understanding the universal Quintessence that is the root and substance of all things. Like God, it pervades all of reality, and knowledge of it informs the study of every other Sphere. By creating a harmony in voice or in home, Placida can bring several people all in tune with one loving, centered whole and put them in touch with Creation. Different songs, tempos and sounds associate with different sorts of Prime Resonance. Touch is also an important focus of Prime. By sharing love, compassion or strength, Placida shares the energy of Divinity that suffuses her. For broader applications, the sprinkling of holy substances (be it water, smoke, wafer crumbs or some other sacramental item) allows the spreading of grace across an area.
The Joy of Diversity (Spirit) ❇❇
The key to the Sphere of Spirit lies in the common origin that all things have in God. This common origin gives those mages who, like Placida, see their kinship with all of reality ~ even those things that are hidden ~ an incredible degree of understanding and power over the creatures of the spirit worlds. To speak with these beings, Placida relies on everything from simple prayers for intercession (often with an appropriate saint to back up the request) to elaborate systems of gematria and angelic language.
Arcane ❇
Avatar ❇
Library ❇❇
Resources ❇❇❇
Family Issues (the Giovanni family ~ just, ugh; 2 pt. Flaw)
Language: English (1 pt. Merit)
Lifesaver (3 pt. Flaw)
Soft-Hearted (1 pt. Flaw)
Supernatural Companion (Carbone Giovanni, vampiric Bostonian made man; 3 pt. Merit)
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