Magpie Family
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Contents
Related Events
- It Wants Our Blood!!! (Completed)
History
Roughly fourty years after being turned, Calvin Alvinus Magpie began quietly amassing wealth, land and followers. Calvin lived in relative peace and luxury in the French wilderness for nearly three hundred years before grumblings of revolution made him antsy. He made his way to the New World during this time, settling in Maine and taking advantage of what the expanding American nation had to offer.
Despite managing to live in secret through the years, sometime during the 1940s he and his eldest began to notice a worrying detoriation in their bloodline as well as the development of unusual abilities in some of its members. They began to fund research into this problem and chief amongst these researchers was Alessa Magpie, an old member nicknamed the Butcher Queen for her cruel experiments.
Though Alessa has recently died, their experiments continue (albeit at a much slower pace) and there are some within the family that are becoming very, very concerned...
Overview
The Magpie Family has been quiet enough not to attract a lot of attention. From their seat of power in Maine they've dabbled in politics (both mundane and supernatural), the sciences and arts. To the outside they simply look like an old money family. An especially eccentric one true, but not one that hunts their fellow citizens for blood.
They keep a tight reign on their members, employing assassins to keep things from getting out of hand and squashing dissent when they see it. They tend to react to other vampires in their domain poorly and are considered antisocial by their standards. They are currently openly feuding with a few other clans in a sort of shadow war that remains mostly unseen.
In addition to the clubs, art galleries and labs they own the Magpies have established special labs to research the vampire condition in general and their bloodline specifically. The experiments that go on in these are generally heinous, enough to give even hardened heroes and other vampires pause. These labs have been infrequently discovered until recently...
Important Members
-Calvin Magpie: The head of the family, turned by an unknown vampire in 1455. Calvin was a French peasant who seemed to have had the bad fortune of crossing the path of a hungry and mysterious stranger while travelling at night. For fourty years he lived on the run, feeding and killing when he could. At the end of this rampage though, he began to realize just what he could do and began establishing more for himself, feeding on turmoil and strife at the time as much as he did blood.
Since then he has accumulated wealth and power, pruning his extensive family tree when needed and putting funds towards where they need to go.
-Elders Council: The council is made up mostly of vampires that survived from Calvin's time in France. They were all personally turned by him and are loyal, if unbalanced.
-Lucas Magpie: The family's trash man. Lucas was a crooked accountant working with the family's finances that accidently discovered their secret. He was given the option to be turned or die. He chose the former and hasn't looked back since. He revelled in the power his new lifestyle granted him and quickly climbed through the ranks. He eventually killed the family's old head assassin and set himself up as a top dog.
Despite not being more than 200 years old, he's crafty and has ammassed a great deal of power. Enough to make even the elders nervous.
-Garett Magpie: Turned against his will sometime in the early 1900s, he took readily to darker magics and became a rather powerful shadow mage. Like Lucas, despite his relative youth he's gathered a disproportionate amount of power. He has always been dissatisfied with his new 'life' and has done several things to sabotage them over the years without tipping his hand.
His current whereabouts are unknown and he is presumed dead by the family.
-Alessa and Elena Magpie: A 'mother and daughter' duo. Alessa was in charge of the Magpie family's largest research operations and was inseperable from Elena, who she turned as a small child. They were both killed recently and several of their labs destroyed.
Resources
The Magpie Family has been amassing wealth and power for over five hundred years. They covertly own several businesses and a great deal of land. They prefer to stay out of the open however and don't have many members in high public positions, preferring to use their wealth and powers to influence from behind the scenes. Their thralls, though generally pretty 'Renfieldy' tend to be useful up to a certain point and make good spies and general agents.
They also command a large amount of younger vampires that act as expendable soldiers and enforcers in addition to a force of ghouls, both mundane and created through their horrific scientific experimentation.
Family Traits
Magpie vampires have many standard vampiric traits. They have all around enhanced physical abilities when compared to a normal human, fast healing, heightened senses, mesmerism and the ability to transform into mist. Due to their unusual bloodline, many of them also have additional unusual abilities. Examples include super speed, electric control, shapeshifting and astral projection.
Magpie vampires can also track targets after a single taste of blood. The range can be up to five miles, possibly more.
They are vulnerable to blessed silver, which cuts their ability to heal themselves, become feral if they don't feed on blood for long periods of time and can have their senses disrupted by strong smelling herbs. Sunlight tends to weaken or even kill Magpie vampires, depending on age and the amount of fresh blood they have consumed recently. True faith can repel Magpie vampires, but older ones can bypass this restriction entirely.
Notable Enemies
-Nightfang: Nightfang's artificial vampirism is part of the Magpie bloodline. When Lucas killed her father and grandfather for daring to meddle in their domain, they made a persistent and dangerous enemy. Nightfang has been a constant thorn in the family's side for years now.
-Siren Squad: Nightfang's team and current allies. They've assisted her on numerous occasions against the Magpies and have definitely drawn their attention.
-Proud Patriot: As a close ally to Nightfang, Pat is naturally an enemy. He's helped Nightfang on one or two cases and while not as high on the list as the Siren Squad, he's still considered a target.
