Born: 1919
Ethnicity: Dutch
Embraced: 1943

Clan: Lasombra

Known Languages: Dutch (Native), German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, Latin

Appearance and Description:
Charlotte seems to be made almost entirely of vertical lines, her slim and practically curve-less silhouette giving off the illusion she's much taller than her 5'5”. Her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair is usually kept in a loose bun or tied back, but no matter what she does, rebellious locks always seem to be falling somewhere around her face. A pointed chin and equally pointed nose give her not only a well-defined profile but a very much bird-like appearance. Although soon to be 100 years old, Charlotte appears outwardly like a young woman in her early to mid-20s. She moves gracefully and slowly and almost always carries a hint of a smile on her face. Her voice has the faintest hint of something Germanic when she speaks but it remains a pleasant thing to hear.

Charlotte still carries the wound that prompted her embrace, when she attempted to take her own life. Running along her left forearm is a deep gash, made 75 years ago by her own trembling hand holding a straight razor. The wound refuses to heal and although Charlotte has long grown almost proud of its presence, she still chooses to wear long sleeves and binds it in gauze most days and nights. Because of this constant but slow trickle of blood, she also favors dark and muted colors when it comes to clothes, as to avoid drawing too much attention from the outside world.

Deeply religious and devout, in her own strange ways, Charlotte is never without some jewelry depicting her chosen faith. More often than not, she'll wear a small chain with a cross around her neck, or when feeling more theatrical, a rosary wrapped around her left arm and wrist.

Although she favors, like most Lasombras, black and dark clothes, Charlotte is not without color when it comes to her apparels, often wearing purples and red, which make her pale white skin almost translucent at times.

Charlotte's Story
Do you know what my most vivid memory is? It is of being on my knees, waiting to die.

Next year, I will have lived a hundred years. I have seen the world change drastically, and yet, remain all too strangely the same. I have witnessed world-changing historical events, and I have watched everyone I've known come to pass. Yet, through all this, what I remember most is that very singular day.

I remember the cold and hard pebbles of our courtyard. I remember the sound of the wind in the trees. I remember the shadows thrown by the laundry my mother was drying, on the side of our house. I remember the biting cold, like a thousand needles piercing my dress, stinging my skin. I remember the flat crack of the gun, so deafeningly loud. I remember that sound, over and over, snatching the life out of my father, and then my brothers. I remember their bodies going limp. I remember how dark their blood was, pooling around them, dripping on the wall with the laundry flapping in wind. I remember the taste of my tears rolling down my cheeks. I remember my mother, trembling, terrified, holding me pulling me so close I could feel her own heart beating in my chest. I remember her telling my sister and I to pray.

And the gun. I remember that gun so clearly. The barrel going on forever as it stood a few inches away from my head. That barrel, filled with an impenetrable abyss. I remember feeling sad I wouldn't get to play my piano anymore. That I wouldn't get to sing. I remember praying. I remember thinking about that young boy, Harold, who kissed me shyly after choir practice. I remember soiling myself as I heard the gun being cocked. I remember not wanting to die. I remember imploring God to save us. I remember promising him I would do anything to live.

That was exactly 78 years ago. For a long time, if I could've gone back, I would've screamed at that soldier to take my life. I would've spit on him and cursed his name. I would've make him shoot me. I would've blasphemed. I would've curse their leader. I would've jumped on them and clawed their eyes out. I would've forced their hand. I would've made them burn my body and spread my ashes. But there is no going back. I have fantasized about going back to that day for decades, until I finally shed my skin and moved beyond. Until I finally understood that God did hear me, and in his wisdom, he answered my prayers exactly like He should have.

You see, when the Germans came through Leeuwarden, we thought the Allies would rush in to liberate us. Everyone thought the war would be over quite soon. And at first, the Germans weren't that bad. My father could still teach. My brothers, my sister and I could still attend school. We could still go to church. All in all, things didn't change much, at first. I played in a few recitals and attended choir. The only real downside was that we couldn't travel out of the country, much to the chagrin of my mother.

No; the real “problems” came with the Arbeitseinsatz. You see, the Germans began to draft Dutch civilians for forced labor and for the Waffen SS. When the soldiers showed up for my brothers, father hid them. He told the soldiers they were attending a boarding school in Switzerland. I remember that for some reason. It seems such a strange detail to mention. And for a time, it seemed like the lie would hold. And it did, but only for a time.

You see, my father was a proud and patriotic man. He had been a history teacher, and maybe it meant that because he understood the past, he thought somehow anticipate the future. In any case, he had taken it upon himself to help and hide those he could. Coming from old money, we had a large enough estate to hide a few people. The sons of neighbours and friends, mostly. Eventually, to my catholic mother's dismay, my father provided shelter to two Jewish family... people he didn't even really know. I thought he was the bravest man. I loved and idealized my father.

But when the soldiers came back, looking for Jews this time, they looked harder. They found what they were looking for, and more. They found the families we were hiding, along with my brothers.

And that was why I was there, kneeling in our courtyard, the barrel of a gun pointed at my head, waiting to die, watching two soldiers barely older than me swing the corpse of a little girl with curly black hair in the back of a truck.

But death, it seemed, wasn't for me. At least, it wouldn't come for me that day. I have always wondered what exactly saved me; if it was my music, my voice or my looks. As the pistol jammed and my mother screamed, the tall officer who had been with the soldiers took a moment to look at us. His eyes were of a deep and sharp green. He was pretty. They settled on mine and held my gaze for what seemed like an eternity. And he recognized me. A year earlier, apparently, he had attended one of my recitals, and although he said he had fallen in love with my music, that night when he took me to bed, it definitely wasn't my music he was after. It was my first time with a man. Ten years later, I bled his wife on their bed, with him and his son watching. Then I made him decide between shooting himself, or his pretty son. He chose well and ended his own life. He was pretty and courageous.

That was how God answered my prayer. That was how he spared me.

I startled when, as my back was turned, they shot my mother. I finally fell to the ground and cried when they shot my sister. I was now alone. I had prayed, and only I had been saved. For a long time, I thought living alone, without my family, was my punishment. I believed it was my sin to carry, but I now see clearly. I now understand it was God's plan. My family was all I had. It was all that tied me to the world. They were my humanity. I prayed, and promised God servitude. And to serve Him, I could not be grounded. I couldn't become what I am with something tying me to the world. And so, God did not only spare me, he freed me so that I could serve my purpose.

Two years later, I was in Berlin. I was the greatest of rotten fruits; beautiful and sweet on the outside, disgusting and foul on the inside. I was a thing. I was a mere commodity, passed around to be consumed. I was a beautiful thing to listen to, to look at and to have. And I have no one to blame but myself. I wanted so badly to live. I did everything I could too. I charmed, professed love, and did everything those around me wanted. I depraved myself. The upper crust of Berlin loved me. Old men could purchase me to entertain their lavish parties. I would sit at their side, hang on their arms and smile. I would take my clothes off whenever they wanted. I would press my bodies on theirs whenever their eyes began to wander. I sinned, every day, holding on so dearly to the pathetic thing I had become.

And then came in my life Udo Weeber. He struck me, at first, like a man who was too young for his eyes. He had spent an entire evening, at the opera, looking at me. Men often looked at me then. I looked back, with the gaze I had practiced over the years; the animal look that said come hither and pet me. He looked, but never smiled. He never averted his gaze. He didn't look at me like the others did. He wasn't a member of the party, which in and of itself, was a rare thing enough.

When he finally came for me, I thought he was, after all, like all the other men. He said he wanted to hear me play. Coming from men of means, it always meant they really wanted something else. In the dead of night, he took me to his home, and he just listened. He closed his eyes, leaned back and simply listened. He kept me there, with him, for weeks. And he never touched me. He fed me. He clothed me in the most beautiful dresses. When I came to him wearing nothing but my skin, he seemed offended. Disgusted. I thought he saw through me; saw the poisonous thing I had made myself into. Udo Weeber was the first man who really showed me kindness.

He wasn't a man, and maybe that was why he was kind to me, at that time. For a long time, I believed Man was the real monster. Seeing the world go by those last decades, I truly believed I was to better myself... but I went about it the wrong way. I thought Man was the monster; the disgusting abominable thing. But Man isn't the monster. Man is just as God has made him; weak. A perpetual prey. A prey to his desires. A prey to his fears. A prey to Us. A prey to God.

Contrary to all the others who had owned me, Udo trusted me. The doors weren't locked. The windows weren't barred. When he told me he had to leave for a few days, I knew the time had finally come. I had been in a dark and brooding mood. I had prayed to God and now all I could do was whore myself out to hold on to that pathetic shred of life I had. I thought I hadn't be saved. I thought I was being punished for my pride.

I heard the door swing shut just after sundown. I took a straight razor to my wrists and hoped it would be quick.

I awoke sometime later, Udo watching over me and telling me how foolish I had been. It was the first time I had seen him sad. The look on his face broke my heart for I saw what I believe was true love. I became ashamed of what I had done. I would die and leave the only man who had loved me alone.

When I grew thirsty, the horror and the nightmare began.
And that is how I became what I am now.

Udo had always wanted for a partner. He had lost a wife, a long time ago, and said I reminded him of her. But he was an old man and he had transcended the desires of the flesh a long time ago. He did his best to instruct me into this new life; to guide me and nurture me like an experienced lover. When I finally came to grip with what I now was, I became drunk with power. Defying Udo's careful tutelage, I went looking for the men who had killed my family. It took me years, but I did find all of them.

Some were already dead, so I took what revenge I could. I desecrated their graves so they would never rest, and then I visited fear and death onto their living relatives. Those that were still alive, I toyed with. I wanted them to feel the same dread I had suffered through. I wanted them to feel the same loss as they witness their families being murdered. I wanted them to pray to God, and I gave them that opportunity, each time. But God had made me into his instrument, and he never stopped my hand. And I left one, like me, every time. One to bear witness, usually a child. I left them alive, alone in the world, and told them I had been sent by God to punish the wicked. I told them I was a monster and I was evil, just like their fathers, and that God wanted them to be good now.

When I finally found my way back to Udo, I did not see love in his eyes anymore. I saw regret. I was a picture of his wife and I was, to him, the greatest of mistakes. I was his punishment. With abject shame, he told me he couldn't bear to see me. He couldn't live with what he had created; what he had brought upon the world. At that time, I felt so utterly alone again... But now, I see it was, again, part of the Great Plan. It was God's way of making me see my place.

I roamed around Europe, aimlessly, for a time. I went to all the places my mother had wanted to visit, looking for others of my kind. Looking for answers. I found them in Italy and it was there that I learned of the greater world. Udo had spoken to me of the rules; the Masquerade. What he had never mentioned, was that there was more. There were others, like us but unlike him and more like me. It was after decades of lonely wandering, walking my path and bearing my cross that I found the Sabbat. I met others like me and I found not only purpose after over 40 years of aimless wander, but I found my place. I learned of Our History. I read books. I listened to stories. And I came to know of our Creator and our Great Struggle.

It was there that I shed myself, that I finally understood that the scared little girl I had been had indeed been saved by God and that she wasn't alive anymore; she wasn't part of Humanity. I have promised my soul to God for whatever purpose he had seen fit, and he had answered me so clearly and so plainly I hadn't heard him. I had looked for a cryptic meaning. A message to decipher. But there was none. It was simply there, staring me in the pages of the little bible my father had given me. I was damned and my role was to act as an agent of that damnation. For there to be light, there must be shadow. For good to flourish, evil has to bloom. God created us like he created man, to play a role. They are food and we are their tormentors. No one knows which of them is worth God's love, and it is only in pushing them to their limits that we can cull the weak from the strong; the worthy from the unworthy.

I now understand that my purpose in unlife is to act as an agent of evil, doing God's bidding. He made our creator, and knew what we would become. And so, I act as he designed us; as he drew me. God saved me so he could damn my soul. Who am I to deny his will? I do as he bids; I prey upon the mortals. I nurture the darkness inside them.


***
Father Bruno Arrigo (Retainer, Ghoul)
Since the 1970s, Charlotte has been accompanied by Father Bruno Arrigo. Although still technically a Catholic Priest with the Roman Catholic Church, Father Arrigo hasn't served as a priest since he left humanity behind to become a ghoul. A short and round man in his late 50s, Father Arrigo's almost bald head is peppered in brown spots and sits atop a very short neck hidden by the folds hanging from his jawline.

Even with his body fuelled by Charlotte's vitae, Father Arrigo is a weak and frail man, especially when upheld against his ghoulish nature. What he lacks physically, he makes up for in dedication and attention to detail. Father Arrigo acts, for lack of a better word, as Charlotte's manservant; he handles her finances and takes care of all the mundane tasks of the mundane world. He purchases her clothes, rents the apartments and houses they live in, drives her around and answers he phones. He acts as her proxy in the world; putting his name in ink whenever needed for whatever purposes. Father Arrigo also acts as the sole owner and employee of the Help & Compassion Foundation, a Christian charity organization which is mostly used as a front for whatever Charlotte and the Sabbat might need.

Father Arrigo is firmly convinced that Charlotte is the earthly presence of Haniel, the angel of pleasure and joy, which is a particular conviction considering Father Arrigo is a masochist.