Dramatis -- Sheriff Elsbeth Lennox

[brujah_barkeep]

Name: Elsbeth Lennox

Age: Roughly 500

Race: Vampire -- Gangrel

Elsbeth Lennox was born in 1573 in the wake of Queen Mary's final defeat. The daughter of two Scottish nobles, Elsbeth was the first of six children of the Lennox Clan. Her early childhood was quiet, living in the sheltered Lennox Castle, apart from the great battles between the Scottish Clans, provoked, in large part, by the English political struggle.

While her father, George Lennox, was away in 1583, an enemy clan, the MacLeods, attacked the castle, taking everyone by surprise. Elsbeth, who was with her mother at the time of the attack, heard the servants screaming and hid behind her mother. Members of the MacLeod Clan burst into the room and killed her mother. The body fell on top of her and Elsbeth was not found. For hours, she remained under her mother's corpse, crying and praying, but no one would answer her prayers. Meanwhile, George Lennox himself was informed of the attack and decided to challenge the MacLeods himself. He was killed. To add insult to injury, the body was never returned to the family and a proper burial was never given.

The MacDonald Clan, friends to her father, took Elsbeth into their care. They raised her as their own, side by side with the youngest MacDonald daughter, Leslie MacDonald, who made countless attempts to befriend Elsbeth. Elsbeth grew up in their castle, quite close to Leslie, but became distant from all the others, spending much of her time outside of the castle, in the woods of the estate. There she would pray for some kind of direction or explanation for what had happened to her. One night, in 1586, a voice answered her prayers. Though she could not see the glowing red eyes, watching her from the darkness of the forest, he spoke to her, telling her that everything happened for a reason. She took this to be the voice of the archangel Gabriel.

For many nights, she would visit with her supposed angel, talking to him about everything from the MacLeods, to the fact that Leslie liked to tease her about her funny green eyes. One night though, he told her that he had to leave. She begged to go with him, but he said she was too young. He would return to her in ten years, he promised. Then, he would rescue her.

Time passed. In 1593, Elsbeth was engaged to her foster father's son, Malcolm, Leslie's oldest brother. Malcom and Elsbeth got along well and even admitted to feelings of love, though both were uncertain about the arrangement. The wedding itself, however, was continually put off as Scotland prepared for war. In 1594, the Battle of Glenlivet was fought. Malcolm and the rest of the male members of his clan, along with Leslie's fiance, went off to fight. It was in a cave on the Island of Eigg that the MacLeods ambushed the family and massacred them all.

Elsbeth was thrown into despair. She refused to become engaged to anyone other than Malcolm and wasted away in the castle. For two years, she became a bit of a local legend, the ghost of a woman who was touched by tragedy. Leslie tried to comfort Elsbeth, but the attempts only annoyed her, finally leading Elsbeth to lash out violently against her best friend, pushing her down a flight of steps. Leslie, who had recently married and was two months pregnant, miscarried. With that incident, the friendship between Elsbeth and Leslie was severed forever. Leslie left the MacDonald estate for that of her husband, who had somehow survived the MacLeod attack.

In 1596, Elsbeth was visited on the grounds one night by a frightening man with a wolf's snout. When she began to run away, he told her that he was her angel, Gabriel, and that he had come to fulfill his promise to her. He had come to rescue her. Friendless and alone, Elsbeth believed him.

Elsbeth was Embraced that night and left the MacDonald Castle and her old life behind to be with Gabriel. They lived in the Highlands for a time, but in 1597 James VI of Scotland wrote a book, "Demonology" which resulted in hysteria about alleged "witches" and many witch burnings. Fearing for their safety, Elsbeth and Gabriel left Scotland for England. They lived a quiet life in London for fifty years or so, before one day, a Ventrue arrived in court, going by the name of Duncan MacLeod. Elsbeth was furious when she learned that he was instrumental in the murder of her family and so she diablerized him. Before she did, however, she learned from him that every MacLeod, after producing a child, was sired by a line of Ventrue, dating back hundreds of years. Fearing for her safety after an attack on such a powerful family, Gabriel took Elsbeth out of England and they moved to Ireland.

As Elsbeth learned more and more about the Kindred nature of the MacLeods, she became more and more bent on revenge. As hard as Gabriel tried to stop her, she began seeking out members of the bloodline to destroy. It wasn't long before the Irish Kindred society began to take notice of several Ventrue disappearances. Unable to control Elsbeth any more, Gabriel staked her himself and took her down to Spain.

Although he intended to unstake her in a year, after the Ventrue scare had calmed down, Gabriel was pulled away from Elsbeth for reasons unknown and ended up losing her. She wasn't found again until 1697 when the Sheriff of Madrid, Elias Paz, unstaked her, having no idea who she was or why she had been staked. Uncertain as to what to do next, Elsbeth became a deputy. She served the city for a time, trying all the while to locate Gabriel. She was unable to find him, but in her search, she built up many contacts and eventually, quite by accident, she discovered another MacLeod in the city.

Elsbeth followed her lead and eventually broke into the MacLeod haven. There, she was shocked to find Malcolm, her fiancé, alive and well and a Ventrue and equally shocked to see her. He explained to her that during the massacre of the MacDonalds by the MacLeods in a cave on the Island of Eigg, he had fought so bravely, that he had proven himself worthy and one of the MacLeods decided to Embrace him. Elsbeth was unable to kill him.

Feeling old stirrings of love for one another, Elsbeth and Malcolm decided to leave Madrid together, each of them abandoning their obligations and commitments. This did not sit well with the MacLeods for whom Malcolm was working, who followed after them until, at last in 1728, the pair left Spain for Italy.

They settled in Verona and married a year later. Malcolm, unable to deny his ancestral love of power, became Primogen. Elsbeth's main concern became protecting them from the MacLeods. She built up a network, keeping herself well informed of their movements and killing any who happened to get too close to discovering herself or her husband.

By 1732, the trail of dead Ventrue had raised so much suspicion that Elsbeth and Malcolm were forced to flee again, simply disappearing without an explanation. This time, they moved to Greece. Since they were starting over with absolutely nothing, they were forced to live in undesirable conditions, struggling to figure out what to do with themselves. Malcolm changed his name to Donal Rosse and tried to get involved in Camarilla politics, but found surprising resistance from Tristan Quinn, the Brujah Prince in power.

Elsbeth, however, proved her worth to the Prince by saving him from a Lasombra attack. She was promoted to Sheriff. She and Malcolm decided not to tell anyone of their connection. With Elsbeth's new knowledge, as Tristan's confidant, Malcolm was able to learn of his political moves in advance and counteract them. The ploy worked swimmingly until, in 1759, someone anonymously tipped Tristan off to the fact that Elsbeth was Malcolm's wife. They suspected the MacLeods.

A blood hunt was called on the pair and they ran. News had reached them of a small settlement in the Americas called Augusta, Georgia and they decided to take their chances there. As the first Kindred in the city, around 1762, they set up court, Malcolm as Prince Donal Rosse and Elsbeth as the Sheriff. They welcomed other Kindred who eventually trickled into the city, including a Tremere named Thomas Grossmith who they named Seneschal. Malcolm set up a law practice for himself, the Law Offices of Rosse & MacDonald, one which eventually expanded out into other cities of the continent. Elsbeth was made a silent partner, strictly for influence sake, under the name of Gabrielle MacDonald, after the two men she loved, Gabriel and Malcolm. Again, Elsbeth and Malcolm agreed to keep their marriage a secret.

Throughout the American Revolution, the population of Augusta swelled as vampires fled the fighting to the relative safety of Georgia. Elsbeth and Thomas worked in close contact, keeping everything organized. Sensing Elsbeth’s aristocratic roots, Thomas became fascinated with her and eventually fell in love. When he propositioned her and she refused, he demanded an explanation. Elsbeth, unable to tell the truth, simply told him that she would be with no man without the consent of her sire. Determined to win her love, Thomas left the city on a quest for Gabriel and was never heard of again.

During the early 1800s, Elsbeth took a leave from her duties as Sheriff in an attempt to seek Golconda. Malcolm supported her in this decision, admitting that he was a bit afraid of the rage inside of her heart. Elsbeth, however, was unable to escape the brutual murders of her parents and siblings and gave up. She tried to seek inner peace in other ways, assisting with the underground railroad during the Civil War, which Malcolm was less approving of. Although this altruism did nothing to resolve Elsbeth of her lust for vengeance against the MacLeods, it did curb her appetite for human blood and she began trying to feed off of animals instead.

The early 1900s saw trouble for Elsbeth, not among Kindred, but backwater mortals who hated her for her foreign accent. Malcolm, better able to hide his Scottish roots, defended Elsbeth fiercely. His love for her grew deeper and he taught her Dominate to defend herself against the prejudice.

Augusta developed into a well run, orderly city. There was a brief Sabbat invasion in the early 1950s, but with Elsbeth resuming her duties as Sheriff the Sabbat were driven out. Intra-Camarilla politics became more heated in the wake of the event as some of the clans began to point fingers at others, accusing them of conspiring. The Ventrue and the Malkavians came to the center of the debate. To settle things, Malcolm publicly agreed to name a Malkavian, Julia Emmet, Seneschal. To seal the deal, he further agreed to marry her. Elsbeth was thoroughly unhappy with the situation, but agreed to go along with it. To prove his devotion to her, Malcolm even allowed himself to become blood bonded to her, so no matter what, Julia would never have his heart. The two of them bonded themselves to each other to the fullest.

In 1967, Malcolm traveled to Miami to set up a branch of his law firm. Elsbeth traveled with him, under the pretense of a bodyguard. In reality, she had heard a rumor that a Gangrel matching Gabriel's description was in the city. She never found him and returned to Augusta a year later with Malcolm.

Things grew quiet again until June of 2004 when all of Elsbeth's deputies began to disappear and her public influence was continually attacked. Lasombra were blamed for the situation. Finally, Elsbeth was on her own. While on a night patrol, she found herself surrounded, not by Lasombra, but by the entire Malkavian population of the city. All of them had gone antitribu.

Elsbeth managed to escape and met up with Malcolm and the remaining Camarilla of the city. There were too few of them to put up much of a fight, so instead, they went underground. Literally. One of the oldest remaining members of the city, a Nosferatu named Lucien Argeneau, led the Camarilla survivors to his sewer haven where they remained for three years, attempting to wage guerrilla warfare against the Sabbat. There was little progress and many of the members of the underground were picked off. Things went from bad to worse in June of 2007 when Lucien was captured by Julia Emmmet (now Bishop) and forced to reveal the location of the sewer hideaway.

At the time, Elsbeth was out running an errand. She returned to find the sewers in flames and most of the members of the underground dead. Julia gloated that they had already killed Donal Rosse and as soon as Elsbeth was out of the way, Augusta would go Sabbat completely. A fight followed, but Elsbeth managed to escape. She knew beyond a doubt that Malcolm was still alive, due to her strong blood bond to him, so she decided to travel the continent, going to each of the branches of his law firm as he had once instructed her to do in case of a disaster, hoping to find him again.