Gwenevieve Rossellini is born a revenant ghoul in the Rossellini family. Centuries of dark blood experiments and inbreeding had finally produced in Gwen, and a select number of her siblings and relations, the abilities of a ghoul, yet without the need of the Proxy Kiss. The Giovanni had at last produced a line of revenants of their own. Gwen and her twin sister both displayed extra sensory abilities from a young age: able to commune with the dead. Both possessed the sometimes maddening deathsight. Both sisters were sent to the family manor house to study the arts of necromancy until their fiftieth birthday. Yet, the Giovanni determined that only one of the twins was to be embraced. Gwen made sure that twin was her.

Following her embrace by a relation who hated and resented her, Gwen was sent to hone her craft in the Giovanni stronghold of Boston. She was to live in the crypts within the Family’s private island in Boston Harbor for the next decade. There, she was tasked with the maintenance of one of the Family’s most treasured secrets: a Well of Souls. After spending the 1980s and the early 1990s studying under Uncle Marco, Gwen proved to be a necromantic prodigy.

One night on the island, a helicopter broke Gwen’s reverie as it flew past the wraith-wall defenses and landed at the ramshackle family manor. Gwen found that it bore an elder (of the Anziani): Aunt Lucretia Giovanni. Lucretia dispatched of a disloyal relation who knew too much to be made a wraith and whose death could serve as an important lesson in loyalty to the young Gwen. The centuries-old Lucretia gave her niece her new Family job: Gwen was to travel to Washington, D.C. as a “cultural attaché” to the Giovanni Embassy in the old Congressional Cemetery there. Her true mission was to use her unique sight to aid in finding a disturbance the Family had sensed near there in the Sudario. But she was not to interfere in the vital mission of Carlo Giovanni, the Giovanni Ambassador to the Camarilla. And, she was to await further instruction from Lucretia.

Statistics:

Died: October 21, 1982, aged 50.

Generation: Tenth Generation Giovanni

Gateway: Death

Sire: Gabriella Rossellini, a relatively well-regarded member of the Rossellini Family Estate in New Jersey.

Havens: 

• Townhouse in Adams Morgan of Sabbat Washington. Four floors, moderate security, heavy traffic. The leadership of Washington is still unclear, but no one seems to have bothered attempting to collect rent

• Giovanni Expedition anomaly site near Manassas

Alliances:

• Gwenevieve has been on good terms with the Giovanni of Washington, though it appears that more senior members of the Family are “passing through” right now, including Uncle Rocco. Rocco, an Anziani who appears to outrank even Aunt Lucretia’s sire, has given Gwen her temporary mandate

• In a coterie with Zachary of the Clan Malkavian, Rose of The Sisterhood, Asa of the Salubri

• The Giovanni Expedition includes now 11 ghouls, 4-5 wraiths (Gwen is aiding a nephew to pass right now), and a large array of surveillance equipment, weapons, armored vehicles, 3 mobile command units, and the bounty now discovered at the site

• Other “hangers on” that have been taking resources but have been allowed to remain include two of the Sisterhood bloodline — including the progenitor of the line. It is less clear about the entire bloodline coming to the Temple at the half moon. There are also the Malkavians. This would include Cedric and Comet as well as the fledgling of a fledgling Benjamin.

• Six guards made of Enochian bones have been risen to perform tasks for the necromancer. They have been outfitted with armor from the Temple.

• A severed left hand has been given unlife to perform small tasks for the necromancer

Ghouls: 11 junior Family members currently serve their Aunt, though none are personally bound to her.

Wraiths:

• Patrick. Fetter: a thick coin with a golden center and silver outer ridge.

• J. Edgar. Fetter: an FBI badge

• Marie Prentiss. Fetter: a portrait of her and her children

• Maria and Thaia. Fetters: Sisterhood vestments

Special Abilities: Gwenevieve has the “flaw” of deathsight — we will get into the negatives of that shortly — but through it, she does get a bit of a glimpse into a probable (though not necessarily inevitable) future of a given person or item. It also makes it very difficult to charm her with a “pretty face.” It is, however, an unreliable “power.” Her more salient powers are in Necromancy, of which she has completely mastered the Sepulchre Path and has made true inroads in her understanding of the dreaded Bone Path. She is an accomplished medium and has a perception of the Underworld that can be envied by many lesser necromancers. All of this in a blisteringly short amount of time: far less than a century of study! The success of the Rossellini blood experiment will make some factions within the Family very angry and others very curious. She appears harmless and is easily underestimated by those unaware of her knowledge and power. Gwen has been called the Gateway of Death by Nana Kahenta of The Sisterhood. Gwen has shown the ability to manipulate ley lines and nodes. She helped to create a node creature.

Weaknesses: Gwenevieve has the blood curse of the rest of the Giovanni. Her bite inflicts unfathomable pain to the poor recipients who receive it and it might well kill them. This circumstance makes access to a stable food supply essential for Family operations (and trouble during the “lean times”).

Further, as a Rossellini revenant, Gwenevieve possesses deathsight. She sees everything as decaying and dying, sometimes these visions are worse than other times. It can be hard to determine things as seemingly-disparate as social cues and building integrity in the material realm.

Finally, Gwen is fairly physically weak. She had a rare genetic disorder in the family of muscular dystrophy (MD) growing up throughout her 50 years of ghouldom. She was fairly sickly and at times unable to move very far without assistance. Her own vitae as a revenant kept the condition from becoming fatal when she lived in the Rossellini compound in New Jersey. This could have been altered with an earlier Proxy Kiss, but the Family behind the experiment determined that they should leave the matter until embrace to see how the mortally-generated vitae would work without introducing any Kindred vitae. Her embrace has ameliorated this somewhat, but she is still physically quite weak.

Gwenevieve Rossellini, childe of Gabriella Rossellini, childe of Antonio Rossellini, childe of Elio Rossellini, childe of Umberto Rossellini, childe of Bartolomeo Giovanni . . . childe of Augustus

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