Marguerite Laveau
Marguerite Laveau was born beneath the moss-draped oaks of New Orleans, where the air hums with jazz, secrets, and spirits. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the legendary Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen who once ruled the spiritual heart of the city with wisdom, power, and fear. From a young age, Marguerite lived in the shadow of this storied ancestor—a woman both revered and mythologized.
Growing up in the Tremé neighborhood, Marguerite was raised in a home where candlelight flickered in front of ancestral altars, and where prayers were offered with both reverence and rhythm. Her grandmother, Yvette Laveau, was a respected midwife and rootworker who passed on much of the oral tradition that had survived through generations. By the time she was twelve, Marguerite could recite the Psalms in Creole and Latin, brew protective oils from memory, and interpret dreams with uncanny precision.
But Marguerite did not blindly follow the path laid before her. As a teenager, she questioned the myths and superstitions, diving into both academia and spirituality with equal passion. She earned degrees in ethnobotany and holistic medicine, traveling to Haiti, West Africa, and South America to study traditional healing practices. Her journey transformed her understanding of Voodoo—not as a relic of the past or a caricature of pop culture, but as a living, evolving spiritual system grounded in respect, connection, and empowerment.
It was in the winter of her thirty-fourth year, when Marguerite Laveau was still finding the edges of her power and learning to command the dangerous currents that flowed through the unseen world. She had returned to New Orleans after two years of study in Port-au-Prince, where she'd apprenticed under a Haitian houngan known only as Father Jacquel, a man who taught her that spirits could lie, and not every voice in the dark deserved an ear.
One cold evening, Marguerite was walking near St. Roch Cemetery, a place where the veil between worlds hung especially thin. It was dusk—the hour when shadows stretch long, and the dead begin to stir. She was returning from a small healing rite at a parishioner’s home when she saw him: an older man, hunched beneath the archway, swaying like a puppet with a broken string.
His eyes met hers. They were not right.
There was no soul behind them. Just... hunger.
The man lunged forward—not violently, but desperately—and gripped her arm. His skin was ice. He pressed his forehead to hers, and the world around her evaporated.
Marguerite was pulled violently into trance—not one of her choosing. She fell through a storm of whispering voices, images of flame, and a gnawing sensation in the pit of her being. She realized then: something was inside the man. A spirit—malevolent, cunning, ancient—using him as a temporary shell. And now, it saw her as the better host.
The spirit—later she would identify it as a rogue ghede, a corrupted soul banished even from the land of the dead—tried to leap from the man into her. It burrowed into her consciousness, pushing against her will like storm waves battering a levee.
She felt her own thoughts fragmenting—memories folding in on themselves, doubts whispering at her ear, the cold creeping into her bones. It tried to wear her like a mask.
But Marguerite had been trained for this.
Even while her body slumped to the ground in a catatonic state, her mind became a fortress. She summoned the names of her ancestors like shields. She invoked Marie, her blood-mother, who came roaring into her vision like a lioness of fire. And then she sank into herself, deep into her own spiritual core, where a single flame burned eternal. It was there that she confronted the spirit—not with rage, but with command.
She called upon Baron Samedi, guardian of the dead, and drew a veve with her own blood on the inner walls of her mind. The spirit screamed—ragged and angry—as its grip faltered. She uttered the banishment in Creole, forcing the spirit out with every ounce of will, channeling power through her very breath.
With a final burst of psychic force, she cast the spirit back into the cemetery soil, sealing it with a locking chant and a scattering of grave dust. The homeless man collapsed, freed and dazed, muttering in a voice that was finally his own.
When Marguerite awoke, hours had passed. Her body ached, her mind throbbed, and her fingernails were cracked and bleeding. But the spirit was gone. Banished. And something in her had changed.
From that night forward, Marguerite never doubted her strength again. But she also never walked alone near the cemetery gates.
She would later tell her students at the Laveau Academy:
“The dead don’t always want peace. Some want flesh. And you must know who you are before they try to take it from you.” In fact it was what prompted her to open the Laveau Academy, to teach other how to harness their power and protect themselves.
Marguerite founded The Laveau Academy, a sanctuary for those seeking authentic spiritual education. The academy combines traditional Voodoo teachings, herbal healing, meditation, ancestral reverence, and community activism. Marguerite serves as both headmistress and high priestess, offering courses on ritual work, energy alignment, herbal pharmacology, and spiritual justice.
Her teachings emphasize balance—between old and new, magic and medicine, spirit and science. Though she carries the Laveau name, Marguerite has carved out her own legacy: not to simply revive the past, but to honor it by making it relevant and accessible for the future.
To some, she is a healer. To others, a mystic. To many, she is a living bridge between worlds.
Mystical Power
Though Marguerite Laveau was born into legacy, it quickly became clear that her gifts were not mere inheritance—they were extraordinary. From childhood, her connection to the spirit world was uncanny. By the age of seven, she would speak softly in her sleep, not in her own voice, but in the accents and languages of ancestors long passed. Spirits came to her not as whispers or shadows, but as vivid presences—seeking her out as a vessel, a messenger, a bridge.
Mediumship and Channeling
Marguerite is a powerful medium, capable of communicating with and channeling the dead. In ritual, she serves as a “porteuse”—a bearer—through whom the dead speak. With a single candle and a lock of hair, she can summon spirits from beyond the veil. Sometimes they come with messages. Other times, with unresolved pain. Marguerite does not fear them. She guides them. Listens to them. Binds them if needed. Her ability to channel spirits is so potent that when possessed in sacred ceremony, her entire demeanor shifts—eyes clouding, voice altering, even her scent changing, as if the spirit leaves a trace of its former life upon her.
Calling the Loa
Like her ancestor Marie, Marguerite holds the rare and dangerous gift of calling the Loa—the powerful spirits of Haitian Vodou who exist between the human world and Bondye, the creator. Through intricate ritual magic, involving drumming, offerings, veves (sacred symbols), and song, she invokes the Loa not to command them, but to petition and collaborate with them. Each Loa demands different rites, different offerings—some rum and tobacco, others perfume and sugar, some blood. Marguerite honors them all with precision and grace.
- She calls upon Papa Legba to open the gates between worlds.
- She dances for Erzulie, the Loa of love and beauty, when healing a broken heart.
- She bears the fire of Ogoun when strength and justice are required.
But she is careful. The Loa are not to be trifled with—and Marguerite is among the few living souls who understand the price of their favor.
Trancing and Dreamwalking
Perhaps the most mysterious of her gifts is her ability to enter trance states—a deep, dreamlike consciousness that allows her to cross not just into the spirit realm, but into the minds of the living. In trance, Marguerite can step into the memories of others, witnessing events through their eyes, feeling their emotions, even uncovering secrets buried deep within. This ability, known among her students as the "Seeing Sleep," is both a blessing and a burden. It allows her to uncover trauma, lies, curses—but also exposes her to the raw intensity of human pain and passion.
Only a few trusted students at the Laveau Academy have witnessed her in full trance. When she enters it, her body remains still, her breath slow. Sometimes she speaks. Sometimes she weeps. When she awakens, her eyes shine like mirrors—reflecting the lives she has just walked through.
The Power and the Burden
Marguerite’s powers are immense, but not without consequence. Each working drains her spirit. Each invocation tests her boundaries. There are nights she wakes with the voices of the dead still whispering in her ears, or the scent of fire and blood lingering on her skin. But she accepts the burden—as her grandmother did, and her great-great-grandmother before her.
At the Laveau Academy, she teaches her students that power is not to be hoarded or feared, but honed with reverence. Magic, for her, is sacred responsibility—a force that bends to those who walk in balance between the worlds.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Lean and statuesque, with graceful limbs and a posture that blends elegance with quiet authority. She moves with a dancer’s fluidity—each step deliberate, as if guided by unseen rhythms.
Apparel & Accessories
Marguerite typically dresses in flowing garments—robes, shawls, and long skirts in deep blues, blood reds, and ivory whites. Her style is a mix of ancestral Creole traditions and modern bohemian elegance. Adorned with bone charms, silver rings, and amulets carved from obsidian or quartz, her appearance is as much spiritual armor as it is aesthetic choice.
She wears a gris-gris pouch at her waist, tied in red silk and filled with protective herbs, minerals, and personal tokens.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Marguerite's main motivation in opening the academy is to find people with real power and teach them how to defend themselves from people or other things that may seek to do them harm as was once done to her.
She also seeks to honor the legend of her family, and show the world the Voodoo is not what most TV shows and movies make it to be. She uses the academy to show those with no real talent that Voodoo is misrepresented and tries to teach them it's rich history and tradition.
Last, she is well aware of that which lies under the mask in New Orleans and knows there are other practitioners and groups out there looking to influence the city for their personal gain and she is dedicated to keeping the city as free from that type of power as she can, as she knows that will only tarnish the reputation of all practitioners.
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