Edward Bainbridge
Edward Bainbridge
Edward Bainbridge was the Tremere primogen of London during the Victorian Age.
The primogen's favorite haunt is the British Museum, which Clan Tremere has collectively pressured to have declared an Elysium. Scholarly to a fault, Edward has only three suits at any given time, which his servant has meticulously repaired upon countless occasions. The spectacles he wears are not an affectation; when he was Embraced, his vision was poor, his hairline was receding, and a paunch had settled around his midsection. Outsiders in other clans make the mistake of considering Edward harmless. Yet during high rituals, he is as passionate as a force of nature. His approach to magic usually involves assuming a particular persona of mythic significance during a carefully planned ceremony. He seems to transform his very identity when his craft demands it.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
As a professor of anthropology and archaeology, Edward had a promising mortal career. Initially, his singular vice was a fascination with the occult. Hidden within his sedate and outdated scholarly library, Edward hid treatises on the shocking rituals of savage tribes. During an alleged vacation in the Congo, he actually participated in tribal rites that would have scandalized him at the university. The natives of that tribe worshipped a "blood goddess," a beautiful creature who came in the night to take whomever she pleased. He prayed she would take him, bestowing upon him the true knowledge he craved.
Edward knew nothing of the object of their veneration. Elaine de Calinot was a powerful Tremere sorceress whose aegis of domain extended across the continent. As one of the clan's seven pontifices, she watched over African chantries from Capetown to Alexandria. The Empire's colonialism had given her an opportunity to discover methods of magic unknown on the European continent. To aid her in studying the forbidden, she began the controversial practice of Embracing mortal natives who had demonstrated magical acumen. When she discovered Professor Bainbridge, she turned the timid scholar from the light to a path of darkness. She then patronized his researches into activity across the African continent, encouraging him to learn from firsthand experience. She had chosen wisely.
Upon his return to the heart of the empire, Edward's knowledge of African magic made him a curiosity in Britain, assuring his fame within his clan. Years of devout service to the pontifex resulted in his ascension up the pyramid of power that is Clan Tremere. His ability to blend so thoroughly into other cultures, observe their magical practices, and assiduously document them earned him admiration in the scholarly circles of the Damned. When the spiritualist movement began, he eagerly participated in many such gatherings, quickly sorting the charlatans from the visionaries. As a panorama of occult societies took hold in Europe, he traveled widely at the behest of the pontifices, documenting the evolution of magic.
Triumphs of scholarship eventually earned him a position as a primogen in London, a cosmopolitan locale that Edward decided should host a wide array of practitioners, whether living, dead or undead. Through extensive correspondence, he extended invitations to occultists and loremasters throughout the world. Edward's enthusiasm was a sharp departure from the attitudes of the city's previous primogen, Monsieur Pachard. The former councilor's mysterious death scandalized the London Camarilla. Openly, his disappearance was blamed on an attack by Sabbat crusaders, but privately, some insightful ancillae whispered that he had been eliminated through intrigue. The local Nosferatu hinted that the former primogen had a falling out with the primogen council, possibly resulting in his sudden "committal" to the Deep Ward of Dr. Timothy's asylum. Within half a century, several old and treacherous primogen councilors had been replaced by younger and more inexperienced ones.
During his decades of travel and research, Edward had encountered a vast array of disturbing supernatural activity. One of the most remarkable was a cult of magi who had claimed to practice techniques preserved from the Dark Ages — most notably, sorcery involving fire. For reasons he could not understand, the Inner Circle of the Tremere moved quickly to destroy this hidden cabal. A few survivors were taken to Vienna, where they were extensively conditioned to obey the clan, enforce the clan's will, and forget the existence of the Order of Hermes.
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