Prince Pierre Legrand

Prince Pierre Legrand is the current prince of New Covenant, a role he has held since the War of Independence. During his tenure, the city has gone from regional power competing with other large harbor cities to international powerhouse to the shell of the city or once was. For the last two hundred years, Prince Pierre and New Covenant have been near synonymous, though whispers have begun again about plans to usurp his power. However, with his power, it will take more than a few whispers from shadows to depose his steel grip on the city.
==Life (c. 1285-1307)==
Pierre Legrand was born in the late thirteenth century in France north of the Pyrenees Mountains. Though he has often expressed a yearning to return to the simple farming life of his early youth to his closest confidants, outwardly he enjoys his stoic appearance of unbending strength. Around the age of eight, his parents sent him to the local monastery to train to protect their farm from the near continuous raids coming from the Spaniards and Moors. A natural handling a sword, the Abbot sent him to the local Templar stronghold at the age of twelve where they trained him further in the ways of war.
Once fully knighted, he would serve the order faithfully for almost a half decade. This included three trips to the Holy Lands where he served against the Turks with distinction. His final tour had him arrive in Marseilles in September 1307 and posted on the French border with the alps for the winter. Shortly before dawn on a cool October morning, a runner from the village in the valley below arrived at the gate warning the French Army had just arrived and were quickly approaching. With only an hour to pack whatever valuables they could carry, the knights exited the castle through a system of tunnels leading them several miles into the mountains. The unit moved near constantly, only stopping when on the verge of exhaustion, for days before finding a suitably hidden cave to wait out the French scouts.
An avid explorer, Legrand exploring the system during the down time between lookout shifts. During one of these he fell down a chasm. While the unit heard his yell and tried to find his location, they eventually gave up and assumed the fall had killed him. If it had, he would have been lucky. Instead, he found a new set of caves, old and deeper than those which lead to the entrance. After wandering for days and on the brink of starvation and dehydration, he stumbled into what he initially thought to be an ancient catacomb. Piles of bones lay strew around the chambers and halls.
Carelessly moving through the carve stone corridors, he found only a single stone sarcophagus. Beside himself from lack of food and water, he hoped to find some kind of ancient relic inside the beautifully carved tomb. Obviously the only person buried with all the other having been just thrown in should have some kind of status. Using the last of his energy to move the intricate stone cover, he found an amazingly preserved body. Noting the ring, he grabbed the cold hand only to jump in shock when the hand grabbed back.
Before he could react, the corpse which had been entombed in granite stood before him. The toga hung loosely to the emaciated frame. Before he could react, the creature was at his neck, draining every drop of blood from Legrand's veins. Normally this would have been the end of the story, but The Etruscan felt something inside his victim which he could not destroy like he had so many others. So using his fang to slice his finger, he returned a single drop of blood onto the bloodless corpse's lips before returning to his slumber.
==The Turn (1307)==
Shocked by the creature standing before him, he tried to move but found his body paralyzed with fear. Before he could flinch, the monstrousity was upon him, two burning holes in his neck where it had bit him. Slowly his vision turned to black, a coldness filling his body from the tips of his fingers and toes, slowly moving in towards his core. Sleep quickly overtook him. His dreams began as blackness but slowly faded to visions of fire. His body burned like his veins were filled with lava and his heart was aflame, an odd contradiction to the way he felt before falling into the slumber. 
When Legrand awoke initially, he had a fog over his recent memories. He could remember escaping from France and hiding in a cave, but he could not remember for how long or how he ended up split from his unit. With as renewed vigor, he found where he had fallen down and climbed up the thirty foot drop. He had been in decent shape, but had no clue how he now had the strength to crawl a near vertical wall in full plate mail. When he reached the cave entrance he found the dawn nearing and the encampment gone. A voice in the back of his head told him to find shelter and sleep, and so he did.
He awoke as the final rays of the day disappeared behind the mountains. Moving with a grace he had only dreamed of, he quickly glided down the face of the mountain, finding a French scout still wandering about, looking for his old unit. The voice in his head returned, "You have found a target, careful he does not see you before you strike for you are still weak, but drain him." Stalking the man for a ways, he found a perfect ambush point. With a powerful lunge which cleared an easy ten feet, he pounced on the poor scout. Before the scout could yell, Legrand's fangs had sunk deep and siphoned the blood. A rush passed through the newly turned vampire with a desire to strike again. "Careful, for if you become a beast you will be hunted down," the voice returned, "I knew you were weak, which is why I told you to drain him, but next time, try harder to not kill."
==Court of Genoa (1308-1364)==
Legrand continued to move through the hills of northern Italy, haunting the shadows for months while the voice inside his head slowly trained him in his new powers. However, the desire to coexist slowly began nagging the lone soldier. With the exception of his victims he had not been with company since he fell down the chasm, and so he entered the city of Genoa. With the instruction of the voice, he found and approached the prince to ask for permission to establish residence.
The prince at the time, Prince Giovanni Bartolotti, took a liking to the young vampire and slowly introduced Legrand into the complex world of vampiric politics. Legrand proved to be a quick study, learning how to control other fledgling and neonate like a marionette master. Within a decade, Legrand led a paramilitary group for the prince.
Over the years, the voice in the back of Legrand's head slowly faded both in intensity and regularity. The last time he heard it, it told him to avoid speaking about how he came about his powers. Legrand did not understand why, and shortly after Bartolotti started to asked about Legrand's sire. Initially Legrand listened and deflected the question or changed the subject. However, after being granted a particularly beautiful pair of inebriated women, Legrand revealed the source of his powers. He explained how he had fallen down a chasm inside a cave and found the catacombs. He gave details about the odd encounter with the creature and how he awoke with the thirst for blood, and not just shedding it. Bartolotti had hear rumors of an ancient vampire resting in torpor in the Alps and had to confirm this amazing tale.
With the help of the sage Agostino Molinaro, Bartolotti had Legrand's story examined. Molinaro confirmed Legrand to be a low generation with amazing innate powers he had yet to tap into. Molinaro explained this lineage and power to Legrand, explaining both its significance and rarity. This left Bartolotti plotting to commit diablerie in order to access this new font of power. Legrand's only saving grace had been a vision he had which told him to flee. Heeding the dream, Legrand made his way out of the city on one of the boats headed for Athens.
==Eastern Europe (1364-1654)==
Legrand spent the next fifty years moving from one court to the next. The process always the same. Approach the prince for permission to reside in the city, set up a cover and passive form of income, get in trouble by becoming involved in the city's court, flee north. Within the decades, he had passed through Athens, Constantinople, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Trieste, Venice, Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Warsaw. His last move was to Danzig.
By this point, Legrand had a bit of a reputation proceeding him. Unlike the other princes who either were scared of his innate - and now honed - powers or showed little interest, Prince Ludvig Søndergaard opted to take the ancilla under his wing and train him properly in the arts of subterfuge and intrigue. Both Legrand and Søndergaard benefit from the relationship and the pair oft times seemed nigh inseparable. Søndergaard used Legrand to quickly shake up the city's status quo and introduce and ripple many members of the community found both annoying and difficult.
==The Colnoies (1654-1796)==
==The Anarchy of New Covenant (1796-1801)==
==Consolidating Power (1801-1827)==
==Prince of New Covenant (1827-Present)==
==Lineage==
Cain
=-> Irad
=-=-> Ventrue
=-=-=-> Artemis Orthia
=-=-=-=-> The Etruscan
=-=-=-=-=-> Pierre Legrand
==Childer==