Malintzin

*“To the victor go the spoils. Then his children inherit.”*

The Malintzin are a vampiric manifestation of wealthy mestizos, the mixed-blooded traitors and collaborators who joined the ranks of the Spanish conquistadors and delivered Mexico into their hands. The name Malintzin is even derived from the iconic betrayer of the Aztecs, the Nahua woman who served Cortés as translator and eventually became his wife: La Malinche. To the Spaniards she was known by the noble name of Doña Marina. To the Nahua, she was Malintzin.

Tonight, La Malinche remains a complex character. She is a vilified traitor, responsible for aiding the Spanish in the destruction of the Aztecs and hated for her abandonment of her own people. At the same time, she is seen by many as an icon of Nahua victimization — if she had not been at Cortés’s side, she would have fallen under his sword like so many of her people.

La Malinche may be responsible for the survival of Aztec culture beyond the death of its rulers and capitols. Her marriage to Cortés may be symbolic of her betrayal, but the birth of their son represents the creation of a new hybrid culture blending Indian and European ways. She was a woman who had once been traded as a slave from the Aztecs to the Maya to the Spanish. Can it be surprising that she would have no love for the empire that enslaved her? The vampires who took her name represent the worst of the mestizos stereotype.

They see themselves as noble realists who have risen above the “noble savagery” of their Indian blood to join the ranks of the winning team. “The victory of the Spanish reveals their superiority,” say the Malintzin. To them, the preservation of Nahua culture is charity, a merciful gift given to a defeated people on behalf of one of their own, who was savvy enough to see how the conquest of New Spain would end.

In the minds of most other Mexican Kindred, whether Indian, European or mestizos themselves, the Malintzin are a bloody, snobbish manifestation of turncoat colonialism. The Malintzin are said to have been Embraced by Spanish greed — damning in its own way — as all Kindred are Embraced by the Blood. Malintzin are often not even regarded as being Kindred, per se, by Mexican vampires. They are neither Daeva nor Ventrue, just as mestizos are not quite Spanish or Indian. But while any mixed-blood Mexican is still undeniably Mexican, still able to be loved and respected as a fellow compatriot, the Malintzin are typically despised and pitied. A Malintzin with power is an embodiment of selfishness and betrayal, a moronic sell-out or a bratty fop. A Malintzin with no power (a rare thing) is pathetic trash who got her comeuppance.
And yet the majority of the Malintzin remain in positions of power, protected by the colonial Damned who use them as figureheads or regarded as a simple, despicable fact of the Requiem by those vampires who survive in the gutters beneath them. The Malintzin are supernaturally powerful leaders — their formidable mystic powers have held revolutions are bay for five hundred years.

Parent Clan: Daeva

Nickname: Malinchismas or Traitors

### Covenant

The vast majority of Malintzin vampires belong to the Invictus. According to the official line of the bloodline’s sole formal Avus, called Malintzinita, any non-Invictus vampire that claims to be a part of her line is either a liar or a spy. The Malintzin take pride in their roles as symbolic heiresses to the conquistadors and Spanish colonials.

They hold prominent (if often ceremonial) positions within the First Estate because they believe that stability is the best way to govern. The constant cycles of revolution that have plagued the mortals of Mexico only prove their point, to their minds.

### Appearance

The very small number of Malintzin makes it easy to generalize their appearance. The girls who attend to the Lady Malintzin herself dress themselves in traditional pre-Colombian Aztec or Mayan garb, often coming across as re-enactors or some kind of old-fashioned wedding party. Their male counterparts dress in more modern clothing on most nights, but decorated for formal functions with accessories that evoke the Conquest: swords, breastplates and knotted, silken sashes. It’s worth noting that every male Malintzin active tonight grew a beard in preparation for their Embrace.

### Haven

Most Malintzin reside in the sprawling hidden palace of Malintzinita, the bloodline’s founder her own city. Those Malintzin that aren’t a part of the founder’s retinue nest in similar places: penthouses, lavish vaults and gilded subterranean suites mixing Spanish architecture with Aztec frescoes and indigenous Mexican plants. Gold and silver are common themes in Malintzin havens, as are animal skins and bright textiles like blankets and tapestries. Security is always of primary importance, however. Many Malintzin nest in small, luxurious havens that are hidden from common Kindred and locked to would-be rivals.

### Background

To date, all Malintzin have been beautiful mestizos. Beyond that, they have only one trait in common: the affection of Malintzinita, whether as sisters, comrades or lovers. All but a few Malintzin (possibly as few as two) are young women between the ages of 16 and 21. Most were wealthy, or heirs to wealth, in life, but not all.

### Character Creation

Social Skills are essential to one’s existence as a Malintzin, but those can be learned. What’s truly vital is one’s appearance: Social Attributes must be good enough either to catch the eye of Malintzinita or to compel one of her previous petitioners to risk her wrath. In practice, dots in Covenant Status: Invictus are necessary to even get an audience with the bloodline’s Avus, though clever vampires (and Storytellers) may find ways around that. A vampire with the right mindset for a Malintzin’s Requiem should already have dots in Herd and Retainer. A Malintzin should almost certainly be of mixed Indian/European blood, though going against that assumed rule could make for an interesting character concept.

### Weakness

The Damned descendants of La Malinche suffer the curses inherent in the blood of both the Daevaand the Ventrue clans. In addition, a Malintzin must have at least one dot in Herd, Retainer or Fame to maintain her sense of identity and confidence. Without a dot in one of these Merits, a Malintzin must spend a Willpower point to awaken each night, in addition to Vitae. Malinztin who suffer derangements tend towards severe afflictions of self-doubt and anxiety. Melancholia, Megalomania, Paranoia, Anxiety and Delusional Obsession are all likely derangements for these vampires.

### Organization

The Malintzin bloodline descends from a young vampire woman known only as Malintzinita (“the Little Malinche”) tonight. She is said to have been the daughter of Hernán Cortés and Doña Marina, born in secret before the son that history remembers as theirs. Cortés wanted an heir that he could present as the First Son of Mexico (though his own greed eventually overshadowed his son’s importance), and at the time when his first-born daughter was conceived, Doña Marina was not yet recognized as a worthy woman by Cortés’s priest. So this daughter, one of the first mestizos, was hidden away.

Tonight, that daughter is the sole recognized Avus of the Malintzin bloodline and a much hated Prince in Mexico. She claims that she was cursed with undeath by God himself, but many of her subjects claim she was cursed by the betrayal of her mother and the greed of her father — that she was damned since birth to never walk beneath the Mexican sun as an adult. Any Kindred who joins the bloodline either accepts the hatred of the Malintzin in exchange for power or simply has no care for the thoughts of her fellow Damned. Malintzinita keeps the majority of the Malintzin bloodline in her direct employ as spies, aides and advisors. A small number of vampires — possibly only one — have been given the Malintzin blood to take with them to other cities as a symbol of royal descent from the self-appointed First Daughter of the Mexica. These posturing fops are typically token mestizos vampires kept on the arm of Ventrue Princes as a means of showing their connection to “the native Kindred.”

One other vampire is said to be passing along the Malintzin bloodline: a Nahua Incubus who was supposedly once Malintzinita’s concubine. The rumor goes that he fled her city in 1911 to find some way to escape the Malintzin line, but ended up joining the ranks of some Carthian revolution in Northern Mexico.

### Concepts

Evil queen, insidious scheming heiress, Mexican Marie Antoinette, party monster, Prince’s little girl, spoiled brat, traitorous step-mother, wicked step-brother.