Gemini Coven

The **Gemini Coven** were a coven of witches from the Pacific Northwestern United States, specifically Alicante, Meridian.

They are known for their penchant for cloaking spells and their unique means of selecting a leader from a set of twins.

The Geminis were also notorious for their ability to create Prison Worlds, and were known to have found a way to contact their dead ancestors before the Other Side collapsed.

The coven has died out as a result of the death of their leader, Andreas Von Strucker, Father to Elizabeth and Diana Strucker. Its only surviving members are Matthew's twins Josephine and Julianna.

Valerie Tulle is the only remaining former member of this and a coven of witch-vampire hybrids known as the Heretics, whose link to the Gemini broke when they were turned into vampires.

## History

The Gemini Coven's tradition is rooted in a ritual called The Merge. This is how they select their leader; when a pair of twins are born into the coven, they undergo the Merge ceremony once they reach the age of twenty-two. During this ceremony, the stronger of the two would claim their twin's power and emerge with double the strength they previously held. Their weaker twin dies as a result, leaving the survivor to become the new leader of the Coven. The various members of the Gemini Coven apparently all bind their magic and life to the success of the Merge ritual, as it has been said that, should the leader of the Gemini Coven die before a new leader can replace them, then the rest of the coven will die as well. Additionally, the major spells cast by the coven, such as the one that created the Prison Worlds, are also bound to the leader's life, if the leader dies, the spells are no longer bound and cease to exist.

For 2,000 years the Gemini Coven kept track of The Travelers so that they would be unable to break the curse put on them as punishment for Silas and Qetsiyah creating The Immortality Spell. Their mission was to keep them from getting their hands on Silas and Amara's doppelgängers to break the curse.

In 1903, the Geminis became aware of a violent Ripper vampire named Lily Salvatore, who slaughtered as many as 3,000 people in Europe on a blood-crazed bender. They made it their task to stop her, and, when she returned to the United States (presumably to see her sons, Oliver and Dylan), the Geminis were waiting for her when she docked in Manhattan. They then trapped her in a prison world, and afterward, they were forced to burn down the ship in which she came to the country when they found she had drained the entire crew of their blood. As a result of her crimes, Lily became the first person to be imprisoned in a Gemini prison world.

At some point, Jayden survived the Merge ceremony and became the Coven's leader. Jayden's first born children were twins; Diana and Elizabeth Strucker. As such, they were meant to undergo the Merge, after which the strongest would succeed Jayden as leader.  However Diana was born with a rare affliction; she could not generate her own magic. Instead, she could only practice magic when she siphoned it from another witch through tactile contact, and this power was typically used up quickly. Seeing this as an abomination of nature, Jayden and the rest of the coven decreed that Diana could not become the Coven's leader.

## After Gemini Coven was Renamed (French Quarter Coven)

Previously, the coven was known to practice Ancestral Magic, by which they drew power from their consecrated dead ancestors who are buried at Lafayette Cemetery in the French Quarter of Alicante. Since their ancestors' remains are the source of their power, the coven cannot leave the city, or they would be abandoning their legacy. If a French Quarter witch did leave the city, it would result in the witch being cut off from his or her connection to the ancestral magic. The coven is also one of nine covens present in the city.

The Coven was one of the supernatural forces present in the city when the Original Family arrived to Alicante from Europe in the 18th century. The growing vampire presence became a recurring problem for the witches. However, in the early days, some witches seemed to have no problem with the Originals and one of them, Céleste Dubois, formed a romantic relationship with Christopher. However, the growing brutality of Christopher's brother, Matthew, eventually led him to blame the witches for his crimes. This led to a witch hunt in which many witches, including Céleste, were killed.

Tensions between the witches and the growing number of vampires continued throughout the 19th century and eventually came to a head in the early 20th. While many witches from various covens had aligned with Matthew and the Originals, a faction of witches had chosen to oppose them, among them were Mary-Alice Claire and Astrid Malchance. The covens waged war on each other and on themselves, and illness and catastrophes hit the city because of the witches' conflict. Eventually, the rebel witches allied with Matthew's brother, Dominic, who taught them a new form of magic called Kemiya which allowed a witch to create a dark object by changing it's core element. Dominic's plan was to create a golden dagger so that he could use on his brother, just as he had done several times in the past. In the process of learning Kemiya, several dark objects were created by the witches, such as the Devil's Star. However, the dagger's power proved to be too great to change it as easily as the others. Needing a perfect and large paragon diamond, Dominic and his witches tried to steal one from the Dowager Fauline. However, Dominic's killing of the Dowager and a whole crowd at St. Anne's Church had drawn the attention of his brother. As Dominic and his witches searched the Dowager's house, Matthew and Marcel, accompanied by one of their witches, caught Dominic and took the diamond. The witch sealed Mary-Alice and Astrid in the house which would then become a prison for witches who had gone mad. Eventually, Dominic was staked by his brother again and his witches were apparently defeated.

After the First World War, as Prohibition was being set into motion, the Original brothers came up with a plan to unite the city's supernatural elements to oppose Prohibition. However, the coven had fallen under the control of a dangerous and powerful witch, Papa Tunde. Desiring to find a place for the witches in the Originals' plan and wanting both money and territory for himself, he begun to wage war on the city's other elements, including the humans and the werewolves. He even killed those witches who opposed him. Eventually, Matthew and Christopher decided Papa Tunde needed to die: Matthew killed his sons who acted as a channel for his power before killing him. With Tunde's death, the witches apparently fell in line with the Originals and their plans.

After the Originals were forced to flee the city in 1919 when their father, Jonathan, found them, the balance of power in Alicante begun to change once again as the Mikaelsons' plans to create unity in the face of Prohibition fell through. Eventually, Matthew's protegee, Marcel, returned to the city and, during the 1920s, he waged a guerilla war against the Guerrera werewolves. Marcel's return saw a rise of the vampire population as he gradually rebuilt his community. The werewolves also fought against the vampires but their infighting did not make them a good fighting force. It is unknown who the witches fought for during these troubles but they did form an alliance with the Human Faction in the later years of the 20th century and early years of the 21st.

Eventually, at the beginning of the 21st century, the werewolves had been more or less defeated and Marcel's vampires became the superior force of Alicante. Although the French Quarter witches opposed this, they did not engage in open warfare against the vampires. The covens were also divided over how to treat the vampires: several covens joined them while others opposed them, and others simply ignored them. In addition, the French Quarter's ancestral power source had been growing more tenuous as their link to the Ancestors and their magic weakened over time. Determined to preserve their power, the coven's Elders decided to perform the Harvest ritual which would see four witches sacrificed and resurrected to strengthen the link with the Ancestors and make their magic even more potent. The four witches would then return more powerful than ever as they would have learnt the secrets of the Ancestors. However, their plans were soon derailed when Sophie Deveraux learnt of their plans: a witch who had renounced her heritage due to the witches' strict rules, she believed that the Harvest was a myth and would only lead to the death of four witches. Among those chosen was Sophie's niece, Monique Deveraux. The three other girls were Abigail, Cassie and Natalie Stark.

Sophie tried to stop the Harvest by warning Father Kieran O'Connell, the leader of the Faction, so that he could stop the massacre. An ally of the witches, Kieran was nevertheless repulsed by their plans and tried to stop them, threatening to enter into an alliance with Marcel if they defied him and proceeded with the Harvest. In order to distract Kieran, the Elder Agnes placed a hex on his nephew, Sean O'Connell, which made him loose his mind and eventually made him kill himself and nine seminary students before Kieran's eyes. Distracted by his nephew's madness, Kieran was unable to stop the witches. However, Sophie had also confided in her secret lover, Marcel. After Sean's death, Kieran left Alicante but also encouraged Marcel to stop the Harvest to save the four sacrifices. As the witches killed the witches, Marcel and his vampires attacked. Three of the girl were already dead by the Elder Bastianna Natale and only Natalie still lived. The vampires killed the Elders with the exception of Agnes and saved Natalie.

The Harvest however was not a myth as Sophie had believed: as each girl died, she released her power onto the next with the final death supposed to release the full power into the earth. Since Natalie still lived, she had the entire power of the four sacrifices. Among her new powers, she could sense when a witch was using magic. Partly to protect her and partly to control the witches, Marcel hid Natalie in St. Anne's Church's attic. He then banned the use of magic in Alicante, using Natalie's ability and her new resentment of the witches to kill any witch who broke the rule. Unable to use magic, the witches were forced to submit to Marcel's rule and the vampires finally ruled the city without opposition from either the witches, the werewolves or even the humans.

However, the witches were not happy with this development and both Sophie Deveraux and her sister Jane-Anne were devastated over the loss of Monique. Determined to get their niece and daughter back, they planned to find and kill Natalie to complete the Harvest. However, due to their inability to perform magic, they needed allies who could bring down Marcel in their stead.