Melissa Anaktoria

Melissa Anaktoria

Pronouns	She/Her
Clan	Ministry
Sect	Independent Alliance
Social Class	Pretender Elder
Morality	Humanity

Further Information

Description

Melissa is a very attractive dark haired woman (she dyes it occasionally) who usually wears bee-shaped earrings and/or a necklace. She has a friendly but cold demeanor and a harsh laugh. She is inquisitive but always polite as necessary. She often wears clothing from the 1920s flapper culture, but frequently mixes it up.

Timeline

• 835 - Melissa is born in Constantinople, Byzantium
• 855 - Melissa is embraced by her aunt to save her from an arranged marriage
• 955 - Melissa is released from Accounting, told "I don't need that kind of trouble on my head."
• 965 - Melissa moves to Crete, under a cloud of scandal, begins studying ancient rituals.
• 1042 - Melissa moves back to Constantinople, just in time to force Zoe and Theodora back onto the throne.
• 1204 - Melissa flees before the Crusaders sack Constantinople, goes back to Crete. She takes quite a few influential Toreador with her, helping them escape.
• 1453 - On the advice of her Toreador lovers, Melissa moves to Venice, to learn more about the outside world and commerce. She becomes an influential merchant and a madame, controlling political and economic leaders through sex and blackmail.
• 1493 - Convention of Thorns - She spies on the proceedings, pretending to be a Toreador
• 1523 - Meets The Forest of Teeth in the wilderness of France. She becomes oddly infatuated with them after their encounter and begins drawing sketches of them constantly.
• 1683 - Melissa moves to Edinburgh, Scotland. She studies philosophy and becomes quite influential on many thinkers, but remains unknown.
• 1773 - Melissa moves to Philadelphia in the New World. She writes several anonymous letters, published under a pseudonym, in support of the Revolution, but against the Federalist movement.
• 1861 - Melissa contributes to the Union war effort, providing ammunition, whiskey and shoes for the troops in the field. She helps maintain an Underground Railroad station in Virginia.
• 1873 - Melissa leaves Philadelphia for New York City.
• 1880s - 1920s - Melissa invests in Vaudeville productions and many houses of ill repute in NYC.
• 1920s - 1950s - Sensing what is coming she shifts her attention to "Talking Pictures". She invests in several popular production houses, beginning a decades-long collaboration with Miguel Cantone and Cantone Pictures among them.
• 1920s - Melissa is in her element, embracing flapper culture and throwing parties that become legendary among the NYC cultural elite. The fact that so many of them wake up pale and barely mobile is easily attributed to hangovers and wild sex. She becomes good friends with Don Ariel and they trade business and influence favors often. She becomes more connected to the Ventrue as a whole, seeing the new breed as a lot more interesting than their more warlike, feudal predecessors.
• 1922 - Embraces her first childe - Selene (NPC).
• 1929 - She loses an immense amount of wealth in the stock market crash but thanks to the advice of Don Ariel, she holds so much real estate in NYC that the bulk of her fortune remains.
• 1941-1945 - She donates heavily to the war effort, seeing Fascism as "Debased, anti-hedonic idiocy. The worst of Mortal traits as an ideology."
• 1950s-1970s - She pivots to television, bankrolling several production companies in Burbank through third parties and holding companies.
• 1967 - Selene runs off to "do her own thing", tired of being manipulated by "Mom".
• 1972 - Selene's emerging Free Love cult is targeted by hunters. Melissa believes everyone to be lost, feels remorse and pain she cannot (or will not) understand.
• 1980-1990 - Melissa takes a less active role in building mortal power and wealth, and decides to travel throughout the United States to experience new things. The rise of AIDS greatly worries her and she begins to invest in biomedical firms looking for treatments and activist groups trying to fight the spread of the disease.
• 1983 - Melissa takes notice in a very promising member of her cult who is starting to develop their own following, named Sal Severin. She moves people in and out of Sal's life to "test" him for potential embrace.
• 1985 - Melissa discovers she has a grandchilde, Phoebe. Persuades Phoebe to ghoul Sal, in part to save his life from a mysterious ailment.
• 1990s - She invests in several companies in Silicon Valley and the Seattle Area. Through financial backing and pulling on old connections in the entertainment industry, she helps bring about the "Alternative Music Boom" of the 90s, particularly interested in more goth/industrial tinged music but also bankrolling a lot of "grunge".
• 1992 - Sal is Embraced. With Phoebe and Sal, Melissa feels a sense of "family" that she has never felt among Kindred before, even with her fellow Setites.
• Late 1990s-Early 2000s - She pivots to the emerging Rave scene, helping to throw some of the most massive (and often illegal) parties all over the world. Once again she finds herself in her element, particularly amused by the mortal "entheogens".
• 2001 - After 9/11 the resurgence of political conservatism and the War on Terror irritates the hell out of her. She begins donating large amounts of money to left-wing organizations all over the globe, careful to hide her tracks through holding companies and various mortal front-men. She leaves NYC as the Camarilla make it more annoying to work and hunt.
• 2010 - She goes dark, liquidating all her assets that can be connected to her, many think she has been ashed or gone into long-term torpor. She still controls a vast fortune through offshore accounts and mortal intercessors.
• 2011 - Formation of the Independent Alliance. Still in hiding, Melissa finds out from her mortal assets that she might have a Sect waiting for her when she gets out. Her Childe and Grandchilde are not as enthusiastic about this development.
• 2011 - Melissa somehow eludes the Beckoning, for now, and realizes something a lot more fishy is going on that few are willing to talk about. She is not sure what it is, however.
• 2014 - The Sundering. Melissa realizes that this was the culmination of the patterns she saw forming back in 2009. A year later, she comes out of hiding from her secret haven, named Xanadu and joins the IA.
• 2018 - Melissa moves to Boston, desiring the company of other Kindred again. She is careful about whom she reveals herself to at first, testing the waters so to speak.

(to be continued)

Playlist: Honeypots and Golden Apples

Honeypots and Golden Apples

Rumors

• She once threw a week long party that ended up creating a 10-way network of blood bonds before it was over.
• We're not saying this inspired the Vaulderie, but we're not NOT saying that either.
• She threw a Brujah luminary that was causing trouble at one of her parties out of her penthouse window.
  

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Quotes

• "Wisdom, beauty and riches are all useful in their own way. But passion is true power and with true power comes true freedom." - Melissa Anaktoria

• "I confess to a weakness for beauty and celebration, which Melissa provides in spades." - Miguel Cantone
• "I was at that party. It was nine nights not seven, and in our defense, we were all very high. If you can't see past the sex and drugs and snake tongues, don't complain to me when the venomous viper bites you." -Bob
  

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OOC Information

Player	Anna Morgenstern
Pronouns	She/Her
MES #	US2020070033
Domain	MA-003-D
Storyteller	Joel C.