Baltasar the White Snake

Baltasar the White Snake

Brujah Crimelord of ExeterEmbraced: 135 AD | Clan: Brujah | Generation: 5th (Rumored)

In the winding alleys and echoing stone halls of Exeter, there is a name whispered with a blend of awe, fear, and respect—Baltasar the White Snake, the ancient Kindred whose cold, calculating gaze has shaped the city’s fate for nearly two millennia.

Born in 92 AD under the Roman name Baltasar Lucullus Varianus, he was the illegitimate yet favored son of a Roman noble stationed in the flourishing provincial city of Isca Dumnoniorum—modern-day Exeter—and a cunning local woman of Celtic descent. Gifted with both the refined education of Roman aristocracy and the deep-rooted instincts of the native Britons, Baltasar grew into a charismatic man of vision and appetite.

By his early thirties, Baltasar had become a shadow prince of the city: a merchant, magistrate, and manipulator with unmatched influence. He fathered dozens of children through various lovers—Roman and Briton alike—laying the literal and political bloodline for what would become nearly a quarter of the modern city’s working-class ancestry. His legacy runs through the veins of fishmongers and scribes, bakers and blacksmiths.

In 135 AD, Baltasar was embraced by a True Brujah, a direct childer of Anis, one of the eldest of their forgotten line. Chosen not merely for his mind or ambition, but for his sense of timing and detachment, Baltasar was given the mandate to rule in the name of Brujah ideals—order, memory, control—hidden behind mortal facades.

Appearance

Baltasar appears eternally in his prime—early thirties—pale of skin with fine, aquiline Roman features. His eyes are a piercing gray, often described as "like fogged-over mirrors," and his hair, white since the Embrace, falls to his shoulders like a snake’s coiled skin. He wears elegant but ancient robes beneath layers of contemporary garb, favoring white and ivory tones, accented with serpent-shaped jewelry and cloaks of dusky grey.

He speaks softly, his Latin accent untouched by time, his words deliberate and potent. He rarely raises his voice—he never needs to.

Influence & Rule

Baltasar is the true ruler of Exeter, though few mortals know it. Behind a dozen criminal fronts, from portside smuggling rings to scholarly circles in the Cathedral’s shadow, his hand guides the city’s underworld—and parts of its upper crust. His brood of descendants, from both mortal and Kindred lineages, serve as his agents and intermediaries, forming a subtle empire of loyalty and blood.

He is the reason the Garou and Kindred of Exeter maintain a peace unlike any other city in Albion. It was Baltasar who brokered the Pact of Stone and Moon in the 11th century—after a brutal war between local Fianna and a Toreador Prince left the city in chaos. Baltasar emerged from the crypts of the old Roman forum with a calm proposal: peace, territory division, and mutual noninterference. The Garou saw in him the cold wisdom of a serpent who does not strike unless victory is certain.

He honors the balance to this day. Changelings are left largely untouched if they stay out of Kindred or Garou matters. Mages know better than to interfere in his territory without invitation.

Powers & Personality

Baltasar possesses temporal manipulation in ways only a True Brujah can. He moves like a whisper and strikes like a serpent. It is said that he once froze time during a meeting with a Tremere elder, aged her five years in a heartbeat, and resumed the conversation with a glass of wine already poured.

But power does not drive Baltasar—it is control that obsesses him. He plays Exeter like a game of senet across centuries, guiding bloodlines, investments, and ideologies like pieces on a vast, invisible board.

He is cold, patient, and alien in his thinking. His affections are reserved for those who understand the weight of years. Those who anger him rarely suffer death—rather, they are slowly erased from history, their works undone, their bloodlines cursed by quiet machinations.

Titles & Lore

• The White Snake – For his appearance and his habit of coiling around a city before striking.

• Primarch of the Hidden Forum – A secret society of scholars, criminals, and Kindred who serve his designs.

• He Who Remembers the Stones – A title used by the local Fianna who grudgingly honor his memory-keeping of ancient battles.

Baltasar still walks the tunnels beneath Exeter, in crypts older than Christianity, whispering Latin to the bones of long-dead children and wives. He does not crave companionship—but he does expect loyalty.

And in a city ruled by silence, fear, and ancestral memory, Baltasar the White Snake reigns eternal.