Vampire Chronicles 01 INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by ANNE RICE
The Main Vampire Families Any characters who are not specified to be a member of a family will be listed below under miscellaneous.
Akasha's Brood
• Akasha
• Enkil
• Khayman
• Mekare
• Maharet
• Jesse
Family Tree
Amel -----------Akasha
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| |
Enkil Khayman
/ \
Maharet Mekare
|
Jesse
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Marius' Brood
• God of the Grove
• Marius
• Mael
• Armand
• Daniel
• Pandora
Family Tree
God of the Grove
|
-------------
| |
Marius Mael
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-----------
| |
Pandora Armand
|
Daniel
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Lestat's Brood
• Magnus
• Lestat
• Gabrielle
• Louis
• Nicki
• Claudia
• Madeline
• David Talbot
Family Tree
Unnamed Parisian
Child of Darkness
|
Magnus
|
Lestat
|
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| | | | |
Louis Claudia Nicki Gabrielle David
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Madeline
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Misc Vampires
• Santino
• Baby Jenks
• Azim
The Queen of the Damned Akasha's creation as the first vampire occured circa 4011 BC before the first civilizations. She was worshipped by her progeny through the ages more as a myth than a leader and was described by many names. In the most common legends She and Enkil, her spouse, are referred to as "Those Who Must be Kept."
In her mortal life Akasha originated from the city of Uruk in the Tigris and Uphrates Valley. She went to Kemet to become the bride of Enkil and Queen of the region, bringing new ideas and beliefs to the area. One of these was the banning of the custom of eating the flesh of a deceased parent, the crime for which Maharet and Mekare were taken prisoner.
She became a vampire having had her skin pierced by Amel and his entering her body. She went on to make vampires of her husband, her right hand man, Khayman, and many others of whom we hear no more, in order to aleviate the insatiable blood thirst she had acquired.
The Queen and Enkil were protected by many keepers through the centuries, among them Marius. Their bodies became completely hardened with time and they no longer needed to feed. They went into seeming trances for centuries on end. The Queen used to experience "life" in this time by occupying the minds of lesser vampires, such as Baby Jenks.
Akasha was woken again by Lestat and his music in the twentieth century, and took him as her new lover, destroying her husband.
She was destroyed herself by the Twins having wiped out the majority of the vampire population with fire.
Enkil Husband to Akasha was devoted to her and adored her. He imposed her will upon the Kingdom when she came to reign by his side in Kemet.
When she was awakened by Lestat he rose in an attempt to kill him, but was later destroyed by the Queen to whom he meant nothing.
Khayman Khayman was steward to King Enkil and Queen Akasha. He was the first experimental creation by the Queen in an attempt to lessen the bloodthirst, which took over her on becoming a vampire. He passed the Dark Trick on to the twins, Mekare and Maharet, that they might seek revenge on the King and Queen more than 6000 years later.
While the twins were imprisoned, he was forced to rape them on behalf of Enkil, who would not dishonour his wife by carrying out the punishment himself. As a result of this he fathered Miriam, the first and last mortal child of Maharet. In time this mortal lineage would produce Jesse.
Mekare the Twin Mekare, twin to Maharet, went underground, literally, awaiting the time for her revenge upon Akasha for having spread the curse of Vampirism.
At the Kings request her tongue was also cut from her head and she remained dumb evermore.
The King and Queen believed the twins to be evil for their gift of communicating with spirits.
Following the demise of Akasha, Mekare becomes the new Queen of the Damned upon consuming the heart and brain of the old Queen. The tribe from which the twins originated having the belief that a deceased person lives on through being eaten and so preserved by close friends and family members.
Maharet the Twin Maharet, twin to Mekare, was guardian of the mortal descendents of her sister. Living in a house built into the side of the Sonoma mountains, California, she kept a map and histories of all family members and was known to them all as a distant spinster aunt looking for a family to dote on.
She became mortal mother to Miriam, whose lineage produced Jesse, following a punishment rape by Khayman on the King, Enkil’s, behalf.
As a further punishment by the King and Queen she had her eyes torn out and replaced them with mortal ones
Jesse Jesse is a mortal descendant of the Twins, Maharet and Mekare.
Orphaned soon after birth she became aware of her family through the constant contact of Maharet with all descendants of her sister Mekare.
Blessed, or indeed cursed, with the ability to see and communicate with spirits, Jesse became a subject for observation by the Talamasca, and subsequently became a valued member of their society.
Her birth as a vampire arose following a near fatal attack by a Child of Darkness at Lestat's concert. Prior to this Maharet was strongly against Jesse becoming too involved with vampires or the Talamasca for fear of Jesse's own safety.
The God of the Grove Little is said about the God of the Grove.
His followers imprisoned him inside the hollowed trunk of a tree, and held sacrificial services regularly where they would feed him with humans they had taken captive. He was, naturally enough, a vampire, but was burnt badly during the time that their inquisitive keeper exposed Those Who Must be kept, Akasha and Enkil, to the sun.
As a result of his weakened state, his followers decided that they needed a ``new'' God, and to these ends ``elected''Marius, a stranger traveling through the land, to be their new leader. He was brought to the sacrificial ceremony and the God of the Grove transformed him into a vampire.
Now, no longer needed, the God was destroyed by his followers, but not before he warned Marius that he must escape. And here endeth the brief appearance of the God of the Grove.
Marius the Keeper Marius is the Keeper of "Those Who Must be Kept", Akasha and Enkil.
His story is told in full by himself in "The Vampire Lestat", reference: VII Ancient Magic, Ancient Mysteries" pp 399 - 538, and "Marius's Story" from p 431.
Born to imortality "in the years of Augustus Caesar", at the turning point of eras, he says that he has the capability to look at things from a new angle, as is Lestat. he believes that this is why he has survived so long, where vampire law decrees he should have gone mad and killed himself, or been killed out of mercy.
Marius is of Celtic descent, with blue eyes and fair hair. He is tall and "more finely made than other men". He was lover to Pandora and later master to Armand.
He was made a vampire to replace the God of the Grove following the exposure of Those Who Must be Kept to the sun by their then keeper, who just wanted to see what would happen. What happened was that all vampires, having originated from Akasha, were burned equally, but they being weaker than she were maimed more severely.
On escaping the Grove after the ritualistic festival conducted in his honour, Marius went to Egypt to fing the King and Queen and became their new protector. A position he did not look back on until the Queen began to "live" again.
Armand Armand was no more than a boy when he was made by Marius. He had been the mortal companion of Marius for many years before he was finally made, but finally, the pair were attacked and the deed could be put off no longer.
Believing Marius to be dead, Armand fled to Paris where he became leader of his own coven, though none of the group were his children, having sworn that he would never use the Dark Trick.
In Paris, he encountered the newly born Lestat, whom he immediately fell into a love/hate relationship with.
Later he moved to the Theatre des Vampires, having been encouraged to abandon the crypts and to make the most of his imortality, by Lestat.
Daniel -- the interviewer Daniel was the interviewer of "Interview With the Vampire" fame.
Following his introduction to the world of the vampires courtesy of Louis, he became a friend of Armand’s, later being made a vampire by him when his human life was in danger due to ill health brought on by alcoholism and living rough in an attempt to escape Armand and the hold he had over Daniel.
He is reckless and cheerful, and is constantly enthralled and amused by what he has become. His experiences drove him half crazy before he finally allowed himself to be transformed, and he carries this insanity with him into the World of Darkness.
His character is wonderfully innocent. He feels no fear, or paranoia, and has no guilt about the need to kill. After a miserable mortality he is experiencing all that immortality has to offer him and enjoying it to the best of his ability.
Pandora Pandora was the mortal lover of Marius, keeper of Akasha and Enkil. She believed herself to be the reincarnation of a vampire who had been destroyed by fire, but whose ashes had not been properly scattered. She cajoled Marius into allowing her to drink from Those Who Must be Kept to allow her to be fully reincarnated as a vampire.
She and Marius lived together in Antioch for 200 years together, before finally Pandora left him.
As with the oldest and most powerful vampires, Pandora has the power of flight.
Mad Magnus
Magnus stole the Dark Trick from a Parisian Vampire. He was an outcast, having not been properly made, in accordance with the Laws of the Vampires. He spent his lifetime trying to find a blonde beautiful male to pass the trick on to before committing suicide by leaping into a bonfire and commanding his child to scatter his ashes.
Lestat was the mortal he finally chose to make immortal. In his tower Lestat saw the corpses of many similar looking young men, who had been killed and left to rot by Magnus, having decided that they weren't suitable for his needs afterall.
Lestat de Lioncourt Lestat was Born to Darkness courtesy of Magnus.
He is the father of Claudia, Gabrielle, Nicki and Louise.
A self-acknowledged imp, he was responsible for the dissolution of the Paris coven, with which he clashed in his first year as a vampire, thereby earning both the hatred and love of the coven leader, Armand.
He was also partly to blame for the awakening of Akasha ,in the late 1980s, when he decided to become a rock star and chose as the subject of several of his songs the legend of Those Who Must be Kept.
He is the main character in all of the chronicles, and narrator of two and most of another. It's speculated that, in physical appearance at least, he's modeled on Stan Rice, Anne's poet husband.
Gabrielle -- Mortal Mother of Lestat Gabrielle was unhappy as a mortal. She felt stifled in the role of wife and mother and wished for an independence that women of her time were not afforded. For this reason she doted on Lestat, her impetuous, angry son, and did all she could to help him achieve his goals. To an extent she experienced life through him.
Falling seriously ill, her final act is to give him her jewels to be used as his fare to Paris, on the condition that he write to her regularly to tell her of life in the city.
Lestat admires his mother's strength and loves her dearly, which is what makes it so difficult for him when he hears that she is finally dying.
His repayment for all his mother did for him is finally to give her eternity to live as she never had a chance to while mortal. Gabrielle as an imortal is urgent and excited. She is determined not to waste a moment of her time and is always busy. Nothing is beyond her simply because she won't let anything be beyond her. She is surely the strongest character in the Chronicles.
Louis Pointe du Lac Louis was a Plantation owner in Louisianna. He describes himself as being a 25 year old man when Lestat made him a vampire in 1791. His mortal family consisted of a dead father, a younger brother, Paul, and a mother and sister, of whom we hear little. Louis' claim to fame is that he remains the most "human" of all the vampires throughout. He is the father of Claudia, though not by choice, and also, later, of Madeline, Claudia's doting companion. Louis, for the most part, turns his back on his gifts, choosing to continue his life in as mortal a fashion as he can. He despises the taking of life and is furious when he finds out only after he has been made to take human blood that he could as easily have fed from animals.
David Talbot David Talbot, Superior General of the Talamasca, first appeared in Queen of the Damned, when he attended Lestat's concert in San Francisco. Later on, Lestat started to visit him, tempting him with immortality, which he steadfastly refused.
He played a major role in Tale of the Body Thief. In the course of the book, while helping Lestat to recover his vampire body from Raglan James, his spirit was inadvertantly transferred from his own seventy year-old frame into the body of a young man. In this form, Lestat gave him the Dark Blood against his will.
THE TALAMASCA Investigators of the Paranormal
We watch
And are always here.
London Amsterdam Rome
The Talamasca, meaning "Animal Mask" from the Latin, are a secret society, set up, as their calling card says, to watch the paranormal in action. The name Talamasca was also an old term to describe a witch or a shaman. Their basements are filled with records of phenomena such as Witches, Spirits, and Werewolves and of course Vampires. Welcoming people with paranormal powers to visit them, occasionally they become aware of individuals with particularly strong powers, these people are investigated and offered a place with their group, but are not obliged to accept the position, though almost invariably they will.
The Talamasca demand complete obedience, loyalty and devotion from their members.
Relevant Talamasca Members
• Jesse
• Aaron Lightner
• Raglan James
• David Talbot
The Laws of the Vampires as revealed to Armand by Santino
ONE
That each coven must have its leader and only he might order the working of the Dark trick upon a mortal, seeing that the methods and the rituals were properly observed.
TWO
That the Dark Gifts must never be given to the crippled, the maimed, or to children, or to those who cannot, even with the Dark Powers survive on their own. Be it further understood that all mortals who would receive the Dark Gifts should be beautiful in person so that the insult to God might be greater when the trick is done.
THREE
That never should an old vampire work this magic lest the blood of the fledgling be too strong. For all our gifts increase naturally with age and the old ones have too much strength to pass on. Injury, burning -- these catastrophes, if they do not destroy the Child of Satan will only increase his powers when he is healed. Yet Satan guards the flock from the powers of old ones, for almost all, without exception go mad.
In this particular, let Armand observe that there was no vampire then living who was more than 300 years old. No one alive then could remember the first Roman coven. The devil frequently calls his vampires home.
But let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indominatable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.
FOUR
That no vampire may ever destroy another vampire, except that the coven master has the power of life and death over all of his flock. And it is further his obligation to lead the old ones and the mad ones into the fire when they can no longer serve Satan as they should. It is his obligation to destroy all vampires who are not properly made. It is his obligation to destroy all those who are so badly wounded that they cannot survive on their own. And it is his obligation finally to seek the destruction of all outcasts and all those who have broken these laws.
FIVE
That no vampire shall ever reveal his true nature to a mortal and let the mortal live. No vampire must ever reveal the history of the vampires to a mortal and let the mortal live. No vampire must commit to writing the history of the vampires or any true knowledge of vampires lest such a history be found by mortals and believed. And a vampire's name must never be known to mortals, save from his tombstone, and never must any vampire reveal to mortals the location of his or any other vampire's lair.
The mortal characters of the chronicles
• Paul de Pointe du Lac (Louis' brother)
• Louis' sister
• Babette Freniere
• Aaron Lightner
• David Talbot
• Raglan James
• Gretchen