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Name: Elizabeth Mercer
Age: 587 (turned at age 28)
Affiliation: Mercer clan (founder and matriarch)
Song: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k9TTY835fc]5 Jahre - L'Ame Immortelle[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlCZ-DakfyE]Way Down We Go - Kaleo[/url]
Background: Elizabeth was born in the 1200s to a commoners family. By the time she was turned, she was in her late 20s, with a husband by arranged marriage, whom she regarded with apathy. He was respectfully dismissive of her and she of him. They had no feelings for each other, and though he had a mistress and she stayed faithful, she really did not care, nor was it her place to care. At the time of her turning, they had been married for 10-12 years. They had a son, and should have had more children, but Elizabeth had a difficult time conceiving and carrying children. 

She was turned on a cold winters night, away from her forest village home to gather firewood. A small band of vampires had been passing through her village and one attacked her. Before they could drain Elizabeth of blood and kill her, her husband discovered them and the vampire chose to flee. Her husband brought her back home, but she was already almost dead and residual poison from the vampire's fangs was already in her. He pronounced her dead and sent their son to get the village mortician. They were fitting her for her coffin about an hour later when she revived as a vampire. In her initial confusion, she mistakenly tried to attack the mortician, and, with her newly paled skin and sharper teeth, was quickly recognized as a vampire. Her husband and the mortician drove her out and she fled into the woods. Her village was both on the hunt and on the lookout for her for the next few days, so she left them behind.

She emigrated to the nearest city, where she attempted to live under the radar and understand what she had become. She was regarded as a crazy homeless beggar woman for much of the next decade.  She managed to survive in the shadows until she worked up the mental stability and sense needed to live alongside people again.  The life of a beggar disgusted her and she yearned for something more normal, with dignity and a purpose.  All she could do was save what little money she acquired and leave for somewhere new, to live better.

Her survival wasn't easy at all.  She was homeless for years more, forced to move around as a migrant after she fed, and there was little work available to someone like her.  She was quickly growing weary of a violent, lonely, meaningless life.  One night she got her break.  She attacked a carriage, took out its master, and drove away his wife and servants.  It was then Elizabeth realized he was a man of good means, and she robbed his remains and his carriage.  She fled miles away before she felt safe to use the money.  She bought her first home in years, and in a home she found purpose, something akin to what she found while she was married - not to a husband, but to a home.  

She couldn't interact with people all that much, but she had stability and a roof over her head.  She began buying decrepit homes on the ends of villages and repaired them and sold them for a profit years later.  She cultivated flower and vegetable gardens and reminded herself what it felt like to have a purpose to nurture and protect something.  She began robbing graves instead of hunting, trying to keep her home stable.  She slowly taught herself to read and write, partially by studying words inscribed on coins.

By the time she was about 200 years old, Elizabeth had a routine of buying and selling homes and had a relatively stable, if not lackluster, life, with a faint sense of purpose.  It wasn't enough.  Everything she had was so temporary.  She still yearned for something truly meaningful.  In one unremarkable village, she found something.

~~~

In order to survive and preserve a measure of stability on the edge of human society, Elizabeth organized her clan with specific roles to avoid suspicion.  When moving from place to place, usually every seven years, Elizabeth moves the majority of her clan to a house on the outskirts of whatever large town they're residing in.  They pose as a family of coffin-makers (which they do), and Elizabeth poses as Kilroy's second wife.
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