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[b]Jonathan Corbett[/b] 
(formerly Jaoseph de Corbet), also known as [b]Johnny Rook[/b]
[b]Age:[/b] 909 / 30 (forever 31)[/center]

[b]Species:[/b] Kindred, 7th or 8th generation [b]Ventrue [/b](sources differ and Jonathan is unlikely to debunk useful mystery)

[b]Blood type:[/b] Being embraced in a time of war and at the site of a siege, has directly determined the herd he may feed upon. It has to be someone who has served as a soldier or policeman/-woman, or done bloody violence, and to a lesser extent someone who has wielded a weapon.



[hider=Personality]
[b]Personality:[/b] 
Jonathan has been around for a long time, yet does not rank as an Elder in the traditional sense. His period of ‘leave’ over the past 300 years marks him more as an Ancilla. Yes, he has his own modest powerbase and agenda, but is more focused on upholding the traditions of Camarilla. This is all tempered by his own sense of what is right and Ventrue heritage. Jonathan believes in order and privilege, things which support his unlifestyle. From his time as an Anglo-Norman knight and baron, or as Mithras’ aedile and enforcer, there are certain things he feels entitled to do, claim and own. Above all, disloyalty and vulgarity disgust him, and manners are everything.

While other Ventrue have capitalised on the changes of the modern world, swapping out feudalism and nobility for majority shares and backroom politics, Jonathan oft-times finds it hard to do so. He can be set in his ways. His expectations can be outdated or anachronistic. Indeed, power and money go hand in hand, but true power comes from strength and a sense of duty. Instead, ironically perhaps, he sees organised crime and fringe-groups like motorcycle gangs for example as a more ‘kindred’ continuation of the feudalism and patronage of his formative decades. While sympathetic to some of such outlaws, he has as yet not got into bed with them. Jonathan prefers making his own way, and seeks a level of independence while remaining loyal to the Six Traditions and the Masquerade. 

He has strayed from the Road of Kings, and dabbled gleefully in the Road of Sin, travelled extensively and met great kine and Kindred alike. While he adheres to a personal code constructed piecemeal from life and death’s experiences, Jonathan is a true Ventrue at unbeating heart with his own look on unlife, but loyal to the principles of the Masquerade. Superior beings they might be, Kindred must protect themselves from lesser ones. With an illustrious bloodline like his comes responsibility for those you claim to rule. Camarilla and the Masquerade, to Jonathan, represents security in a stratified and existential way. He upholds the latter if not necessarily the former. Jonathan himself represents an old-school vampire domain, though it is much larger than the old Rule of 1,001 Nights, officiously if not officially part of Camarilla offering some direly needed stability to volatile Los Angeles. Disappointed and disillusioned by his elders, he wants to create something of his own.
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[hider=Biography]
[b]Biography: [/b]
Born in 1111 in the night of the thirtieth of April and the first of May, also known as Walpurgis Night, Jaoseph de Corbet’s birth was auspicious. The Saint was supposed to protect against a number of infantile diseases as well as witchcraft, and indeed Jaoseph survived into adulthood in spite of skyrocketing medieval child mortality rate.

Growing up at a time when state and Church frequently clashed over jurisdiction and consolidation of (secular) power, young Jaoseph was put through the crucible that was a Norman’s upbringing. Fifty years on since William’s conquest of England, and with his son Jonathan I Beauclerc firmly ensconced upon the throne, none of the rigours of knightly training had vanished. From a young age, family values and the ideas of legacy were instilled in Jaoseph, as he was a scion of a noble house descendant of Norse settlers which then won fame for supplying one of William the Conqueror’s companions.

Beauclerc’s reign would not last forever, however, and with the death of a king and a lack of an heir apparent, England descended into chaos. The period during which Jaoseph came of age was aptly named “The Anarchy” in which England and Normandy tore themselves apart in a dynastic conflict that would last until 1153. Jaoseph, however, officially died in 1142 during the Siege of Oxford. It was not an arrow, sword or spear that lethally pierced his skin, but fangs.

Mithras had awoken after a battle was fought over his resting place in 1069, although he had not returned to London until 1085. When he returned, he found the Romans gone, replaced by the Normans and the Cainites ruled over by a triumvirate of elders. Attempts to rebuild his cult and influence initially met stiff resistance from other Cainites, but through subterfuge and manipulation, he was able to clear his path to power, eventually regaining acceptance as the lord of the Court of Avalon just as mortal society stabilized under Jonathan II in the 1150s. Mithras re-ascended as monarch of the Baronies of Avalon in 1154. It had taken him nigh on a century to reclaim pride and place.

It was during this process that Mithras and his coterie shopped around for prospects worthy to bolster their ranks. One of which they found in the Anglo-Norman Jaoseph de Corbet. Jaoseph, embraced by a childe of Marcus Verus (he himself a childe of Mithras), easily adapted to the semi-feudal society that characterised the midnight aristocracy.

Forever pushed to prove worthy of his adventurous heritage, he participated in the Second Crusade as an agent of Mithras (1147) as initiation into his new unlife and spent considerable time in Outremer and Constantinople. He even met the venerate Belisarius. In 1170 Jaoseph had returned to England to aid the alliance between the Toreador and Ventrue as to oust the Einherjar from Ireland. The attempt was only semi-successful, and he spent the following decades as an itinerant between Constantinople, Rome, Aachen, ... Later he served as an enforcer of Avalon which pitted him against political opponents like the Scottish Toreador or Mithras’ own “vassals”, as well as against the more feral Welsh Gangrel vampires or Lupines stalking the countryside. Jaoseph went on to soldier in the War of the Princes against the rebellious Angevin Toreador (starting in 1204). Operating as a go-between betwixt mortal and Kindred politics and society suited him. A first rift opened between Jaoseph and Mithras when the latter opened his privy council to vampires from across the baronies, yet left his own supporters unrewarded.

When the fifteenth century was in full swing, Jaoseph grew increasingly angry and disgruntled. The Anarch Revolt, the sundering within vampire society, the creation of Sabbat, the Convention of Thorns,… all these grated upon his nerves. When the Conspiracy of Isaac ended not in the scouring of the Giovanni from existence but rather in their elevation, Jaoseph was outraged. Mithras kept the Baronies largely out of Hardestadt’s Camarilla, though he accepted its basic tenets. The Blood Laws of Avalon came to represent the Six Traditions of Camarilla in their own way.

For Jaoseph, the damage had nevertheless been done. Mithras was losing control over his own fiefdoms, and while loyal to the Prince of London, Jaoseph started to look for something more than servitude. He was nearing an age and level of strength where he could make his own choices in Kindred culture. A first sign of this was remaining rather aloof during the tribulations wracking Mithras’ court and England as a whole in the 1500s and 1600s. Though he was pleased and involved with the 1693 Treaty of Durham which saw Ventrue supremacy established over the Toreador in Britain, Jaoseph decided to retire.

Over the next three centuries he spent time in torpor or leisurely travel, only occasionally visiting the British Isles lest he be dragged back into its political web. As such, he missed the boat during the Victorian Age quite literally, and did not set up his own territory unlike many of his peers. Even much younger vampires spread across the globe, creating fiefdoms of their own whilst he slumbered. Time and progress left him behind.

In more recent decades, specifically since the Summer of Love in 1967, Jaoseph resurfaced with renewed energy. It was time to catch up with the world. Drawn from torpor by the energy of the buzzing, sun-soaked West Coast, he set his hungry re-opened eyes on Los Angeles. A new world and future awaited, and so Jaoseph de Corbet received a much-needed update and changed into Jonathan Corbett. Another alias of his, Johnny Rook, became less known in the penthouses and exclusive clubs of L.A., but spread like whispered wildfire through the back alleys. In spite of his apparent adaptation to the times, he has had a hard time ditching his feudal and noble outlook on life.

What brings him to the City of Angels? Some echo of the old frontier spirit? The search for a manifest destiny? Legacy and a cause? A small kingdom of his own? Other than the rich hunting grounds and staking a claim for himself, does he even know? At the very least, L.A. offers a chance to build something free from the yoke of those that left him unrewarded for centuries.
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[hider=NPCs]
[b]NPCs:[/b] TBA as needed.
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[hider=Territory]
[b]Notable locations or possessions:[/b]
Jonathan landed in the Westside of L.A., making a haunt for himself in the eastern portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, north of Santa Monica itself. Largely, his sway extends outwards from the Topanga State Park. Northernmost, the Ventrue’s domain runs along Route 101, between the intersections of Route 27 and Interstate 405. In fact, one could in general terms drive along the borders of what is considered his stomping grounds by following said Route 27 south until it hits the Pacific Coast, then turn east on the Pacific Highway. It is the south and southeast where things get tricky, as that is where he shares a border with the Santa Monica Anarch baron.

Shirking up against the Voerman Twins, a clearly defined boundary was necessary. After civilised if peculiar and tiresome discussions, San Vincente Boulevard, 26th Street, Montana and Centinel Avenue, and Wilshire Boulevard demarcated the border between Voerman and Corbett territory. As such, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades comprise his preferred hunting grounds, with careful extension across Interstate 405 into the Westwood territory, as to have access to both UCLA and WLA VA Hospital. The latter supplies him with the sort of blood he needs to sustain himself with. He is very territorial where the Hospital is concerned, as it is essential to his survival and a linchpin in his existence. 

The Topanga hills, then, offers Jonathan a forested and secluded area to retreat to in case things turn sour, while the Getty Center as well as Villa allows him to indulge in his taste for art and culture. This, paired with the park visitor numbers, local demographics, Sunset Boulevard tourists and variety of country clubs assures him of a steady supply sufficiently educated and interesting company.
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Will add some more about his stances/attitudes on topics or factions.