Bishop J.W.Ghoren

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That our Spear has many different points does not worry me;
nay, it gives me hope that we may continue to serve as many mortals as possible.
-- Bishop Ghoren, from "On Our Covenant of Faith - a Call to Pastors"



ghorenmidbw.jpg
Bishop J.W. Ghoren
(photographed by Mae Kalwaic, US2007049881)

Name: J.W. Ghoren
Clan: Gangrel
Location: Delaware - the Requiem of the First Capital
Titles:

Status: LS 4, DE 5 (4+1), Gangrel 3
Faction: Unifiers
Creed: His Own (see below)
Societies/Packs:

Former Titles:

  • Rector of the Diocesan Dialectic, 10/14/2006-10/15/2007
  • Inquisitor for various bishops' Inquisitions, 1985-2005
  • Crusader under various calls for Crusade, 1985-2005

Concept: Government Infiltrator
Date of Embrace: July 12, 1955


Public Information

All of this information can be taken as IC for characters who are familiar with Ghoren.

Physical description: Eastern European, with dark hair, eyes and features. Embraced in his late forties while growing out a beard, and rarely inclined to shave, he usually looks a bit scruffy. 5'10". Recently, Ghoren has seemed unusually at-peace, and to those not truly scrutinizing him (or using Auspex), he appears more robustly alive than most humans (high humanity).

Attire: Ghoren usually wears simple clothes - slacks and a purple scrub top over a t-shirt. "Dressing up" for Ghoren usually means throwing on an old purple sweater, or else wearing his vestments through the entire event. Among Kindred, Ghoren wears a simple preacher's robe (light, black graduation-style robe) along with a Lancea Cross pin to make clear his role in society. During services, he also dons a skull-cap and pastoral stole, both purple to signify his station in the LS.

Known History: Ghoren was relatively unknown but to random Sanctified around the south- and mid-west, where he spent many years wandering and questioning following escape from his sire's bondage. He is next known to have show up in Delaware in 2006, proclaiming himself Acting Bishop in the wake of a fire that killed half of that domain, including Roberto del Telo, a Sanctified of note, and two of Ghoren's coterie. That fire was set by Isaac Sheol, who had been Bishop but lost control to his Beast in the aftermath of the Fire.

Since the fire, Ghoren has worked to quickly become versed in the Testament and how best to present it to the faithful, ministering quickly and well to a growing congregation, and the domain. He has also worked to stabilize the domain, forming a partnership with the First Estate and prosecuting a Crusade against the Bestial former Bishop. That Crusade was completed on 24 August, 2006, in Ghoren's church in Dover, DE. Following its conclusion, the Diocese has settled into orderliness and continued Ascendancy in the Domain.

Utilizing the pulpit of his bishopric, Ghoren has also become highly involved outside the domain, offering numerous sermons to the wider Sanctified and calling frequently for Unity of the Church and for focus on its concerns. He has also founded a society for discussion and development of pastoral techniques, the Diocesan Dialectic, and taken responsibility for building up the LS Hub of Knowledge at Halen Novitiate begun in 2006 by Cardinal de Bethune. Finally, he teaches at the Novitiate, and through a partnership between it and the Dialectic, has compiled the Pastor Resource Database, an unequalled online resource for Sanctified clergy.

Lineage: Ghoren's sire was a Mortifier (or perhaps just a brutal Sanctified) from the upper midwest, called Father Joachim. (Name subject to change if I find a PC or NPC sire for Ghoren.) Regarding childer, Ghoren is known never to have sired.


Background Information

This information can be taken as IC for characters who would have a way of knowing it, though most is unknown save a few of Ghoren's exploits between his Sire's bondage and his arrival in Delaware. It's public knowledge, though, for those who dig into it.

  • 23 June, 1919 - Record of Ship Fare: "W. Ghoren" leaves Odessa, bound for New York Harbor, aboard the Mirenslenka.
  • March 1929 - Ghoren's name appears on a log of administrative aides and interns in the office of Governor Franklin Roosevelt of NY.
  • 14 November, 1937 - "Jonathan Warren Ghoren" appears on a list of persons taking the Oath of Citizenship at a ceremony in Newark, NJ.
  • December 1941 - Ghoren named Assistant Director for Project Development in the Works Progress Administration, after having served Roosevelt well once again as part of the team that set up the SSA and oversaw its first few years in operation.
  • June 1945 - Following years of watching Ghoren advise FDR on dealings with the Soviets, Truman moves Ghoren to the State Department, as the Assistant Undersecretary of Soviet Bloc Affairs. He remains in the position under Eisenhower.
  • 12 July, 1955 - Ghoren is Embraced in Washington, D.C. and taken to his sire's home in Wisconsin to pay for the crime that precipitated his Embrace.
  • 1955 to 1985 - Few know Ghoren exists, save his sire's Prince and his sire himself, who keeps him restrained at almost all times, for one lunar year of torment per victim of Ghoren's final crime.
  • April-August 1985 - Ghoren seeks out the Kindred of Wisconsin, hoping to find some solace and learn some easy ways to get blood. One way he finds is the Vitae Salon operated by Trent Rowen, which Ghoren visited several times while getting his bearings, and before leaving the area of his captivity. There, he also interacted timidly and briefly with Trance Devin and Cassandra Carter. He would meet all three again, later in unlife.
    • In the salon, Ghoren was generally quiet but proved a forceful debater when certain topics aroused his interest, generally having to do with the Testament - of which he'd known exclusively for so long - or the US Government - of which he was 30-years' starved for current information. Around late August, certain other young Sanctified cornered him, shortly after he made fools of them before others. For "taking easy blood and ignoring our Purpose," they ran Ghoren out of the Domain.
  • 1985 to 2006 - Released from bondage, Ghoren wanders between domains in the South- and Midwest, questioning his faith and his Embrace. He settles for at most six months in each town, spending less time in towns with more Kindred, except where he can make himself useful to local Bishops, usually as an Inquisitor or Crusader.
  • August 1987 - Ghoren meets traveling Legate Juan Carlos Damian de Iturbide y Santa Anna as he's passing through Kenton, Ohio, and both agree to help the local Bishop recover a priest who had gone missing. Ghoren and Juan-Carlos grew close over the week it took to find him, but they parted ways again afterward, each nomad pulled in his own direction. They would meet up again almost two decades later...
  • October, 1996 - Ghoren crosses paths with another Legate, Caleb, whose message he helped to deliver by keeping Legatus Caleb from the snarling fangs of werewolves pissed at the pair's intrusion on their territory. They had already found much in common before being attacked; surviving together created a bond that has lasted through the more than ten years since.
  • April, 2006 - Ghoren arrives in Delaware, joining a coterie with two other Kindred there.
  • June, 2006 - Ghoren is Annointed Bishop of Delaware following the former Bishop's total loss of control to his Beast.
  • 28 June, 2006 - Ghoren declares a Crusade to bring down former Bishop Isaac Sheol and Apostate John 'Dover' 'Delaware'.
  • 24 August, 2006 - John repents, staking and delivering Isaac to Ghoren's church. Not long after, Isaac is destroyed, bringing both Crusades to an end.
  • 1 September, 2006 - Ghoren is chosen as Priscus by the Gangrel of Delaware, nominated by several and opposed only by one - who had sought the position for herself.
  • 15 September, 2006 - Ghoren annoints three Sanctified in his Diocese: a priest, a deacon and a legate to help him carry out the mission of the Sanctified of Delaware.
  • 14 October, 2006 - Founds The Diocesan Dialectic, Annointed as Rector by Cardinals de Béthune (consecrator) and DuMont (co-consecrator) in Keizersberg Abbey in Belgium.
  • 16 December, 2006 - Ghoren is finally Annointed to his role as Bishop, by Archbishop Rui Romero Fernandez, witnessed by Jonah and Bishop Hedwig Schindler of Hampton, VA.
  • 20-25 January, 2007 - Ghoren studies at Halen Novitiate with Cardinal Mackenzie DuMont, mastering two new rituals and contributing the dozens of works he'd collected to the Hub of Knowledge there.
  • 21 February, 2007 - Ghoren, along with Bishop Gabriel Lucien of Canada and H.E. Mackenzie Cardinal DuMont, Annoints his friend Juan Carlos de Damian y Santa Anna as the first Provincial Supervisior of the Congregatio Professio Legatarius, a society proposed by him to professionalize Legates within the LS.
  • 22 February, 2007 - Along with the other Respected members of his domain, Ghoren is stabbed by a Dagger of the VII. Haunted by visions and beset with pain, he nonetheless survives, all discomfort fading after just a few days.
  • 15 October, 2007 - Having overseen the first year of The Diocesan Dialectic's growth as a society to serve LS Pastors, Ghoren steps down and takes office as the society's Dean of Resources to continue his work with the Hub of Knowledge and PRD.
  • November 2007-February 2008 - Ghoren disappears, thought by many to have been silenced by Luther Fried or his followers, but re-emerges in Delaware in March, seeming changed in various ways, and somewhat sullen.
  • 9-10 May, 2008 - Ghoren attends the Cleveland Synod and presides over Mass at the Grand Gathering of Kindred in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • 20 August 2008 - Ghoren participates in the Atlantic City Synod regarding the alleged crimes of former Bishop Sirith Kailon, arguing forcefully for the young Sanctified's further education rather than torture or torpor. The Synod ultimately Laicizes Sirith for one year and places him in Ghoren's charge for continued instruction.
  • September-December 2008 - Ghoren shuttles back and forth between Delaware and Halen Novitiate in Belgium every other week, overseeing a restoration of numerous volumes in Halen by Kindred book-binder Non-ame.
  • 26 January 2009 - Ghoren attends a gathering in Atlantic City, at the Temple there. When an angry mob screaming about the devil and evil inside came upon the building, he went out to deal with it. Ghoren held them up, and they dispersed after the Bishop dove into the mob to keep its leader from shooting himself in the head in the yard of the temple. With nobody harmed, the mob then dispersed while Ghoren reported to the Dominus and Cardinal DuMont.


Ecclesiastic Works

Apostolica

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Ghoren Offers Mass at USCC 2008

Ecclesia

Other Works


Creed

Used in his own Masses, Ghoren does not demand that other Delaware Sanctified recite or follow his Creed. Based upon the Monachal creed, Ghoren thinks of it as a Communal Creed, reflecting his beliefs in shared Purpose among the Damned.


I believe in One, All-Powerful God, Creator of All Things seen and unseen.


I believe in the Word, His only Son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit to redeem Man from Sin through His death and resurrection, which brought about a new and everlasting Covenant between God and Man.


I believe in the Spear of Destiny, forged in the fires of history and set with the Purpose of revealing the divinity of the Word, and wielded with Purpose by a Centurion destined to reveal a new purpose for the world's Damned.


I believe that Longinus, for a life of sin, was chosen for a revelatory role in the Passion that set the World ablaze in the Spirit of the Word, and that through his final acts of sin, he was cursed to a Damned unlife.


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I believe that Longinus wandered and suffered with his curse, but through Revelation from the Angel Vahishtael did come to understand the Purpose of the Damned on earth, and his mission to charge them with it. I believe that he took a single Childe, the Monachus, to help him spread the Word of the Damned and collect the first Dark Apostles


I believe that the Damned are the agents of God's will, chosen to receive the Embrace that we may test mankind and reveal the divinity within each of them. For our sins we are deserving of Hell, and yet through the Damnation of the Requiem, we may continue to find purpose in God's Holy Plan.


I believe in the Dark Miracles of the Sanctified, that they were shown to the Damned at Thebes by the angel Amoniel. I believe that we are to use and teach the Miracles with restraint and respect, for they are Holy.


I believe that the Danse we move to can be boon or bane to the fulfillment of our Holy Purpose, and that His Plan for us is best realized in our cooperation and peaceful co-execution of it. Working together, Sanctified can show Damned the Dark Path and all Damned may drive Mortals to His Light.


I believe the Damned have a unique relationship with Sin, cursed and charged to take the blood of men yet scourged by a Beast fed by every indulgence of our own wickedness, and that we must endeavor to master Sin, recognizing the effect of our Sins and using them only as a tool to serve our Purpose.


I believe that the End of Days will come, when all souls shall be judged by the Word, and that our dutiful service to Him as Damned until then may help to make us worthy of His infinite mercy, for which we are unworthy to ask.


In-Character Quotes on/by Ghoren

Feel free to add on anything you/your character has heard publicly said about Ghoren, or anything your character wants to say.

  • "Polite, and well articulated points. Bishop Ghoren shouldst be looked to by other Bishops as a fine example." - H.E. Valeron Mayne Cardinal Belotto,


  • "It speaks well of thee to support an ailing Brother, yet an ill-advised course it is in this circumstance to dismiss this as a simple arguement 'pon the leadership of a Diocese or See. The issues carries a far greater weight." - H.E. Valeron Mayne Cardinal Belotto, regarding Ghoren's defense of "Cardinal" Luther Fried.


  • "Jesus did not ask for men to worship Him. He asked men to live as he did and to be as he was - selfless. And no mortal church or religion has a corner on leading men to selflessness. Plenty of Christian and Catholic parishes are dysfunctional, while as many or more Synagogues, Mosques and Libraries show men the way to that heaven.
    "God's completion of men is a job we certainly have no chance at helping in. Man must find his way to selflessness and God on his own, with the help of beings far greater than we - such as Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, Aquinas, Aristotle ... you get the point. Man's salvation is not in our hands - it is in the hands of Man and God. We are neither of these. Our duty is not to show them the way to Heaven, but simply to make sure that they are looking for it and not reveling in what we represent - the sin, and the darkness."     - Bishop Ghoren, from Dark Grandeur: Our Role in the Completion of Men, a sermon.


  • "Finally, I like you Brother Ghoren. There is just no getting around that, despite your best efforts. I think, once you find the best way to serve the Lance, you will be a formidable proponent for your holy mission." - Grandmaster Thomas Knowlton of the Ordo Praesidium Sanctum


  • "The Father General has answered with all the dignity I would expect from him, and I thank him for that, but I still want to understand Mr. Ghoren himself. I find him to be quite the interesting little conundrum." - Eve Vampire, Respected Crone


  • "Wow... that was quite... alot. Well spoken, opinionated, but well spoken. I think I like you." - Acolyte Dr. Gabriel Roth, Ph.D, responding to Ghoren on the Requiem world-wide list.


Rumors and Dastardly Lies

Feel free to post anything you may have heard about Ghoren IC.

  • In life, Ghoren had a hand in the downfall of Senator McCarthy in the 50s.
  • Ghoren's most cherished posession is a copy of the Testament left to him by a guest.
  • Ghoren's most prized posession is his Social Security card, which he is never without.
  • Ghoren operates a "traveling Mass show" that leaves church carpets sticky.
  • Ghoren hid the truth about the death of John 'Delaware' 'Dover' from the Domain, the Sanctified and even his Family, and did likewise following the death of another Gangrel in DE, Catalina.
  • Ghoren has several prized trinkets, one from each final death he has had a hand in. John's necklace, Catalina's dagger, Issac's Rosary, and Senator McCarthy's cufflinks.
  • Ghoren is secretly a Carthian infiltrator, collecting LS knowledge not for LS but in continuation of his life-long duty to the Party.
  • Though schedule changes made him unable to attend, Ghoren was the only Sanctified personally invited by Archbishop Joachin Mendoza to sit on the Houston Synod regarding leadership of the Sanctified in Hawaii.
  • Ghoren is a follower not of his professed Communal Creed but of the mysterious Béthunian Creed.
  • Despite a reputation as one of the LS's most open-minded bishops, in secret Ghoren is highly intolerant of both Dragons and Acolytes.
  • Ghoren is just waiting for the opportunity to betray the Invictus and establish an LS-Carthian partnership in DE.
  • He is conspiring to take over the Praxis of the newly-formed Domain of Philadelphia, even if he does claim only to represent the interests of LS representation.
  • He is maneuvering the Invictus of DE and the Carthians of Philadelphia toward war.
  • Ghoren publicly clawed a young clanmate across the face (among Kindred) for the insult of needlessly losing control and killing a mortal while visiting a neighboring Domain.
  • He is competing with Bishop Cromwell of Columbus over the very ecclesiastic soul of the young, new Bishop of Philadelphia.
  • Ghoren was attacked and kidnapped in late 2007 by Luther Fried or agents working for him.
  • Ghoren disappeared for months in early 2008, mourning several losses. Most especially, though, it was the loss of mentor Noel Marcelet that sent Ghoren over the edge.
  • Bishop Noel Marcelet was more than a close ally and mentor of Ghoren's... he was a paramour, with whom Ghoren shared a last tryst during a joint visit to Halen Novitiate in early October 2007.
  • Following the disappearance of Lucas Desmet, Ghoren has demanded of the Belgian Sanctified that he be checked with on all matters regarding Halen Novitiate.
  • Bishop Ghoren is dead, killed by Luther Fried in November 2007, and replaced in 2008 with an impostor seeking to spread the Reformationist Doctrine to Delaware.
  • Following his time away, Ghoren returned to Delaware newly sharpened in his opinions on outsiders... to the chagrin of Delaware's new Crone members.
  • After peacefully taking the "Shogunate" of Delaware from Mme. Prince Fujita Bayushi Komiko, the self-styled Empress of the Jade Throne, Ghoren intends to solidify power and take the full Praxis.
  • Ghoren has spoken to those closest to him of visions seen during his recent wanderings. Two in particular seem to harry him: in one, he sees the whole Delaware Valley stretched out before him... under him; in another, a dark figure in an ancient sarcophagus bears a curse more ancient than its understanding.


Character Ties

Sire Tie: If anyone plays or knows of a Gangrel Mortifier who lived in the upper midwest around 20-50 years ago, by all means please hook me up.

General Ties: I'm still looking for ties for Ghoren from when he roamed the mid- and south-west between 1985 and 2006. He wandered and generally avoided other Kindred, but was also a bit of a mercenary for any Sanctified in need where he passed through. Email me if interested in a tie.

Childer Ties: Sorry, SOL there... Ghoren will never sire unless some agent or circumstance literally forces him to do so; the Commandments of Longinus are too deeply ingrained after his sire's decades of painful instruction.


Inspirational Quotes

Try, wearing your insides out

I won't even try
 I know I have seen the best I'll have
 I don't even try
 Clouds are coming, The air gets heavy
It looks like trouble on a rainy day
 Sun starts sinking, Can't see my shadow
It looks like trouble on a rainy day
Holes uncovered, Walls will crumble
It all spells trouble on a rainy day.

- Guster, "Rainy Day"



A man's called a traitor, or a liberator.
 A rich man's a thief or a philanthropist.
 Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?
 It's all in which label is able to persist.
 There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities,

So we act as though they don't exist!
- The Wizard, from Wicked (the Musical)



Plan? Plan?! No...
 You can't plan sincerity, you've got to make it up on the spot.
- Wm. Shatner as Denny Crane on Boston Legal



Can we rise

Can we get along alright
Can we miss the storm that sucked the whole world in
And the boats went out at night
And the choppers in the sky
They searched but they could find no trace of us

....

The thunder struck the clouds appeared
Our fearless crew was not prepared
And pretty soon the boats came for us
half a million strong
We gathered arms and fired shells
We built a wall around ourselves
Pretty soon the spirit was a lot like what it used to be back home

So far away, from everyone
and everything starts to[night]

Let's keep it together
Can we keep it together
We're singing a new song now

And everything starts to[night] :-)
-Guster, "Keep it Together," from Keep It Together



I am a uniter, not a divider.
-US President George W. Bush (Shrub II)



A house divided against itself cannot stand.
-US President Abraham Lincoln



Ghoren's Playlist

Feel Free to add to this list if there's a song that makes you think of Ghoren.

  • Guster: "Rainy Day," from Lost and Gone Forever
  • Guster: "The New Underground" and "The Captain," from Ganging up on the Sun
  • Guster: "Keep It Together," from Keep it Together
  • Fleetwood Mac: "I'm So Afraid," from The Dance
  • Lindsay Buckingham: "Go Insane," from Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits
  • Diary of Dreams: "Blind in Darkness" (Tremere theme from "The Succubus Club" Soundtrack)
  • Idina Menzel: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished," from the Wicked Original Cast Recording
  • Fleetwood Mac (Christine McVie): "Oh, Daddy" (where Daddy = God)
  • Rufus Wainwright: "In a Graveyard" and "Evil Angel," from Poses


Character Inspirations

Ghoren sprang to life exclusively from my own head, but has since been influenced by:

  • The Wizard, from Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
  • Denny Crane, from ABC's Boston Legal (as portrayed by William Shatner)
  • Comrade Comissar Danilov, from Enemy at the Gates, the story of Soviet hero Vasilly Zeitzef
  • Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis (inspires much of Ghoren's religious philosophy)


Approvals/Approval Items

  • USA-EC-LR-0606-58464 - LS Status 3, Approved 6/17/06.
  • USA-EC-LR-0701-68201 - Sanctity (Theban Sorcery Lvl. 2 Ritual - reduced from High to Low approval by proxy 1/20/2007)
  • USA-EC-LR-0701-68202 - Spear of Faith (Theban Sorcery Lvl. 4 Ritual - reduced from High to Low approval by proxy 1/20/2007)
  • USA-EC-LR-0702-68623 - LS Status 4, Approved 3/8/07.
  • USA-EC-LR-0811-100913 - Gangrel Status 3, Approved 11/30/08.
  • USA-EC-LR-0811-100910 - Flesh of Iron (Devotion), Approved 11/30/08.


Player Information

Player Name: Matthew McGowan
Camarilla #: US 2006 05 7789
Domain: US-EC-DE-001-D
Other:


Go to the LS Diocese of Delaware page.

Go to the "Where Darkness Falls" Domain Wiki

Go to the Where Darkness Falls Domain Webpage.

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