PC Lucretia

Name:
Sister Judith Lucretia

As Portrayed By:
Allison

Sire:
Cardinal Formosus

Clan:
Lasombra

Alignment:
Sabbat

Domain:
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

Info:
Sister Judith Lucretia was not always a woman of the habit. She was once a precocious young girl from the village of Polička, whose baptismal name has long been forgotten. What would have been a simple life of subsistence farming was marred by frequent hystero-epileptic attacks. Each bout accompanied by visions and voices that Judith eventually understood to be that of God. Her parents attempted to keep the condition hidden, but increasing frequency made such a feat difficult, with trepidatious neighbors whispering of the girl’s charism.

It was during such an attack, at the age of 13, that Judith received her first stigmata — gaping wounds upon the palms of her hands. They did not bleed, staying open and uninfected for seven days and seven nights. Nestled into the foothills of the Carpathians, Polička seemed far removed from the rest of Bohemia. Yet during Judith’s display of religious ecstasy, the village felt akin to the center of the universe. Those who were once merely neighbors began to revere the young woman, holding her aloft as their own folk saint.

The stigmata continued in bouts but never repeated — scars along the hairline, a scourged back, bruised wrists, or indented feet. Yet pilgrims traveled from neighboring regions to visit the young woman. The local Order of Canons Regular grew uneasy with the following that Judith had accrued, yet feared the backlash of disproving the validity of her miraculous affliction. Instead, in an attempt to subtly defuse the cult of personality, they offered to bring Judith under the tutelage of the Church. Her parents readily agreed once monetary compensation was mentioned.

Arriving at the Convent of St. Agnes in the shadows of the astronomical clock in Prague’s Old Town, the young farm girl turned folk saint made quick friends with the other nuns. Judith found a sense of afore unknown freedom even in the gilded cage of the convent. It was here that she would officially take the monastic name of Sister Lucretia, inspired by Lucrezia Borgia, governess of the papal court of Spoleto and daughter to Pope Alexander VI.

As time passed, Judith found her work at the convent to be dull and unfulfilling. Furthermore, her sisters seemed detached from the assured conviction of her own, instead preferring to revel in rote prayer. Yet blind faith was not enough for Judith, as she had been privy to the religious ecstasy one can only feel when touched by God himself. Judith’s insistence on an active and engaged god, coupled with her borderline heretical questions, led her afoul of the prioress. The result was more chores and an unspoken shunning by her peers.

Years spent within the walls of St. Agnes would finally bear fruit for Judith. In the throes of an epileptic fit, she experienced the visitation of the fifth Precious Wound of Christ — a gaping wound below her right breast. The wound did not bleed. Rather, it smelled of roses, attracting those passing by. The pseudo sainthood that she had experienced in Polička took hold once more, this time amongst the women of the nunnery. Elevated to reverence, Judith began to teach the sisters her own — much different — vision of God. Unfortunately for Judith, her teachings ascended through the convent hierarchy with too much zeal. Her popular conviction made her a natural target of opposition for the Archbishop Geza.

Unlike the friars from the Order of Canons Regular, the Archbishop cared little for the opinions of the uneducated. He immediately moved to have Sister Lucretia’s miracle disproven by priests from the loyal Order of St. Leopold. They ultimately proved unwilling to dismiss the stigmata as quickly, and found themselves faced with a potential miracle. The failure of these holy men enraged the Archbishop, who lashed out by charging Judith with desecration of the Eucharist — witchcraft. He personally stood in judgement during her trial, which amounted to little more than torture and a brief imprisonment. When Judith refused to recant her experiences or name her accomplices, the Archbishop sought closure. Despite such trials having been banned by Maria Theresa herself a mere forty years prior, Archbishop Geza saw himself and the Holy Roman Empire as above the Habsburg monarchy. It was decreed that Sister Lucretia would be thrown from Charles Bridge — or old Judith Bridge — and into the waters of the Vltava River. If indeed she was a witch, it was reasoned that she would float, as the water would reject her unbaptized body and prevent submerging. When the night came, Sister Lucretia did not float. She immediately pierced the icy waters and was never seen again.

In the abyssal depths of the Vltava River, Sister Lucretia felt her body seize from the cold and her lungs filled until heavy. It was there in the pitch black waters, her body convulsing, that she finally understood the voices and visions for what they were — not God, but something older... something primordial. Abandoned by her God, executed by His disciples, Sister Lucretia sank into the cold arms of death. But just as quickly as her revelation came on, she felt herself tugged upon, once more breaching the surface of the water. Through chilled fluttering eyelids she saw flashes of a grim man in a cassock pull her onto the shore some ways downstream. The pain he wrought was intense — and exquisite. The warm fluid which thereafter filled her mouth and coated her throat was unlike anything she had tasted before. Her veins burned with divinity, and she was reborn.

Sister Lucretia awoke to her life eternal in the city of Vienna, a previously unthinkable trek across the border from her native Bohemia. Her savior, her Sire, Cardinal Formosus explained her newborn circumstances, gifting her domain in the mercy hospital attached to his own Cathedral of St. Stephen. There she feeds from — and toys with — the sick and infirm that fill the beds. Schooled in the Path of Night, Sister Lucretia breaks the will of the weak and dissolves the faith of the simple. Paradoxically she scourges herself nightly, hoping to reclaim the ecstasy of connection she lost. But here, in her new parish, she is known by the name Judith, partly after the Bohemian bridge that led her over and into the Abyss, but also after the deuterocanonical figure who used her beauty and charm to collect the decapitated head of her people’s oppressor.

Now she seeks the long detached skull of the pious musician — an undeclared cephalophore's binding fetter — in hopes that their mastery over the Music of the Spheres can, even in death, call forth and bind those of the celestial chorus. Through this Enochian ritae, Sister Judith Lucretia and her sire hope to diablerize an angel, granting them entry to Paradise so that God himself — the usurping demiurge — may be destroyed. To bring about eternal night, to plunge Creation once more into euphoric darkness. No pain, no suffering... nothing.