Danielle Washington
Danielle Washington
Overview
Mama is a Gangrel who is Oakland born-and-raised who spent some time in her formative years of unlife in Montreal first, a follower of the Path of Caine. She's focused on disciplining the Bay Area Sabbat into a more careful tribe in the wake of the digital age. She is a firm believer in using the Ritae to unite the Sabbat across all of its idologies. She started a rebranding of the local Sabbat as 'family' because she believes very strongly in solid, nuclear units as a societal building-block. She's very strict about the importance of the Silence Of The Blood (the Sabbat version of the Masquerade).
Among the Anarchs
Archbishop Washington is more informally known to the Anarchs as just Mama. Some say not dropping her real name is to keep her (animal) spies from reporting what they say about her. Others say it's mostly her brand: she considers vampires various levels of 'family.' Mama and her 'children' have called enough anarchs 'Cousins' for the Anarchs to get the picture that we aren't enemies. That doesn't keep the Sabbat from trying to drag them to their rituals and convert or 'adopt' them, but, at least they can rest easy that Mama looks down on Caine-freaks 'killing the nonbelievers' as "wasting potential".
The Sabbat and the Anarchs tend to get along more or less, if awkwardly, with skirmishes and spats that are mostly pack-vs-gang squabbles. The only real trouble from Mama is that she's just as bad as the Tower about deciding that we're somehow in her jurisdiction. One night, it's Winder breathing down your neck and demanding your participation in Court. The next, it's some wild-eyed doomsday zealot trying to drag you to Esbat.
Among the Camarilla
'Mama' is a name any Anarch can tell you about: according to them, she's a Gangrel who considers Anarchs 'cousins'. Perhaps the Camarilla are her inlaws. Her name is Danielle Washington, and rumors of her extensive use of animal spies is most likely true. When Winder had just assumed the Princedom some years ago, a great horned owl interrupted the windows of the art gallery in which the Camarilla had been holding court, bearing a letter in its beak.
It started, "Greetings from the Glorious Sword of Caine, to the August Ventrue, Cunning Toreador, Mighty Brujah, Fearsome Nosferatu, Visionary Malkavians of the Camarilla. Her Excellency wishes to note this greeting is not extended to the Tremere, who are disgusting wretches one and all." The letter explained the terms by which "The Most Reverend Danielle Washington, Archbishop Of The San Francisco Bay" would "tolerate the residency of its disowned descendants of Caine," and her name has been known to the Tower since.
Publicly Known History
Danielle Washington replaced Archbishop Adrian Soto in 2002. Adrian Soto was an Ultraconservative who ruled through fear, and he spontaneously withdrew from his appointment, ostensibly to follow Cardinal Polonia in holy war overseas. Regardless of whether that was truly the case, Danielle Washington was ordained in his stead and she obeyed the orders given from on high. She focused on disciplining the Bay Area Sabbat into more cautious observance of the Silence of the Blood.
Danielle is Orthodox, but not Ultraconservative. Still, she is a firm believer in using the Ritae to unite the Sabbat across all of its idologies. She started a rebranding of the local Sabbat as 'family', capitalizing on the values that had known to work to defend her own besieged community in life.
Impressions
Mama is a 1970s-style feminist very into upholding the traditional 1960s Americana values of a nuclear family unit. She's maternal, but the type of mother who wants strong, empowered children, so she is not a protective person. She pushes people to take risks and get out there. If she's faced with someone telling her about a problem, she goes immediately into telling them how they could fix it, and will not suffer someone feeling sorry for themselves. Mama also is strict as fuck and not above striking her "children". Swatting worked for her discipline as a child, it works for her childer. She will warn you ONCE, and after that, the gloves are off.
Bhusunda
Danielle's ghouled raven, Bhusunda, acts as her favorite messenger and spy.
Chargenning Into The Sabbat?
Perhaps you (or your pack) has done some missions for her in the past (for example, cleaning up after someone was sloppy with the Masquerade, looking to Mama for mentorship in the Path of Caine, or knowing her when you crossed paths in Montreal and she was 'young'! Simply ask staff for more information and/or make a note in your application that you'd like to have an IC connection to Archbishop Washington.