Agatha Skinner
| Agatha Skinner | |
| |
| Concept: | Lonely Conspiracy Theorist |
|---|---|
| Sect: | Camarilla |  
|
| Clan: | Malkavian |
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| Generation: | 12th |
| Coterie: | Unknown |
| City: | Adelaide |
| Title: | None |
| Sire: | Dr. Philip Hayes |
| Embraced: | 2001 |
| Player: | Player |
| Storyteller: | Adelaide VST |
This character met Final Death before the beginning of Riot in the Blood. In memoriam, her life story is recorded here.
The Life and Deaths of Agatha Skinner
Childhood
Born 1929 in Bristol, England, Agatha Thomas and her parents emigrated to South Australia in 1935, where her brother Percy was born a year later. Her bombastic father Anthony served in the second World War and returned with an Australia Service Medal, a Burma Star, a permanent limp, and recurring nightmares. Agatha and Percy idolised their father as a war hero, and his ostentatious stories coloured their early impressions of foreigners, particularly the Japanese. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, their mother Winifred, ever the devoted housewife, impressed upon Agatha the 'stiff upper lip' philosophy of her homeland and the joys of conforming to rigid gender roles.
Marriage
in 1951, Agatha married Ronald Skinner, a butcher nine years her senior, and had three children with him, George, Frank, and Charlie, across the next five years. A tenacious wife and mother, she took pride in maintaining her perfect, upstanding, and god-fearing family. That is, until her oldest son started to express signs of deviation. George, a closeted transgender woman, had been experimenting with cross-dressing in his mother's clothes for some years -- a secret Agatha had uneasily kept before George's brothers caught her and outed her to their father in 1968. Ronald was furious, and George was disowned and quickly ejected from their home and family. It wasn't long before rumours spread across their community, and Ronald became abusive and eventually violent toward Agatha, blaming her for the scandal and the stain on his own masculinity and reputation.
Divorce and Decline
Agatha endured the vitriol put upon her by her husband until Charlie came of age before she filed for divorce. By 1975, Agatha was her own woman for the first time in 24 years, but her sense of purpose had been replaced by uncertainty, and the anticipation of betrayal around every corner. Her mother and father took her in, but they and her happily married brother scorned her for "allowing" her relationship to fail. Eventually she found work in a laundry, and struck out on her own. The next betrayal came in 1979 when her second child, Frank, fell in love with and married a Japanese woman, Sachiko Watanabe. Out of her own prejudices and a renewed desire to please her ailing father, she cut off all contact with him and his bride. Her youngest, Charlie, was incensed by this reaction, and their relationship suffered immensely as a result. Alienated and emotionally constipated, over the next two decades Agatha took an interest in conspiracy theories like UFOs, the Men in Black, Communist brainwashing, and the Satanic Panic, which, after the death of her parents, quickly evolved into an obsession and moral crusade.
Embrace
In 2000, Agatha's deteriorating health and mental state began to seriously concern her brother Percy, who after a serious effort, finally convinced her to see a doctor, and Agatha was diagnosed with the early signs of dementia. The next year, at age 72, Agatha was sent to Glenside Hospital, where she was expected to live out the rest of her days. And indeed she did, as the Malkavian psychiatrist Dr Philip Hayes took an opportunistic interest in her. With a tenuous connection at best to any remaining family ties, it was easy for Dr Hayes to take Agatha as his own childe. He falsified reports of her rapidly declining faculties and allowed his patient one last goodbye to her Percy, Charlie, and a reluctant Frank before embracing Agatha to study her and her derangement, paranoid schizophrenia, in a controlled environment.
Kindred Nights
At first, Agatha was uncooperative. She felt vindicated by the confirmation of the existence of a secret shadowy cabal of inhuman puppet masters, and as their prisoner, she was firm in her conviction to give the enemy nothing, as her heroic father would have done. That resolve lasted less than a year, thanks to Dr Hayes' conditioning, manipulation, psychological deconstruction, and a very sparing use (so as not to corrupt his data) of Dominate. It was a bumpy road paved with constant setbacks, but eventually Agatha and Dr Hayes came to a mutual understanding, and began to build a rapport. The more pliable and obedient Agatha became, the more privileges and comforts she earned, which included increasing access to news of the outside world, of her mortal family, and even the politics and nuances of Kindred society -- meticulously curated, of course, to beget loyalty to her sire and the Camarilla. It wasn't much longer before she began to enjoy her security and lack of independence, much as she had during the happier days of her marriage, and along with her fellow broodmate(s), became an enthusiastic contributor to the work of her new protector and custodian.
In 2013, Dr Hayes concluded that he had learned all he could from his childe's condition in a controlled environment. He finally introduced her to the Court, parading her as his latest achievement and a testament to his abilities. After having spent some time preparing her to leave the nest, Dr Hayes arranged a small apartment for her in Unley Park. There he would provide her a modest stipend and slowly wean her from a reliable supply of blood to encourage independence, while maintaining weekly therapy and counselling sessions at his private haven. It was clear from the beginning that she resented being turned out on her own despite the support, and that it would take some time to fully regain her trust.
Embrace of Lex and Final Death
During this period, a young woman moved into the apartment across from Agatha's. Whenever Agatha returned from hunting in the dead of night, or from her appointments with Dr Hayes, the girl was always there, smoking, watching her. A few times, she'd tried to talk to Agatha, asking questions about her, and where she'd been. "I'd just like to get to know you," she'd say. A likely story! Dr Hayes had told Agatha about the Second Inquisition. The Camarilla had it all under control now, he'd promised, but it was important to be careful, and keep a low profile. Agatha's suspicions of the girl, who called herself Lex, began to grow. A few times, she was even convinced that Lex was filming her on her smartphone! She had to know what Agatha was, and that meant that she had to be working for someone who'd put her up to it. She'd discovered an Inquisition spy right under her nose!
Eventually, she worked up the courage to tell Dr Hayes about the spy. He tried to counsel her through it, insisting they were just delusions and hallucinations. Maybe he was too complacent to see the truth, or maybe, just maybe, he was in on it too. He'd explained at length the tedious and neverending cold war of a power struggle that was the Jyhad -- it soon sounded plausible, and even likely to Agatha, that he was working with the Inquisition to manipulate his way to the top of the Ivory Tower. So it was that she convinced herself to take matters into her own hands.
And so, one fateful night in September of 2014, Agatha invited "Lex" into her home, where she ambushed, restrained, and interrogated her for hours on end about what she knows, who sent her, and why. The girl played the oblivious victim quite convincingly. It took Agatha using her own fledgeling powers of Dominate to finally elicit a confession from her, but even then, she acted as though she knew nothing else of Kindred or the Inquisition. As dawn approached, Agatha, frustrated and out of her depth, knew her prisoner would be of more use to Prince Carmichael alive. She couldn't simply ghoul the girl, or leave her tied. No, that would risk her escape, and give her the opportunity to act against Agatha while she slept. Of course she was vaguely aware of the Third Tradition, but not having learned first hand the brutality of Camarilla authoritarianism, she believed that once the Prince saw what a prize she'd brought him, she would be pardoned if not praised.
Her new childe was instantly adoring and obedient, and told Agatha whatever she wanted to hear. Their first night together, she helped Lex hunt, and when she saw the ecstasy in her childe's eyes at her first taste of human blood, she began to hatch a plan to turn the Inquisition's own weapon against them, a plan that would see her hailed as a hero of the Camarilla. The night after, she brought Lex to the Prince, and finally, after everything she'd done, reality only truly struck Agatha at the same time as Sheriff Larson's blade.
Lineage
Known Sire
Known Siblings
- Unnamed fellow patients