The Masquerade

A stately, poised Black woman in her early 30s with rich deep brown skin, dark almost black knowing eyes, and thick hair styled in protective fashions with gold or brass accents. She wears tailored earth-toned and deep indigo garments with subtle African and vintage 20th-century flourishes, often adorned with a Ventrue crest brooch in obsidian, carrying herself with regal elegance.

Naomi is composed fire—regal, poised, and enigmatic. She is fiercely protective of her community, values justice over tradition, and plays the long game with quiet revolutions. She is compassionate yet ruthless when necessary, with a disdain for hollow hierarchy and a commitment to lifting those cast aside. Her charisma is potent but understated, and she carries the weight of her past with dignity and strength.

Born into slavery in 1860 South Carolina, Naomi Abigail Mawu endured the loss of her family under the cruel Stewart plantation. Her strength caught the eye of Emelian Marculescu, a young Ventrue disgusted by mortal and Kindred cruelty. He orchestrated her freedom and the Stewarts’ downfall, then offered her the Embrace—she refused, choosing to walk the world free first. Years later, after freeing her sisters and founding the Stewart-Freeman House, she accepted. Dying of consumption in Chicago, she embraced undeath not in desperation, but as a pact with Marculescu. When she had grown powerful, he offered himself to her—body and soul. She performed the Amaranth in secret. Naomi now operates from Bronzeville, where her Stewart-Freeman Academy grooms marginalized mortals and Kindred alike. The Ventrue fear her not just as a diablerist, but as a black woman wielding true power. She offers sanctuary to Caitiff and thin-bloods, shaping futures the Camarilla would rather erase.