Clan Toreador (Tour-e-uh-door)

"The whole world is watching us now. We must be nothing less than fabulous."

The gorgeous Clan of the Rose, artistic Degenerates, and Romantics in equal value.
Obsessed with fashion, art, beauty, and social power over political strength, Clan Toreador is the second most powerful clan amongst Kindred, second only to the business-savvy and politically maneuvering Ventrue. While a Toreador Harpy or Primogen won't assault you with the full iron fist of the Camarilla, they will certainly be the velvet noose around your neck that won't be noticed until pulled perfectly taut.
Social proclivities and institutions aside, the Toreador are attuned to powers that aid in their positions of perfection. They can use the Kindred abilities of:

• Auspex - Increasing one's perceptions past the mundane, both picking up minute material details and even extending their senses and thoughts beyond the physical, allowing them to see ghosts and the flow of magical energy, see past illusions and invisibility, and even access telepathic abilities and more.
• Celerity - The ability to increase one's speed, dexterity, balance, and control to supernatural levels. Any properly trained Toreador won't be caught dead stumbling anywhere, from the catwalk to a torture chamber. Their speed will leave them with your heart in their hands before you can even blink, especially for the more thorny roses.
• Presence - If you didn't expect the clan of socialites and seducers to have the Kindred power of attraction, you clearly need to get your wires checked. This branch of abilities allows the Toreador to enrapture their targets and prized possessions while sending their enemies packing with their tails between their legs. It also increases the sheer euphoric rush of the vampiric bite, making their affectionate prize come crawling back for more, as they should.

Structure

The Clan of the Rose follows no rigid hierarchy as a rule. Among clanmates, there are only Artistes, successful and prominent practitioners of classical skills, and Poseurs, who are failed artists and those who cling to "lesser" forms of art, especially modern stylings.
In Tacoma specifically, some area-specific factions have come into play as well, as the city has often been a hive of artistic expression. 

• Urbains, Toreador that reject the label of Poseur as they work with modern urbanist expressions of art that escape the typical canvases. Also called the Brutalists.
• Classiques, who raise up the classic arts, even if they disseminate them more willingly than other members of the clan. Also called the Proctors.
• Colosses, who wish to create the next big architectural movement or massive mural to dot the landscape. Also called the Tahomans for the mountain they seem to emulate.
• Cultivés who aim their targets onto multicultural expressions and collections of art to spread around their domain. Also called Wild Roses.

Since Clan Toreador is one of the most prominent clans in the Camarilla, you can expect their titles to carry weight as well even in Anarch discussions, especially if one is the Primogen or Harpy, not to mention if you happen to stumble upon a Toreador Prince.

Culture

Clan Toreador is about one thing and one thing only: Beauty! Art, music, the physical form, the skill of seduction, if it is beautiful it is the Toreador way. 
Named after the opera Carman (although the order might be reversed), Clan Toreador is a soulful and inspired clan, made up of artists of all stripes and staying at the very cutting edge of fashion and excellence. They are the second most important clan to the Camarilla and its machinations, second only to the authoritative power of the Ventrue, as it's the Toreador style of social power and maneuvering that works the people as well as the Ventrue work the ledgers.
In Kindred societies old and modern, Toreador are the social elite. Their tendency towards the arts and the mastery of aesthetics keep them gorgeous and affluent, as well as socially influential since there's nothing people with too much money love than seeming cultured and enlightened, Kindred and Kine alike. They are also, more often than not, the social movers and shakers, deciding what is vogue and what is dated, what is haute couture and what's last year's bargain bin, who is worthwhile and valuable and who is just above a sniveling Nosferatu.
This line of social mastery and beauty also influences who they choose to Sire as well. Two qualities will be weighed when it comes to choosing who to sire: their artistic talents and their beauty. Potential Sires will often scour artist scenes looking for a specific subset of either attribute, sometimes playing an immensely long game of seduction and sabotage that turns a prospective Childe into their "loving" arms, and all they have to do is perform their task for their sire, whether that's their actual art or just looking pretty. Toreador Sires often run the risk of being dangerously capricious, however, especially if a skill or beauty they sired for has gone out of fashion. 
In Tacoma specifically, Clan Toreador has always been a back-and-forth of modernity versus tradition, even before the fight of Anarchs V. Camarilla kicked off. The Urbains would argue for the beauty of art forms such as graffiti, rap and hip-hop, and non-European depictions of beauty and fashion, while the Classiques would claim that such things weren't truly art, and pushed for the classical forms of artistry and "culture" to spread amongst any and all of the Kine. This is a battle that still rages to this very day, although the line that separates the Urban and the Classic has changed, and is different for every Kindred. At the very least, the Kine see nothing but a lot of new art installations and developments going up, unaware that it's all to serve a decades-long debate.

Public Agenda

Clan Toreador works for the interests of beauty and artistry in all of its forms, so long as they're the forms they decide are vogue. Those that are truly public-facing to the Kine world also tend to be supporters of the arts and work to validate and spread its beauty, especially as so many Toreador Kindred wish to keep the humane spark of their inspiration alive.

Assets

As a clan that has a history of nobility and social influence, many Toreador find themselves with more many than they know what to do with, and socially in-tune Sires will often teach their Childer how to make it all work how they want it to, and how to play the game of negotiation and conversation. 
Not every Toreador is sitting on their ego's worth of gold, however, especially if they are unyielding in their more niche aesthetics and artistic biases. But the art of the trade and the art of persuasion still run in their cold veins all the same, so even if money is not their bounty then influence and favors will be.

History

Early History

The origins of Kindred are a messy and unknown tale lost to ages, with few concrete sources remaining. The most collected tales from the Book of Nod speak of the children of Cain, and the city of Enoch.
The eventual founder of the clan, a woman named Arikel, was an artist within the First City, the City of Enoch, and sired by the eponymous Enoch. With her siring, and as one of the direct Childer of the wise Enoch, she was stricken with a powerful vision via an early form of the discipline Auspex and created a massive mural that depicted the past, present, and future of Kindred Society. However, seeing an awful future for the Kindred, Caine cursed her with the key bane of the clan, a rapturous Obsession with their art of choice.
As those who came from Arikel and her childer spread, the clan game to have influence in Greece during the time of the Minoans and Mycenaens, and during the bronze age collapse went to Rome and Carthage in equal droves. During the conflicts between those two regions, they allied with Rome more prominently, beginning the relationship between Ventrue and Toreador that persists to this day.
As Europe entered the Middle Ages, and Kindred society began to enter its prime before the crusades, the clan was among the High Clans alongside the Brujah, Cappadocian (modern Hecata), Lasombra, Tzimisce, and Ventrue. During this time many Toreadors were hand-in-hand with the Catholic Church, one of the greatest supporters and sources of the Arts, as well as being entwined with the French Courts of Love.
Unpredictably, as the years of the Renaissance came to be, Clan Toreador vastly enjoyed and created the sheer artistic fortune coming from the Kine. It was also the social change of the time that turned them away from their spiritually-aligned humanity preservation to their selfish hedonism that has since become the status quo for the Toreador elite.

Victorian to Modernity

The Victorian age and Industrial Revolution also increased the value of the clan, as art grew and evolved, with many opportunities coming from new leisure time for even middle-class people, giving Toreador more opportunities to find financial success, new Childer, and new sources of inspiration all the while. But as time has marched on, the evolution of art and the clan itself gave way to internal clan divisions on the status and legitimacy of art, especially as modern technology and electronics throw so many variables into the mix.
But, no matter how they squabble and fuss, no fad or fashionable trend will ever fully miss the eyes of the Toreador, and much like the soul of artistry itself, they will always find a way to adapt with the ages.
In the history of Tacoma specifically, Clan Toreador has been an entwined presence from nearly the beginning, with many feeding into or inspiring the various art movements that flowed through the city, even when its actual Kindred influence was running dry.
In the past, all of the South Sound was full of Toreador, as the former Prince of Seattle, and one of the figures even the Kine credit with its early success, Lou Graham made sure members of her clan would be more than at home in the area. Even when Tacoma was the dumping ground of the Camarilla, many avant-garde artists would find their footing in the city where the more stuffy/restrictive/predatory Toreador didn't care to look, and gained their fortunes that way, giving Kindred influence a small yet steady footing even when every other area had essentially dried up. Perhaps it is understandable that the most successful Kindred in the city now is the Baron themself.
Now, in the modern nights, they are at work again, supporting the Kine in their efforts to increase the funding and breadth of the arts present within the city, and putting their lots in with the more lucrative aspects of that increase that show up, especially with the growing upper-class neighborhoods.

Territories

While many Toreador Princes have come and gone over the years, here's a list of the current Toreadors in power in a specific area:

• François Villon - Prince of Paris/Prince of France
• Smilla Grimsson - Prince of Reykjavik, Iceland
• Hannah Buszek - Prince of Warsaw, Poland
• Edward Williams - Prince of Denver, Colorado
• Modius - Prince of Gary, Indiana (Potentially dead)
• Lou Graham - Prince of Seattle, Washington (Former, yet many claims otherwise)
• Callisti y Castillo/Alexandria - Prince of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Outside of the Camarilla, Toreadors have less guaranteed influence, and consistent reigns of power are hard to come by, however, certain Barons of the clan are known as well.

• Fiore Choi-Yun Baron of Tacoma, Washington
• Isaac Abrams - Former Baron of Hollywood
• Petronila "Nelli G" Griffith - Current Baron of Hollywood

Founding Date

~8000 BCE

Type

Geopolitical, Clan

Alternative Names

Clan of the Rose, Degenerates

Demonym

Toreador

Ruling Organization

The Camarilla

Related Species

• Kindred Vampire