Roger & Kitty

Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.
—Maximilien Robespierre

Roger & Kitty Plant

Clan: Nosferatu
Affiliation: Byzantium Coven
Role: Gang bosses, Managers of Siddim

If Venus and her immediate coterie represent the glamorous surface of the Byzantium Coven, this loathsome pair of Nosferatu embody the criminality festering at its rotten core. Roger Plant and his wife Kitty oversee the more wretched business of the coven, including recruiting “fresh meat” for Siddim, ensuring a steady supply of drugs, keeping the pack’s massage parlors free from tong influence, and of course, breaking in “reluctant” employees.

History

In life, Roger and Kitty Plant were the British proprietors of Chicago’s most notorious nineteenth-century brothel, “Under the Willow.” Reputed to have inspired the very term “underground,” Under the Willow was a sprawling barracks of sin, inhabited by pimps, whores, pickpockets, rapists, thieves, and murderers. Upon making enough money to bankroll a comfortable retirement after the Civil War, the Plants were surprised to find their plans thwarted by a Nosferatu named Libby Woods, one of their former “residents.” Embraced against their will, Roger and Kitty revolted against their Sire and found work with Anarchs during the 1920s, where they ran a prostitution racket for Dean O’Banion’s North Side Gang. Sinking deeper into the supernatural underworld, the couple joined the Sabbat in the 1940s, and were appointed to Malachi’s New York Coven in the 1960s. Finding the pair “irksome and déclassé,” the Archbishop pawned them off to Grenadier Toil, who had need of Cainites skilled in human trafficking.

Current Role

The Embrace has intensified the ugliness that marked Roger and Kitty in mortal life. Roger’s Nosferatu blood has whittled his diminutive frame into a cadaverous scarecrow, and his pockmarked face has tightened over a skull convulsed in a permanent sneer. Despite being a vampire for well over a century, Roger still dresses like a Chicago gangster, and has never shed his thick Yorkshire accent. His wife Kitty is even more disturbing. A coarse and libidinous Liverpudlian, she weighs three hundred pounds and gluttonously indulges her every appetite. Generally called “Mrs. P,” she has a ravenous hunger for blood, and when she cannot sate herself on cows, pigs, and rats by the dozen, she gobbles down whole human beings.

Making their home in a tackily-furnished subway train near Viriconium, Roger and Kitty are the undisputed leaders of the largest coterie in the Byzantium Coven, consisting of a hundred-odd pimps, pushers, and thugs, most of whom are unaware of their masters’ true nature. Roger operates the rackets oriented on drugs and enforcement, while Kitty maintains the brothels and prostitution rings. They have an uneasy relationship with Prince Radu, who sets the limits on Siddim’s subterranean expansion and occasionally sends emissaries to “check up” on the pair. For their own part, Roger and Kitty consider Radu a pitiable relic, unaware that some of his own Nosferatu assist the Plants in their criminal enterprises, often for a taste of fruits generally forbidden by “His Nibs.” Roger and Kitty rarely set foot above ground, and when they need to communicate directly with Venus or Ingo, they do so through Lazlo Black, the Toreador ghoul who operates Viriconium. While the majority of the coven understands the necessity for the likes of Roger and Kitty, they tend to keep their distance, which suits the couple just fine—“Better to reign in ‘ell and all that fancy rubbish, wot?”

Sources & Notes

The core of the Gotham Sabbat was first uploaded on 31 October 2000, but the Byzantium Coven was extensively revised during the August 2018 update. Roger and Kitty are actually new vampires, replacing an couple I had loosely based on the Thénardiers from Les Misérables. I came across the Plants while doing research for a Deadlands 1876 campaign set in Chicago—they are genuine historical characters, and Under the Willow was an actual brothel. Because history has not recorded the Christian name of Mrs. Plant, I opted for “Kitty,” which was the name of her daughter. The Plants retired peacefully to the country after destroying the lives of so many, but I re-introduced them to one of their victims and gave them immortality.

The photographs in the banner are simply vintage photos of a smallpox survivor and a heavyset woman. I imagine Roger to be smaller and Kitty to be larger, but you have to make do with what Google provides. The central image of the blue shutter is by the British graffiti artist Xenz, who created a series of abstract paintings about Under the Willow. The windows of the Plant’s brothel were said to be painted blue, with the phrase “Why Not?” emblazoned in gold lettering.

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: 17 August 2018
Last Modified: 18 August 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]