Know your crypt: Louhi

Clan: Malkavian Antitribu
Generation: 5th
Embrace: 200 BC (born 292 BC)
Sire: Lerterimas
Haven: Somewhere in Finland.
Childer: Santaleous

• According to the Finnish mythology detailed in the epic poetry of Kalevala, Louhi is the queen of Pohjola, the land of coldness and evil located north of where the protagonists live. She is a powerful witch with shapechanging abilities. (In the painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela above to the right, Louhi is depicted in a winged, semi-humanoid shape battling the hero Väinamöinen.)

• The vampiric narrator of “A World of Darkness” mention Finland as “a land of darkness and fog, whose shamans travelled down the river of the dead to talk with Tuonela in her hut. The plots of the Finnish Kindred stretch back through the eons, and a far and isolated land is not necessarily controlled by weaklings. Indeed Louhi and her brood have weighed on my mind more than once over the centuries.” (Tuonela is the realm of the dead in Finnish mythology. The hut reference is weird.)

• “The vampires of Finland, conversely, gathered together in tightly-organized coteries even before the birth of civilization proper in the area; due to the large Kindred population, Lapland became known among the kine as Pohiola, the Land of Darkness.” (Lapland is a region in northern Scandinavia, largely within the Arctic Circle, streching across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The name Lapland refers to land inhabited by the Sami people, formerly called Lapp people.)

• “Finland is primarily controlled by Louhi, a fifth-generation vampire whose thaumaturgical skills rival those of the Tremere elders, now quite mad, she is rumored to be working on a great ritual to blot out the sun.” “While no such magickal rite has occurred, Kindred with knowledge of "The Land of Darkness" (as Finland is sometimes called) haven't forgotten about Louhi. As with the anarchs and the Valkyries, no one seems to have any idea what to do about the threat she poses.”

• “There are whispers among the northern Kindred that Louhi is allied with the Sabbat. For years Louhi both sided and feuded with the Brujah who ran the Soviet Union: some say her greatest heights of madness (and paranoia) coincided with the collapse of that group.”

• Louhi appear in one of the doomsday scenarios of "Gehenna" (WW 2999).

• Louhi is “an ugly old crone constantly reeking from various foul alchemical experiments, and always carrying a gnarled black staff (with various rituals on it). Her eyes are .sunken and truly unnerving.”

• She is more than a little crazy, but she see just about everything. She cackles to herself a lot, and  keep make vague prophesies that have the eerie habit of always coming true. She speak in horrific metaphors and ominous, vague terms, and say nothing straight out. “They all want to know, don't they, but only you see the reality.”

Remarkable statistics:
Attributes: Stamina, Maniupulation, Perception, Intelligence, Wits.
Abilities: Alertness, Leadership, Subterfuge, Alchemy, Occult, Spirit Lore.
Disciplines: Animalism, Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate and Thaumaturgy, with lesser Fortitude and Protean.

Sources:
“A World of Darkness” First edition (WW 2220)
“A World of Darkness” Second edition (WW 2226)
“Gehenna” (WW 2999)