#59, Sins of the Father: My Condolences to Grimgoth
Originally posted here on May 20, 2022.
Was your fictomere ever blamed for or treated poorly because of the actions of others?
I could answer this as intended, certainly. In short, yes, I was blamed for quite a few things going wrong that were not necessarily my fault and framed for others. However... anyone who knows my tale already wouldn't be terribly interested in reading that again. No, instead I am going to speak of my son, Grimgoth, and how he suffered from
my actions. Consider this a reversal of the prompt.
I have done a lot of bad things. This is not up for debate; I have murdered, I have taken away agency, I have lied and stolen, mistreated and used people. I argue that I was justified in many of those things, but that does not make them right, necessarily. I have dealt with the consequences of my actions, intended and unintended, but an unpleasant and unexpected amount of fallout came to rest on the shoulders of Grimgoth. As the son of both myself and Tremere, he had a lot of expectations placed on him: expectations of greatness, of incredible power, of brilliance, of extreme acts and of leaps of progress.
The poor boy was doomed from the start, with that much pressure. Add on that Tremere and I were both terrible parents, myself in particular, and he grew up resentful and pressured. He excelled, of course, and made a name for himself outside of us, but...
Well. When I was accused of killing Ponticulus, of intentionally botching the ritual at Ceoris... when I was called, time and time again, to help House Tremere and, time and time again, the side effects were too much for everyone to handle... the shadow of my reputation fell upon him once again, heavier than ever before. Suspicion was cast upon him at every turn, as people believed that he was just as bad as I. It got so bad that, at one point, in the midst of the Omen War when the first of us had become vampires but he had not yet been Embraced, a spell backfired such that it left him with a permanent "curse," so to speak, that makes people suspect that he is always up to something. Their suspicion of him seeped into his magic, and in turn, it made them more suspicious.
He deserved better.
When I was accused of being a traitor and was forced to flee the Clan, Tremere promoted him to take my place on the Council of Seven. Rumors flew, immediately, that I had planted him there, that he was a spy, that he was going to turn on them, too. The pressure and mistrust eventually drove him to make his haven in Rome--a known center for vampire hunters--so that no one could find him and harass him at home. These rumors have persisted for hundreds of years, and I have no reason to believe that they will die out anytime soon. He looks more like me than he has ever looked like Tremere, and he considers my features on him a curse, one so bad that he grew a (rather impressive) beard to try to hide underneath it. Alas, his voice took on notes quite similar to mine, and any who know me recognize his parentage instantly.
The sins of his fathers--most of all me--weigh heavily on him, and all I can think to say is that he deserved better parents, and that I should have done better for him.