Members of the Portuguese/Brazilian Coven:
Violante was the original creator and the reason behind the Bruxsa legends
She changed Christian, Thiago, and Joham
Thiago changed Liana
Christian changed Kachiri and Carla
A picture of the family tree is posted on my Tumblr blog under the "vampire geneology" tag
Physical Descriptions:
Violante has a long face and a willowy figure. As a human, she resembled a witch of lore with a hooked nose and beady eyes. Vampirism softened those features and made them beautiful, but you can still tell she used to be ugly.
Christian and Thiago both are heavily bearded and in their 30s, lending them the description of lobishomen (which is werewolf in Portuguese, not vampire).
Liana had long, sleek black hair and a sharp nose, narrow eyes and few curves.
Carla is more voluptuous, with wavy brown hair of a medium length.
Origin of Portuguese & Brazilian vampires (including Joham):
Christian was the right-hand man of Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias. After a drunken night in Portugal celebrating their return from discovering the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were connected after rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa, Christian disappeared, never to be seen again. He'd in fact been stolen in the night by a female vampire named Violante, who had taken an interest in powerful men who sought to gain knowledge of the world. She turned him into a vampire and he followed her happily for his first few years. He had a kind of swashbuckling charisma which was difficult to ignore. Shortly thereafter, she turned another brave voyage navigator who had traveled with Vasco de Gama. Christian became jealous of Thiago, realizing that Violante was not interested in him particularly, but rather wanted a batch of powerful men whom she could have control over. One night he brought his concern to Thiago. Both too proud to be under the thumb of a woman, they left Violante, though she followed their scents to the shipyard, discovering that the ship they had stowed away on was headed west. She couldn't be bothered to follow; instead, she vowed to learn from her mistake and turn intellectuals—powerful minds rather than brute power. The two vampires hid in the cargo hold of the latest expedition across the sea to Brazil, slowly feeding on the crew until they were all dead. Christian and Thiago navigated the empty vessel within a few nautical miles to the docks and ditched it, swimming underwater to another part of the shore. They had a hearty laugh when the humans discovered the ship had sailed across the sea empty, and tales of the haunted vessel persisted into modern day.
Christian and Thiago terrorized small villages for decades until Thiago came across a human female whose blood smelled irresistible to him. He started to feed from her, but was interrupted by a group of humans attacking him. After he killed the last one, he went to finish off Liana, but she had already begun to transform. While Thiago waited for her to rise again, he became quite taken with her, and when she awoke, it wasn't long before Liana became his mate.
The coven of three roamed the large country for many decades, Christian always on the lookout for his own Liana, as he was quite lonely in their company. His resentment grew and to placate his friend, Thiago allowed him to be the de facto leader and make all the decisions. One day, Christian found the beautiful Kachiri alone in the jungle and he took her to be his wife. Before her newborn year was over, however, she disappeared with hardly a trace. Christian was annoyed, but was convinced by Liana that Kachiri had been beneath him and he'd find someone more suitable, which he did a few short months later, making the eighteen-year-old Carla his eternal vampire bride.
Back in Portugal, Violante was still interested in cultivating powerful men, but had learned her lesson and avoided explorers and conquistadors—strong and brave, but stupid and power-hungry. Instead, she set her sights on finding a man of great intellect who would prove interesting over the coming centuries. Such a man was not easy to find. It took another century for her to find her next companion.
Joham was a middle-aged scientist in 1606. He was obsessed with the occult and studied it relentlessly, trying to find the root of the legends, either proving or disproving them. Violante became aware of him when he started searching for the Portuguese vampire legend, the bruxsa, which were female vampires who preyed on the blood of children. Violante followed him on his searches, amused by it because bruxsas weren't real, but she was. One night, Joham brought an orphan to an abandoned village that had been famously haunted by a bruxsa, which also happened to be where Violante lived. She drained the child in front of Joham, who watched in awe and horror, and then she bit and changed him. He was the embodiment of what she wanted in a companion—an unscrupulous, intelligent scientist—a man who would do anything for answers, even sacrifice a child. She wanted to see what he'd be capable of as a vampire.
Once the transformation was complete and she'd guided him through the first difficult months as a vampire, she encouraged his curiosity, indulging the obsessive scientist she had admired from a distance. He concentrated first on debunking common vampire myths like staking and sunlight, then on trying to decipher vampire biology, including the material their bodies consisted of and the properties of venom, which eventually led him to wonder if a vampire could sire a child with a female human. The two of them had plans to create a new super-species. That was, if conception was possible and if the resulting progeny was strong enough to withstand both the human and vampire worlds.
Joham left his sire with her blessing and traveled alone to Portugal-owned Brazil, where Violante had advised he could seek out her other progeny. Violante told him to find people to experiment on whose disappearance would not draw attention (if the Volturi were to find out, Violante knew she'd be held responsible for her progeny). Joham traveled quietly by ship and found the Brazilian coven easily due to the familiar scent of their shared venom. Christian and Thiago welcomed him as their brethren, and guided Joham to the Ticuna people, a populous tribe to experiment with, laughing at his ludicrous desire to try and create a vampire baby—an absurd idea, indeed!
Though he tried many times, Joham failed to keep his subjects alive past the fornication stage. Eventually the Ticuna got wise and took measures to protect their women (such as never going out after dark) and Joham left to try his luck back in Europe. He failed a good number of times on that continent too, until he got his first success in Norway with his daughter Serena. When she was full grown after seven years, he left her with Violante to try again, his next success in Algeria with his daughter Maysun. He called on Serena to raise her and traveled back to South America, having taken a liking to the native women there. He stopped by the Brazilian coven again and told them of his success. The coven had moved from their previous location in the Amazon Rainforest, having moved to Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. Christian directed him to the Mapuche people, another large tribe that wouldn't think it too strange to be missing a few members.
It was there he met Pire, but that is a story for another time.
xxxx
Special thanks to my awesome beta palmofafreezinghand, who gave me the idea for the ghost ship. Love her!
