Professor Anton East

Ventrue Regent of the South, Parliamentarian of the Ordo Dracul

As befits his covenant's position in Chicago, Anton East is known to be a cautious, impartial, dispassionate oberver in city politics. Those close to the Regents claim that East rarely even interjects opinions into matters of city policy, save when the well-being of the Ordo Dracul or his Southern Regency is at stake. Likewise, however, he rare seeks the advice of his fellow leaders when making a decision that may have impact outside his immediate sphere of influence. Desipte this independence, comparisons to the detached and absent Bishop Eamon Pryce are erroneous, for even while Professor East remains silent among his peers, he is always present and paying exacting attention to what the others say and do.

Anton East arrived in Chicago, appropriately enough, from parts east (he states his point of origin as New England, generally without any more specific elaboration) in 1921. During this decade, the Ordo Dracul was just getting established in Farragut's city. From the very night he arrived, East, like the other Dragons, was wooed by the city's two conflicting powers-that-be, the Invictus and Carthian Movement. Individual Dragons, all seeking sites of mystical import and resources to further their studies, were participating on both sides of this political tug-of-war, which made it tremendously difficult for the Ordo to maintain any sort of internal stability. Meetings and convocations that should have been dedicated to scholarly pursuits became dominated by social intrigue between the "Carthian Dragons" and the "Invictus Dragons." As a member of the Ordo's Sworn of the Mysteries, East made it his mission to bring an end to this unfortunate infighting that so impeded his studies.

Among the Regents (especially James Milligan), East is known simply as "the Professor." This title is not leftover from long-lost mortal days, nor is it a false affectation. Anton East, though his learning in the field comes from the nights when men looked deep into the stars to find portents of the future instead of ghostly images of the universe's past, became a degreed professor of astronomy near the turn of the century through a little-known New England university. Tonight, East holds the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, a position in the mortal world that propelled him into the highest echeleon of Chicago's Kindred society.

Chicago has always been driven by force of personality; this is true of its Kindred as well as its mortal citizenry. As such, Kindred of other covenants often had a difficult time graping the idea of the Ordo Drcul, a group that, to all outside perception, lacked an identifiable singular leader figure. Perhaps the very loose structure that allows academic freedom within the Order is what allowed the Carthians and Invictus to pull the covenant like political taffy in the first place. Likely, when the idea of a regency system was forming in the mind of Prince Farragut, even he was at a loss to determine which individual would step forward to represent the entire Ordo politically. At that time, there also was no single geographical region dominated by the Ordo Dracul. This situation ended quite concretely in 1942. When scientists at the University of Chicago managed to produce a controlled nuclear fission reaction, something changed. The University campus immediately attracted the attention of Dragons not only in the city itself but across the nation and the globe. Chicago's Ordo Dracul surged in population almost overnight, and all flocked to Hyde Park, which had for decades been established as Anton East's home ground. When the Ordo's previous Parliamentarian entered torpor early in 1943, the Professor's increased influence in the Ordo made him the logical choice to fill the seat. Finally, the city's kindred had a single Dragons to view as the "leader" (even though the Dragons themselves have a much more nuanced view of the situation), and Professor East had the political leverage to separate his Ordo from the petty politcis of the city.

Tonight, the Ordo Dracul walks a fine line in city politics. They attempt to project the image of being separate from (some would say above) temporal power, and officially take no position on issues that don't directly affect them. Individual Dragons barter and bargain with other covenants to secure significant sites in the city, and their much-lauded neutrality largely recuses them from suspicions of intrigue. Of course, this same perception of neutrality makes Dragons the ideal spies for one covenant into another's territory, and every so often rumors circulate about an Ordo Dracul spy network ferreting information from one Regency to the next via some mysterious Hyde Park safehouse.

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