Name: Nicola Ivanova

DOB: October 31, 1954

DOD: March 28, 1979

Clan: Ventrue

Covenant: Lancaea Sanctum

Eyes: brown

Hair: black, severe

Identifying marks: none visible

Dress: Severe and buttoned down -- turtlenecks and long skirts, dresses that would have been more fashionable in the 1870s than today.

Date of Arrival: November 17, 2006

First Impressions: She comes across as dull and humorless, dour to the point of misery. She sees the worst in herself, her condition, and the world around her, and it shows in her expression, tone, and manners.

Second Impressions: She's aware her humorlessness and tries to suppliment it through a sort of smattering of unconnected and occasionally non-sequitur jokes. It rarely works. Her greatest character flaw is also her boldest personality trait -- but if you can get past her fanaticism she's endlessly interested in all sorts of peculiar things.

Passages and quotations of note:

A man who recognizes no God is probably placing an inordinate value on himself. ~ Robertson Davies

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A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. ~ Francis Bacon

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"As everybody's god, what will you do?" the doctor demanded.

"You mean immediately?" asked the small god. "I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that will inevitably be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay …

"… Also, I will be capricious. I'll reward and punish arbitrarily. I'll peek through bedroom windows and admonish what I see there, sometimes one thing, sometimes the opposite. I will have purposes men know nothing of, and when men begin to catch on to them, I will change them. This will convince some of your people that I am unreliable.

"… Occasionally, I will do a conspicuous miracle to save one dying child while a thousand children starve elsewhere. This will convince sensible people I am perverse, and they will curse my name…

"… I will be a sham, but not a snob. I will let every man, woman, or child, no matter how greedy or wicked, claim to have a personal relationship with me. In other words, I will be as arbitrary, inconsistent, ignorant, pushy, and common as humans are, and what more have they ever wanted in a god?

Sheri S. Tepper, "The Visitor"

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A Christian is one who follows the teachings of Christ so long as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. ~ Ambrose Bierce

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How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation? ~ Joseph Heller

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Notre Père qui êtes aux cieux

Restez-y

Et nous, nous resterons sur la terre.