Patron Family
“For every serial killer, there are a thousand unsung maniacs”
The blood is warm and sticky beneath your soles, a sharp metallic tang hitting your nostrils like a paring knife. You've traveled this road into Requiem a thousand times before with your goods, but…
In the hazy golden glow of a road light, a lone figure stands in the middle of the dirt path ahead, silhouetted by the lamp. You can't see them, only smell the carnage around them. You take a shaking, squelching step forwards. A small bone crunches underfoot.
“Contrived… amateurish…” Their voice is a low rumble.
As you approach, you begin to make out the finer details - the white jumpsuit, spattered in equal measures of neon paints and fresh gore, the contorted Raider-like mask concealing their face below the eyes, and the blood - oh *holy*, all the blood. The person is adding a third head to the macabre decoration of doll parts that adorns the gates of Requiem, but this addition is real flesh…
“Mediocre, trite, pedantic, derivative…”
The line between art and madness is razor-thin. The Boone-Helm family lives in that fine border… viewing insanity and murder as great works worthy of the finest museums. They see artistry and beauty in the macabre, and Requiem as their gallery. Often misconstrued as maniacs running around calling severed heads ‘art’, the Boone-Helm actually play a key role in marshaling Requiem’s many killers and brutes into a united force that fights Raiders away from the settlement using the Raiders' own demented tactics. This family is dominated by Tainted who understand how a Raider ticks better than anyone else. To kill a monster, you have to be a monster.
Specialty
Anti-Raider Protection, Art, Culture (Technically insanity; madness, psychology, psyche, bad brain, lunacy)
Key Individuals
Jonas Boone-Helm - The Family Head.
Polaris Boone-Helm - The founder of the Family, a PureBlood patron of the arts - killed by Jonas at the Honors Fall of 24 in a final glorious work of performance art.
Mardigan Boone-Helm - Leader of the “Appraisers,” Mardigan is Polaris's Second and shows up during the Family’s more gruesome activities to evaluate the “aesthetics.”
Organization
The Boone-Helm are a notoriously disorganized family more akin to a pack of rabid dogs. The cool heads in the family often prevail and rise to the top, acting as the leads for the demented artists beneath them. The family is volatile in structure, and often in flux. Artists.
History
Rumor has it that the Boone-Helm were once a Pure Blood family that succumbed to Bad Brain but clung to their refined pursuits in order to prevent their transformation into raiders. These new Tainted survivors managed to establish control over a swath of the Fold, and leveraged their position by providing the ruling Anastasia Family much-needed muscle in times of war. After a number of years as hired mercenaries, Polaris Boone-Helm stepped forward and coalesced the Family into a proper unit. He led the Collective until his bloody and beautiful end at Honors Fall 24, where he would give the rest of his infection to an incredible last work of art. The new Family Head, Jonas, has risen to lead the family in a time of turmoil where the hold the Collective retains on its legions of madmen might be loose.
Family Iconography
White, masks, overalls spattered in blood & paint
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