Character Name: Jasmin Taylor
Other Names: Ashley River (birth); Natalie Meyer
Race: Vampire
Sex: Female
Birthdate / Location: Los Angeles: 5 August 1929 (born); Los Angeles: 5 February 1957 (turning)
Description:
Aesthetics and Dress~
Jasmin is a young, attractive blonde woman with soft, blue eyes. Her taste in clothing varies from the gothic to victorian, though does also tend to include some other things; it is rare to see her not wearing a corset, at least.
Jasmin is played by Liv Kristine
Psychology~
Make no mistake about it: Jasmin is a vampire, and an evil one at that. Cold, manipulative, and calculating though also not mindlessly violent. Anyone can kill a man; but to break them, to turn them to your causes, and use them as a tool, is an art. She is thoroughly self-centered, and practical. Despite this, she is still capable of warmth, mainly to those who she likes or finds usefu.
Lifestyle~
Jasmin's is a blend of undead and high society life. On the one hand, she runs a club in the Gothic scene, and is active in theater and film. Worth note is her feeding habits, relying on blood purchased from butchers, willing victims who like the danger, and the odd criminal.
Background:
Life for Jasmin Taylor has been a series of strange coincidences, which brought her to the place where she is now. Born in 1929 in Los Angeles, her parents died during the Great Depression when they wound up in New York trying to find work in 1938. The 9 year old girl, stuck on the streets, had a run-in with a young boy named Antonio Castelleti, son of a Sicillian Imigrant and gangster named Guiseppe Castelleti.
Antonio and Jasmin had been in school together for 2 years at this point, and fast friends. When Antonio learned what happened, and of her being on the streets, his response had been simple. The young girl was brought home, and he told his father that she would be staying with them. At first, he didn't want to take her in, until his Consigliere, a demon, advised otherwise. From that day foward, Jasmin stayed with the Castelleti family, never fully aware of where they got their money from.
Her life semed to return to some semblance of normalcy after this. A year later, the Second World War broke out; five years later, at the age of 16, the war ended. During this time, she started to realise that things weren't quite as they seemed. Gradually, she came to think of Guiseppe as a man people went to because he could get things done, and who was the kind of person that people who couldn't go to police could go to.
One day, during dinner while 16, she met the next man who was influence her life: William Anderson, a Hollywood Producer. He took an instant liking to her as well, and saw in her a bit of raw talent, as well as being connected to the boss of the West Coast. It was at this time that she got an offer to be given acting lessons. Jasmin was excited at the prospect, admiring Lauren Bacall (and harboring a crush on Humphrey Bogart), and agreed; she would later pack her bags and head off to Hollywood.
She would premire at the age of 18 in film, putting out 7 major motion pictures as part of Anderson Studios, but never learning of William's dark secret until it was too late. After her final film, , she was at the after-cast party with a number of her co-stars. Alcohol and drugs were both involved, though she abstained from the latter. On the way home with her co-start, they were in an accident, and the second great coincidence of her life happened.
They were in a car crash with none other than William Anderson himself. William could do nothing for her co-star, but genuinely cared for – and wanted to save – the life of Jasmin. Severly injured and near death, William did the only thing that he could think of. He'd seen too many lives cut down prematurely in Hollywood, and this time, he had a chance to make things different.
The next night, the young hollywood star woke up in Anderson's home, apparantly uninjured. He told her about what happened, and begged her forgiveness for turning her. Jasmin had become a vampire.
Jasmin was furious, and understandably so. The demon inside of her had just enough of her personality to resent not having the choice in such a major turn. But what was done was done. Jasmin could no longger act.
As a method of consolation, William met with Guiseppe, and the two of them purchased a club in Los Angeles, which she would run. Originally taking the name Sunset Lounge, it would undergo a number of renovations. At first, it began as your typical '50s lounge, but Jasmin would end up keeping it up with the times, or aproximately when she got bored.
In 1967, Antonio took control of the Castelleti Family; he continued to invest in Jasmin's business, and call on her to do favours for him. It was also about this time that she finally decided that she could forgive William for turning her. The result being that she would begin to forge new connections in the business and Hollywood communities, working with William as a producer in her own right, to the point where (even though they work under pseudonyms now), odds are good that most people have seen at least one Anderson and Taylor production, even if they don't know it.
In 1977, Jasmin's birth identity, Ashley River, officially retired from public life, selling her club to new management: Natalie Meyer. The Sunset Lounge closed for renovations, and re-opened in 1978 as Dante's Room, at the tail end of the disco scene and trying to move away from it. Natalie Meyer's club would remain open until 1995, when it was once again, sold, closed for renovations, and re-opened under new management. This time, the club opened with the name Risen Anew, and contained a number of gothic themes to it; however, ownership would not change to her current legal identity, Jasmin Taylor, until 2015.
By the 2015s, things changed. A war in the underworld stripped away many of her old contacts and allies; her former allies in the underworld were wiped out and weakened. At the suggestion of her business partner in LA, when attention turned to her, she moved back to the East Cost – to New York, in Manhattan. Jasmin took the fortuitious circumstance, and in 2015, gathered what resources she had, and moved to Manhattan; by 2019, she opened (and continues to run), another club, Graveyard.
Items:
Aside from her club and apartment (both in Manhattan), Jasmin has, since her turning, brought together – and still has at hand – a fairly decent library of books on the supernatural. What started as simple self-defense mechanism has transformed into a genuine research interest and weapon. Finally, she has money: a good bit of it, though most of that money is tied up in projects and investments geared at making more money. There is, also, a small collection of weapons, largely bladed, that come from her martial arts training.
Her producing involvement, now, is involved mainly with the theater, and arranging for stage productions on the one hand; and on the other hand, with her contacts back in LA, pointing them at things that could be decent screen adaptations.
In a twist of irony, she has one really significant occult artifact: an Orb of Thessala, or as she calls it, Crystal Paperweight.
Powers:
Just the standard range of vampire powers. Enhanced speed, becoming a pile of dust when exposed to sunlight, and things of that nature. Jasmin has also done training in martial arts since about the 2010s, starting that when the four Elder Vampires showed up in town and the White Hats became well known.
Locations:
Jasmin's Apartment ~ 151 Wooster Street, Soho; Penthouse A model.
Graveyard ~ Around 42nd Street - right next to the theatre district in Midtown.
Character Soundtrack:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Jasmin Birth Chart.pdf | 33.18 KB |
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Supplemental Information:
Supplemental Information: Jasmin's filmography, covering acting work from 1953 - 1957. These are the films that she's probably actually known for, with genres and roles. I've tried to make her filmography as "1950s" as possible.
Mainly struck me as something worth doing just in case anyone decided they wanted to use any of these. Given the period, these are all, also, basically prominent supporting roles. For Film Noir films, she's listed in the credits as Ash River; for everything else, they credited her under her legal name at the time, Ashley River.
I've not focused on her producing, simply because that'd require much more work than is probably necessary, and can have names dropped if it ever becomes appropriate.
Update: I changed the last film for the very simple reason that I re-opened my copy of Wolfram, and realized that Herzelode isn't something that really works; so made it Arthurian instead. I promise that this is the final version.
Answering a question someone asked: no, these aren't real; they're all invented for the sake of the game. Not bothering with plot synopses or anything like that, however, unless someone wants to develop one more for a post. In whcih case, I'll update this post.