Romain Vallière

NEW ORLEANS / BAYOU ST. JOHN

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ABILITIES I TRAITS

I / 1800

Where the water remembers.

ABOUT

Romain was abandoned as a newborn in the swamps of Bayou St. John and left to his fate. No one had ever known who his biological parents were, including him, but one of them seemed to have passed on a gift to him that attracted the attention of a Vodoo priestess who was searching for herbs in the swamps, who eventually took the foundling in and raised him like a son. Romain did not speak for the first few years, only communicating with sounds or gestures. His foster mother did not have to look far to realize that this child was different from the others that life had ever thrown at her feet. Even before he could speak, there was something about him that did not belong in the world of the living. While other toddlers reacted to sounds or familiar faces, Romain's eyes kept wandering to points in space, into the shadows of the hut, across the water of the marshes. He didn't shy away from the sounds of the bayou, not from the howling at night, not from the silence, instead he listened. When he tilted his head, it was as if someone was talking to him. And when he suddenly quietened down, it was as if an invisible hand had placed itself on his shoulder.

Mambo quickly realized that this was no childish fantasy. His gaze was too clear, too focused, too knowing. He saw something. He felt something. And the air around him changed every time a restless spirit made its way past her hut. It was clear to her, the child had a connection to the world of spirits, one that was not trained, not solicited and not forced. An inheritance that had to come from a bloodline. So he grew up, silent, observant, more under the spell of things that others did not perceive than in the world that could be grasped. And his foster mother, knowing that such gifts must not be suppressed, began early to train him in the ways of the loa, the rituals and the shadows, so that this talent would not be his downfall, but his destiny.

Romain developed and eventually began to speak, but he chose his words very carefully, did not communicate with everyone but largely went his own way, focusing on spiritual journeys, searching for answers, solutions... broadening his horizons and increasingly isolating himself from tangible reality because he felt much more drawn to the dead. His mother, now aged, cared for his well-being and finally forced him to take part in a normal life. He took jobs as a gravedigger, cared for the wounded that no one cared about and yet he remained a shadow and for some even an illusion or a myth.

QUOTE

"I walk with the living, but the dead have always spoken clearer."

II / modern times

The city changes.
The dead still know him.

ABOUT

Romain lives quietly in New Orleans today, occupying a modest apartment tucked away in one of the older neighborhoods where anonymity comes easily and questions are rarely asked. By profession he works as a mortician, preparing the dead with the same calm precision that has followed him throughout most of his life. The work suits him; the silence of the deceased has always been more comfortable to him than the noise of the living. Few people know much about him, and even fewer realize how long he has actually been part of this city. Abandoned as a newborn in the swamps of Bayou St. John and raised by a Vodou priestess who recognized his unnatural connection to the spirit world, his early life belongs to a past he rarely speaks about anymore.

Over the decades the world changed, the city modernized, and generations came and went while Romain remained. Time has sharpened his connection to the loa rather than weakening it. What once appeared as an instinctive sensitivity has grown into something far more controlled, far more powerful. The veil between the living and the dead responds to him with unsettling ease now, and the spirits have long since learned that he can hear them when others cannot.

But power invites attention, and attention is dangerous.

So Romain hides what he has become. To the outside world he is nothing more than a quiet undertaker who keeps to himself, someone who works long hours among coffins and embalming tables before disappearing back into the quiet of his apartment. His abilities remain buried beneath routine and silence, revealed only when absolutely necessary.

Yet the dead still recognize him.

And sometimes, in the late hours of the night when the streets of New Orleans grow quiet, the thin line between worlds bends just enough for the whispers to reach him again.

TRAITS

Romain had not softened with time. If anything, the years had made him harder, quieter, and far less patient with people who tried to cross the boundaries he kept around himself. He lived largely as a solitary figure in New Orleans, speaking little, observing more, and keeping most of his life carefully out of reach of others. When someone pushed too far, his reaction was rarely loud; his voice would simply drop, his gaze steady enough to make it clear the conversation was over.

Despite his reserved nature, there was an unmistakable authority in the way he carried himself. Romain never needed to prove dominance; it was simply there in his posture, in the calm certainty of someone who had lived long enough to stop fearing most things.

Over the years his view of morality had also grown more pragmatic. He was not cruel, but neither was he naïve. If a situation required dealing with criminals, bending rules, or stepping outside the law, he rarely hesitated. Still, he never truly belonged to those circles either. Romain remained what he had always been a watcher on the edges of the world, solitary, controlled, and comfortable walking paths most people avoided.

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NEW ORLEANS · THE LIVING & THE DEAD