Salinger was an NPC that I created to be played with two other Sabbat characters who were trying to infiltrate Camerilla Swarthmore. The plot went horribly arwy and the three of us were killed, but then, I'd expected that she'd die a violent death anyway.
The inspiration for her (strangely enough) was the idea of a young girl standing in a forest of huge pine trees, looking up at a ray of sunlight breaking through the emerald green dusk. This image while listening to Tori Amos' "Crucify" while visiting a friend at college in North Carolina led to Salinger. The quote at the beginning is from a play that my friend's roommate's boyfriend was in that night, called 'The Runner Stumbles' and from which I borrowed elements of the town for Salinger's childhood.
Salinger of Gangrel was born Mary Patrice Alty in 1906 in the small, isolated farming town of Solan, Michigan, which lies just under the Canadian border, surrounded on three sides by the dense Northern forest. She was among three surviving children out of eight, and her parents were strict Roman Catholics who sent Mary Patrice and her two older brothers to Holy Rosary, the only religious school in the hamlet. A young erratic priest, a kindly young nun, and a stoic rectory housekeeper maintained the Catholic school.
In the early spring of 1913, when Mary Patrice was seven, a forest-fire swept through Solan, torching the fields and threatening the town. Frightened and stranded on one side of the fire-trench, she ran up the hill to Holy Rosary, looking for Sister Immaculata, her teacher. What she found was the nun kneeling and weeping for the loss of her garden, which had been burned by the fire. As Sister Immaculata fell to the ground in tears, the housekeeper came up behind her, striking her with a sledgehammer and burying her alive. Mary Patrice, horrified, ran into the forest, never to return to the town of her birth.
Salinger does not remember any of her childhood, she believes that her father was a lumberjack and her mother a camp-cook who abandoned her in the forest. She does not remember her family, home, or born name, though she has a bizarre interest in the darker parts of Catholicism, which probably stems from her early life.
The child likely would have died in the first week if not for a pack of Lupus Garou who came upon the girl, sleeping in the hollow of an old tree. They brought her food, and kept her safe until it was time for them to move on. The Garou knew that they couldn't take her with them, so instead left her near the only human habitation in the depths of the forest. All Salinger remembers about her time with the pack is playing with three pups one afternoon in a clearing.
This place, known only to the animals and spirits of the woods, was a great stone cathedral built in the gothic style, its creators unknown. For a long time, it had been inhabited by a cult of backwater 'snake-dancers'; people who believed so strongly that God was protecting them, that they'd enter bizarre states wherein they handled and charmed poisonous snakes. It was nearly dusk when she was discovered and brought into the Cathedral by a young man sent out to fetch water.
The cult raised the girl to the best of their abilities, but forced her to witness and participate in their rituals; perverted mockeries of Catholic ceremonies, full of hellfire-and-damnation sermons. The rites were dangerous and at least one person died a month from snakebites or self-inflicted injuries. It was in this place that Mary Patrice grew up.
Little did anyone know, but the leader of the cult, the 'Reverend', was actually a Celestial Choruster barrabi. He took charge of the young initiate, and after weeks of investigation into her psyche, discovered that she had a powerful Avatar that had been many Tradition mages in past lives. Mary Patrice had often had dreams about a majestic angel protecting her, but after a twisted ritual preformed by the Reverend, she was disconnected from her Avatar, although she had no conscious knowledge that it was even there. Her nights were then filled with images of morbid, gothic, fallen angels. This is most probably the root of what would become Salinger's dark obsession with angels.
Since the Cathedral was so deep in the near-untouched forest, there was a high Garou population. The actions and taint of the snake-dancer cult did not go unnoticed, and one night, when Mary Patrice was 16, the werewolves attacked. During the battle, the Reverend and all of the cultists were brutally slaughtered. The girl survived only by luck; she was hit in the back of the head by a piece lumber being hurled at the Garou, and slumped to the floor unconscious.
After the fighting was over, the werewolves started to purify the Cathedral and burn the bodies of those slain. One of the elders noticed that Mary Patrice was still alive, and what's more, was untainted. She asked two Cliaths to awaken her and see what they could do to help. Unfortunately, they didn't think to shift to another form, and Mary Patrice was nearly driven insane by the Delirium.
The elder felt bad for the girl, and used a Gift to try and fix her mind. It was successful, but to a fault; Mary Patrice ended up losing near all of her memories. Salinger barely remembers her time with the cult. She believes that she stayed for a week at monastery during her travels. So, in late 1922, Mary Patrice made her way out of the forest, ending up near the lower shores of Lake Superior, where she found work for a few years on a fishing barge based in St. Ignace, Michigan.
However, in 1924, Mary Patrice fled again to the forest under suspicion of murdering the captain of her ship. The murder was committed by the First Mate. Salinger's picture remained on record and the case was never officially closed. She was actively sought for the murder as late as 1933. She spent the next three years surviving in the Northern Forest hunting and stealing from logging camps. One night in 1927, a lumberjack caught her taking some of their dried meat, and acting quickly and without thinking, she savagely killed him.
Unbeknownst to Mary Patrice, a Gangrel Antitribu running with a pack of Black Spiral Dancers, saw her kill. He was impressed, and abducted her, taking the girl through the creation rites in the darkest depths of the forest primeval. Mary Patrice went into the ground, Salinger the Gangrel Antitribu emerged. Corven, her sire, showed her how to work her Disciplines, and because she'd lived most of her life in the woods, Salinger showed the ability to change to a crow rather than a bat. Because of the fractured state of her early memory, she'd been going by various names since rejoining civilization, but Corven named her Salinger, after his older brother in mortal life.
Ever since, she has roamed the forests, sometimes with her sire, others with her pack. Occasionally Salinger was forced to work with Black Spiral Dancers, a task that she strongly disliked, thinking them insane and dirty, and of no real use to the Sabbat. For her penchant for killing campers and trappers that kill animals, cut down the forests, or try to track her, she's earned the title 'Dark Angel of the Northern Forests' among Sabbat, though the name has long been used by mortals in the north-most parts of the country in reference to a legend of a wild wolf beast with black wings. Salinger likes to leap from trees and high places, shifting in mid-air. Local myths and exageration, as well as her Gift of Proteus, contribute to the more outlandish tales of her form.
Salinger is wanted in Washington and Oregon state for the murders of four loggers and a family of tourists during the late-1950's. In one of the cases there is positive ID on her, an eyewitness who is presently still alive. The five cases remain open.
Sometime in the mid-1960's, Salinger picked up a mortal high on LSD. The resulting trip showed her visions of her beloved dark angels, and for a few years, she used the drug, ingested through mortal blood, almost religiously, and still does when she can get the chance. However, during one such trip, a neonate Tremere who thought that she was actually performing magic and talking with powerful spirits attacked her. Because of this, Salinger has a deep hatred for Tremere, but one that she tries to keep hidden to avoid earning the enmity of the clan.
Wanderlust brought her across the country again, and Salinger reached Philadelphia in the early 1980's. There, she quickly proved her worth to the local Bishops, and was taken into a pack where she helped fight the Camerilla on every front. Years passed, and in 1999, one of the Bishops selected Salinger and two pack-mates to go on an infiltration mission to the suburb-city of Swarthmore, a Camerilla holding.
Salinger is eager to forward the Sabbat through her loyality, and perhaps recruit some new members. She's a fiercely clever Kindred who won't consciously betray her position, as well as a savage fighter when backed into a corner. However, Salinger has a 'human' side, and can survive in a social setting, even to the point of befriending others, no matter what other motive she might have.