The Giovanni

“Loyalty to the family. To death and beyond.”

Originally a family of Venetians who turned to dark magic, the Giovanni family became a criminal syndicate amongst the supernaturals, adding to their ranks a great number of unrelated supernaturals who wanted in on their necromantic protection rackets. Never achieving the wealth or strength of the World Crime League in impoverished and superstitious Europe, the Giovanni never achieved covenant status. Upon running into the WCL, they found themselves badly outnumbered in the world of supernatural crime and largely caved in to pressure from the East. The Giovanni mostly went legit and now provide gray market financial services and money laundering to supernaturals with little or no presence in the human world.

The Giovanni are still operated like a mafia family, and they still do a lot of criminal activities. It's just that now they make sure to avoid strongarming other supernaturals – at least without WCL permission. While it is now common for a Giovanni Don to be something other than an Italian Khaibit related by blood to the founders, it is still incredibly rare for anyone without necromantic power to rise to any meaningful level in the organization. The organization is called by those inside “The Family” even though it no longer cares about a prospective recruit's skin color or family background.

Missions for the Giovanni: The Giovanni are a full service outfit, and when you mess with a family client you are messing with The Family, capiche? Very frequently, the Giovanni will send teams to clear up some “misunderstanding” involving one or more Giovanni clients. These sorts of missions will often involve bailing clueless supernaturals out of legal problems with the mortal world or covering up potential masquerade breeches before they come to covenant attention. The Giovanni are also quite aggressive in business and may send teams to “persuade” potential clients to sign on with the Giovanni before someone gets hurt.

Sample Adventure: An ancient vampire in good standing with the Sabbat has awoken and is trying to do things the “old ways.” The Giovanni want the family member to take his friends off to convince this powerful but dangerously naïve monster to allow family specialists to handle his interface with modern society (and pay the going rates for this service, natch).