Frank Costigan

Francis Costigan (Born 8 July 1964, Embraced 4 December 1986) is the current Sheriff of York, United Kingdom, as appointed by Prince Edward Trevelyan at the conclusion of the 2010 York Crisis. A known Diablerist (albeit an authorized one at that), his appointment to office remains a controversial topic among some elements of the wider Camarilla, as with the rest of Prince Trevelyan's court post-2010.

Life

In life Francis Costigan was dealt a poor hand from the start. Born into poverty and a household of neglect in the Midlands, his acquaintance with petty crime started at an early age. By ten years old he’d built up a working knowledge of how to pick the locks of every house on the street, and a mere four years later he had become known in local delinquent circles as an adept housebreaker and general all round competent petty criminal. This reputation quickly worked against Costigan, landing him firmly on the radar of the local police and a short while later in a borstal.

During his intermittent periods of incarceration the teenage Frank took the opportunity to learn all he could from the older inmates. Each successive term on the inside in turn hardened him and imbued him with a wider variety of skills to use on the job whilst free. Eventually he accrued enough criminal experience and money to make a clean break from the UK- fleeing the hounding of various police forces to move his work to the continent.

Over the course of just under two years Costigan blazed a trail through over a dozen European banks and jewellers, each successive job cementing not only his reputation amongst the criminal elite, but also the increasing size of his liquid assets. Eventually the extent of his skill reached the ears of a Ventrue kindred embroiled in a petty power struggle with a Nosferatu ancilla named Dietrich Hertz. The Ventrue, one Sebastian Klein, hired Costigan through his many mortal proxies to steal a packet of documents from a bank in London. Frank and his crew carried out the robbery without incident, and the packet was delivered to Klein’s proxies, netting the Ventrue a small victory in his squabble with Hertz and Costigan a sizeable reward. Subsequently, members of Costigan’s crew soon began to disappear one by one.

Having sensed trouble on the wind Frank made plans to return back to the continent. On the eve of his intended return he was abducted from the safe-house he was using and brought to an irritated yet impressed Hertz. So impressed was the Nosferatu that he had decided to embrace Costigan.

Starting Out

In rather typical Nosferatu fashion Costigan’s embrace was one wracked with the pain of horrific transformations. His lips cracked and receded, his teeth elongated and took on the stark thinness of discoloured needles. Where once ears protruded on either side of his head there were only small sickly looking pustules of flesh. Through it all, Costigan’s hands remained as they had always been- lithe and dexterous, the tools of an ill-begotten trade. It took a full week for the curse of the clan to grow bored with Costigan, at the end of which stood Hertz: answers and reassurances in hand for his new childe.

Frank took to his new existence with the kind of aplomb natural to a number of newly embraced Nosferatu, taking no time at all to begin forging new connections and building upon the criminal career he had once maintained in life. With the guidance of Hertz and the manipulation of a few remaining mortal contacts he established himself as a figure of legend within the UK criminal underworld. Under the alias of ‘Horrigan’ he bankrolled some of the biggest heists in Western Europe during the latter half of the 20th Century- and although such achievements were looked upon with derision and dismissed by elder kindred, Costigan nevertheless began to make a name for himself as a promising new upstart.

By 2010 Frank had settled in a large derelict farmhouse on the outskirts of the city of York, the county of Yorkshire itself being the focal point for the majority of his influence in the criminal mortal underbelly. Somewhat estranged from his sire, who by this point had more or less let his childe loose to pursue his own destiny, Costigan had become once more an independent agent. Staying informed yet isolated from the politics of the domain in which he had made his home, he nevertheless became a valued asset within the Nosferatu element present in York- as spearheaded by Gregory Grey. So much so that when the request came down from Prince Trevelyan for each Primogen to forward their best operatives to a special assignment, Costigan was chosen to be the Nosferatu contribution. Frank’s membership within Trevelyan’s Secret Police subsequently began.