Mustafa, Prince of Istanbul

An insidious practice among the sultans who assumed the Ottoman throne was the slaughter of all male relatives who could pose a threat to their absolute rule. Thus, the women of the harem who had young sons feared for their children's lives. So it was with the mother of young Mustafa. Whether or not her son vied for the throne was immaterial to her; she simply wanted him to live a normal life. She spent a fortune in bribes to have her baby smuggled out of the harem and to have a dead child buried in his tomb. What the woman didn't know, however, was that the boy was taken to a Ventrue stronghold on Malta, and then was groomed and raised by ghouls there, solely for the purpose of being returned to Istanbul to take the throne from John Paleologus, a powerful Byzantine Tzimisce who continued to rule despite the Ottoman conquest. The Ventrue wanted someone under their control in the city, and what better person than a prince of actual Ottoman descent? Mustafa was quite agreeable to the plan; he was Embraced and managed to retake Istanbul with the help of the Ventrue and a Toreador named Vashtai. But then, his power and control started to wane. Mustafa grew content to sit on his past glory and let Vashtai handle daily affairs of state. She was more than happy to do this, and despite Vashtai's loyalty and later that of her childe Nakshidil, the stark truth is that Mustafa is merely a figurehead for the true rulers of the city, the Toreador.

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