Lucien's "Family"
When Lucien first opened a bookstore in 12th Century Paris, he hired several employees when he could afford to. This allowed him to spend more time reading and writing books. As his business expanded, he continued to hire more people, but he always tried to keep business within the families of the people that he hired. People working together married, had kids, and those kids grew up into the business. Within a century, most of his employees were related. As they married outside of the business, the family grew. Lucien claimed the family as his own. He was seen infrequently enough that he managed to pass himself off as the son, the grandson, or the great-great-great-great-grandson of the original Lucien Sullerot (The family actually knows him as Lucien Sullerot XXXI).
Most of the family is only aware of him as the man who writes their checks. They work all over the world, in all of his various businesses. If Lucien were to contact most of them and ask for a favor, their loyalty would only go so far as their loyalty to money and to their business and distant family.
There are a few members of the family, however, who have been raised above their normal business status, and help Lucien run his business, care for his personal animals, or help him with his personal life, and they are very well paid for their trouble.
Lucien's Retainers
Laurent Andrieux
Laurent runs Lucien's businesses. He is the contact between Lucien and the CEOs of his companies. Laurent is part of the family that has developed from Lucien's original employees. While Laurent is generally a good man, and is in Lucien's employ, he is not completely loyal to Lucien, at least not the way his assistant is. Laurent is an excellent businessman, and is very well off. Because of this, he would be incredibly difficult to buy off. Lucien trusts him with his business, but Laurent really doesn't know much about him in truth. He is also pretty worthless in a fight, so Lucien doesn't expose him to vampiric society at all. Laurent also has a family. He is grooming his daughter and son to see which would make a successful heir to him.
Auguste Desforge
Auguste is Lucien's personal assistant. He is also part of the family, although he and Laurent are only distantly related. Auguste is a ghoul, and has been bound to Lucien for the past ten years. His predecessor was killed in an unfortunate car accident. Auguste is not really talented in any particular area, although the fact that he is a ghoul makes him a decent bodyguard against most mortal threats, meaning that Lucien doesn't have to show his true powers in most cases. He is also a good driver, and drives Lucien wherever he needs to go.
Camile Andrieux
Camile is Lucien's dog breeder and trainer. Like Auguste, she is a ghoul, and has been for quite a while longer than Auguste. Although she is amazing in dealing with the dogs (she is the only one that they really obey, although it would be questionable if they would attack Lucien at her order, and the Bandersnatches most certainly would not), she is not good at dealing with people. She likes Lucien, and likes working for him, but she is shy of other people. If forced into a fight (in the case that the house is attacked, since she almost never leaves it) she is good with a cudgel or whip, but has next to no understanding of bladed weapons (she has the subskills of club and whip rather than the melee skill).
The Bandersnatches
A pair of wolf-like dogs with wider than normal jaws and shadow-black fur, the Bandersnatches are revenants born of Lucien's pack of guard dogs. Surprisingly, they share quite a bit of Lucien's power, but this may be because they use it almost as instinct. Lucien wonders if their ability is because they don't have extraneous thought getting in the way of its use. Aside from increased strength and an ability to heal themselves more quickly than most beings (these two factors allowed them to take control of the pack), they instinctively use the power Shadow Play, causing them to "flicker" as they hunt. They are also capable of seeing through faerie glamour with more ease than mortals. Granted, this usually means nothing to them, Sidhe or mortal, either needs to die if it is on their turf. However, if a Changeling were to put an illusion up to distract the pack, the Bandersnatches may realize the deception and goad the pack on to attack the real problem.
For the past thirty years, Lucien has been turning his dogs into ghouls and having them bred. About five years ago, two pairs of his ghoul dogs successfully bred, giving birth to a litter each of Bandersnatches. Several members of each litter died from complications, it seems that their growth is as difficult as a Kiasyd's Embrace, but they don't have a Kindred's near-immunity to shock. The remaining five Bandersnatches got into a fight with each other and the rest of the pack in a bid for domination of the pack. The non-ghoul dogs backed out of the fight quickly, they were far overmatched. These were the beginnings of the current pack. Though they all have some of the Kindred blood in them from birth, non have bred true. Other than the "normal" dogs, only two survived. The four parents, as well as the other three Bandersnatches, died in the fight to become Alpha male and Alpha female.
Now the normal dogs follow the two Bandersnatches as their Alphas, and Lucien and Camile are working out a plan to make a pack that will not reduce itself to two every few years. They hope that the current two, Shade and Whisper, will be strong enough to dominate any new Bandersnatches that are created without having to kill them.
Now that she knows about the problem, Camile also hopes to be able to create a stronger bond between members of the pack so that even if a vicious fight does break out, they don't try to kill each other.
Lucien's Herd
Lucien brought with him to the Twin Cities a group of Wiccans who believe in the use of blood magic. These mortals give of their blood freely. The altars that they give their blood at have been changed by Mytherceria so that they collect a portion of the blood in a cup hidden under the altar. Since so many of them give blood at a time, they never notice that half of it goes missing. The fact that the rituals are performed at night, under the moon, and leave the participants short on blood helps the fact immensely as well.
Lucien's Contact
Being an offshoot of the Kiasyd, Lucien has a connection with the Lasombra. This connection could explain a lot about both Clan and Bloodline. Unfortunately for Lucien, the Lasombra are only interested in learning about themselves without giving anything in return. When Lucien heard about a Lasombra anti-tribu, he decided that he needed to meet this person. After over a year of trying to get in touch with this person, Lucien finally managed to meet Dimitri at a showing of the Phantom of the Opera. Ever since, they have kept in touch, mostly sharing information. Lucien is trying to resurrect the Blood Rose, an ancient rose that was originally cultivated by Kindred as both a defense and a way of feeding. He is sure that if he can provide this to Dimitri, he will gain quite a bit of prestige in the elder's eyes.