Ilsa Vaduva aka The Matriarch (Super Powered Legends)

Ilsa Vaduva is a controversial character. As her background might me considered off-putting to some, I have posted it here on my blog, rather than on any social media, so only those who are interested in the character will have to read about her.

Content Warning: The villain known as Matriarch is one that engages in casual use of sex and sexuality as a weapon. The following background contains mention of drug use, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and child prostitution. If these are subjects that you or your players are not comfortable in engaging with in your campaign, please feel free to discard or modify Ilsa Vaduva, Matriarch, and/or Voluptuary as you see fit.

Ilsa Vaduva was born in Romania. As she grew up, it was clear she would be a beautiful woman, and chose to become a fashion model at a young age. When she was 16, Ilsa was cast as a vampire bride in an adaptation of “Vlad the Impaler” that was filming in Romania. Here, the actor Gary Reeves took a liking to the young woman and married Ilsa. She enjoyed the life of a Hollywood celebrity wife, until four years later, when Ilsa discovered Gary cheating on her with a younger woman.

Unbeknownst to her husband, Ilsa was a Meta blessed with the ability to manipulate soft matter from afar. After discovering her husband's infidelity, Ilsa used her powers to make it appear as though Gary Reeves suffered from an aneurysm. 

After inheriting his estate, Ilsa used the money to start her own company: Voluptuary Productions, which produced sex toys and marital aids supposedly based on the genitalia of famous costumed heroes. Voluptuary’s “Rock-Hard Brute” and “Purple Rampager” quickly become some of the company’s best-selling products. Finally in 1999, after four years of growing her company, Ilsa Vaduva and her entourage invaded the Stock Market to crush the naysayers who doubted a sex worker would have the financial savvy to shake up Wall Street. Making Voluptuary Productions an openly-tradable company, Ilsa watched as her financial empire grew exponentially. When the final bell sounded to end the day’s trading, Voluptuary Productions stock finished at $100 million! The conservative suits on the floor watched as Ilsa gave everyone the finger from the balcony and walked out. She spent the next several weeks making television interviews as her stock soared to over $400 million.

Soon after her Wall Street success, Voluptuary Productions began to purchase the contracts of a number of the world’s most beautiful and sought-after adult film stars. Voluptuary Productions became the lead in adult entertainment, featuring films that not only had beautiful performers and sensual action, but also a production level that was similar to television shows or low-budget Hollywood films. With the success of the “Pirates” film in 2005 and its sequel in 2008, Voluptuary Productions proved that an adult film could be as successful as a Hollywood block-buster.

Today, Voluptuary Productions includes a number of storefronts and websites selling quality adult toys, lingerie, and marital aids, adult film production companies, exotic dance clubs, and its own line of perfume called “Larking.”

Parties at Ilsa's estate in San Fernando happen at least once a month. They are always filled with the most recent and popular of her adult film actors, local costumed heroes, celebrities, and not a small amount of Hollywood elites who are unafraid of spending time with sex workers.

And yet, all of this is merely the public face of the woman who is Ilsa Vaduva. The second half of her life is the butterfly-masked woman spoken of in hushed whispers as “The Matriarch.”

After the death of her husband and the formation of her company, Ilsa wanted to initially expand into the adult film and entertainment market with Voluptuary Productions. However, what she discovered was a vast underbelly of crime permeating the sex entertainment world. Girls who were far too young were given fake identities saying they were of legal age by the Russian gangsters who trafficked them into the States from Europe. Women who were all but enslaved to their dance club bosses with debts accrued from drug addiction. Wealthy elite, Hollywood producers, celebrities, and politicians who expected “free parties” and “samples” of the women hired by an adult entertainment company just to get the proper licensing.

To all of this, Ilsa acquiesced and capitulated. She threw the parties for these disgusting men and gave them the women they desired. And all the while, she collected the evidence; blackmail material full of pictures, film and more of every illicit act. 

When the Matriarch presented the blackmail material to a subject, some of them immediately gave her what she wanted. Others tried to use their resources to have this defiant woman killed. These people ended up being unable to breathe, suffering from sudden heart attacks, or afflicted with other fatal ailments that easily appeared to be natural causes. Soon enough the LA criminal underworld knew that to work against the Matriarch was to invite immediate and sudden death.

Over the course of several years, the Matriarch assumed control over every facet of vice crime in the greater Los Angeles area. Prostitution was no longer controlled by the pimps. The working girls could continue to ply their trade and work safely under the protection of the Matriarch. Anyone who injures a sex worker bearing a specific monarch butterfly tattoo on their body is quickly and quietly dealt with or chased out of town by the local authorities. Of course, the Matriarch still expects to get her cut in exchange for this protection, and every sex worker knows where to drop off a small percentage of their earnings every month.

After acquiring control of the sex work industry, the Matriarch started targeting the drug traffickers who pushed their products onto other or used drugs as a means to control their clients. They, too, quickly fell to sudden ailments until they learned to comply with the Matriarch’s demands. Selling illicit drugs was acceptable. But only to those who came looking for them. No pushing product on children or others who say “no.” 

In this capacity, the Matriarch has become the undisputed Queen of Vice Crime in the greater Los Angeles area. Few local heroes are willing to seek her out or challenge her authority, as she keeps the nastier criminal elements out of the area. A few vigilantes had tried to make a name for themselves by taking out the Matriarch only to come to short ends.