Vivian Gray

Vivian Gray was the great-grandmother and former middle namesake of Norm.

A solitary and independent mage, Vivian wanted no biological children of her own and indeed managed not to have them, despite the expectations of her time. How her only daughter and later descendants came to be is unknown, but likely involved a bit of magical experimentation.

Vivian Gray was also known for dabbling in bodily alternation spells to make herself appear more androgynous, some of which inspired the published self-help hexes of Adrian and his followers.

She was a contemporary of the mages Alistair Wilmington, Arabella Stowe, and Seamus Fitzroy, as well as the warlocks Vladimir Vectorvale, Ingrid Blackvale, Santiago Sandoval, and Waldemar Sherwin III, her closest friend and ally.

Personality
Despite being highly respected for her magical ability and innovation, Vivian was also considered cold. She was an ill-equipped mother to Genevieve and later admitted that such a project was far harder to undertake than originally planned. Some also considered Vivian to be power-hungry and less of a victim to Vladimir Vectorvale than generally thought.

More positively, Vivian was renowned for her honesty and perseverance. She still considered raising Genevieve to be an important duty and often pushed herself to be attentive, or at least to enlist others, like her child-loving friend Waldemar, to take over.

Vivian was also fond of staves and amassed quite the collection over the years. Two of them now belong to her great-granddaughter Nora and the mage Sandoval, whom the Family Gray took a liking to.

Trivia

 * Despite her love of staves, Vivian's primary arena weapon was a small wand.
 * Vivian was likely responsible for forcibly acquiring Vitaly Vectorvale's mace and interning it in the House of Gray until it was wielded by Norm years later. As Norm is both a Gray and a Vectorvale, the latter family did not take issue with this.
 * Vivian enjoyed doubles dueling with Waldemar III, and the two had an intense but friendly rivalry with Santiago and Seamus.
 * Though she hated to admit it, Vivian was never able to outduel her friend Ingrid Blackvale.
 * The young Natalia Vectorvale seemed terrified of Vivian, for reasons unclear to her father or anyone else.
 * Vivian lived out her later years in Tenebris and isolated herself before taking her own life at age 48. Most say she was simply afraid of aging, though she was also rather bitter and estranged herself from Genevieve and most others as soon as the former reached adulthood.