Note: Working off this as a 'true' origin of the bloodline in play, though Birdie is unaware of it. Others with occult knowledge are welcome to have heard of this as a rumor or know it to be true through connections mentioned below.

The most common assumption about the Daughters of Cacophony (and their brothers, the Sons of Discord) is that their bloodline springs from the Toreador or Malkavian, with no one taking responsibility for them. Rumors spread that their origin is a Toreador Methuselah that was taken by the fae, a product of Malkavian experiments, the victim of being sired by mixed blood or a Tremere curse -- even that they might be bred by clans in the Sabbat to be sent to drive the Camarilla mad.

Rumors work well enough. Mystery lends itself to greater art, after all.

---

In the time just after the Camarilla founded, there was a mistake made in Florence.

A Ventrue named Sidonia and a Toreador named Edelinne were rivals in the way many genteel Kindred in the new Camarilla courts tended to be. It was something that came very close to affection, but was more often shown through squabbles over domain and disagreements about art.

In time, they came to agree one one thing: an artist named Donato. A composer of what would become operas, a favored member of the mortal Florentine Camerata. He wielded great power over the very shape of art in the city even as he created his own. There was great potential in him, if someone from the right clan were to Embrace him.

And so, the greater disagreement began. Edelinne's arguments were obvious, openly stated in every needling encounter with her rival. Sidonia, however, would be breaking with tradition. There was reasoning, of course, that art creates a legacy, earns dignitas more lasting than a city or a war, the opportunity to achieve another immortality in word and song instead of brick and gold, to be an architect of thought.

Mostly, Sidonia wanted to frustrate her ever-present 'friend' in a way that would last.

Donato was taken in the night and hidden by Sidonia in her haven for the time it took to train him and bring him up before presenting him to the clan. She had not consulted any but her own sire before taking on this new childe, too sure of her reasoning and too blinded by revenge to worry about how Donato would prove himself worthy of his lineage. This first part, to Sidonia, went perfectly. He was a quick learner, excited by the prospect of a new unlife unfolded before him, the time to write and prove himself to a more elite class of beings than his former peers of simple human nobility and merchant kings.

When presenting him to the Prince in Florence, Edelinne was incensed by the betrayal. To have lost out on a childe is one thing, but she had bragged to her fellows in her clan about the new blood she would bring in, about his prowess and his skill, only for him to be thrown in her face as one of the Ventrue brood. Publicly stolen from her and her blood, a greater insult than even Sidonia knew she was making.

Revenge was swift. Before Donato could even begin his next task of gaining dignitas and prove himself to his clan, Edelinne leveled a curse against him. If she couldn't have his genius and power for her clan, then neither could Sidonia, and she could suffer the shame of having a failed progeny. Donato was left disfigured, unable to do business or work with mortals (or even many Kindred) without causing dismay or potentially breaking the Masquerade.

The Ventrue clan, having rallied behind Sidonia in succor, provided a space for him to work unimpeded. It was still possible, they reasoned, that he could work in secret using ghouls as proxies to carry out his requests in more public arenas. They wouldn't hand out anything beyond the location, the privacy, and they would see what he could earn from there.

(It is said by some that he was counseled in secret by their Methuselah, Veddartha, and told ancient secrets about Gehenna, the Feast of Ages, and a coming nightmare.)

Edelinne, in turn, was run out of Florence and went to spend time in the Camarilla courts in France before, eventually, defecting to the Sabbat.

Donato, beneath an entertainment house in Florence, spent a hundred years there slowly going mad from music and isolation. As the building above became an opera house, he and his ghouls ensured it was reconstructed with avenues for him to move through unseen and his haven below was left undisturbed.

As the years went on, he took to 'teaching' the singers he felt had talent, if only to ensure any works produced above him were up to his own standards of quality.

One, in 1623, named Libra de Fabiani, he decided to sire -- a childe he could use to add to his legacy, is dignitas, who he could use to show his work, who he would blood bond to himself and use as needed. Donato took her from the shadowed hallways, and Embraced her in his haven down below, feeding her another singer he'd never been fond of.

It didn't take long for it to become apparent that her talents were not entirely his own. Maybe it was the curse Edelinne had afflicted him with, or maybe it was her own talent, but Libra was never bound to Donato as he'd planned. Instead, she was able to sing -- her words were convincing, her songs enchanting, and her instinct so acute and so immediate, the desire to survive and escape so clear, that it was barely a month before she sang her way out and above.

After this, not many know where she went. Some say that Veddartha, invested in this new bloodline and its potential in the coming final nights but uninterested in tying it closely back to his clan, shepherded her away to the British Isles, coached her on passing herself off as another clan to avoid questions or interrogation. Some say she wandered on her own, going mad from music only she could hear, Embracing those women whose imperfect mortal voices moved her.

None of them say so in mixed company. Even Libra's own Daughters know nothing of her troubled origin except what might be gleaned from a song she chooses to sing at just the right moment.

While others suspect Toreador and Malkavian, those who know any truth to the story are the Nosferatu that shared the haven space under the house in Florence, perhaps Donato and other Ventrue of the time who assisted in his edification, maybe even Veddartha.