Beaumont’s family has been in New Orleans for many generations. His many-greats Grandmother Josette, in fact, is well-known in family and local lore for having made bread from meager resources to help provide food to Andrew Jackson and the American soldiers during the weeks leading up to the Battle of New Orleans in 1814/15. In early January of 1815, when General Jackson came to thank the nuns at the Urseline Convent on Chartress St. for their prayers during the Battle, Beaumont’s grandmother was there with a special loaf of cheese bread that she had make special for him, to thank him for saving the city.

As the years passed, Josette handed down her bread baking skill to her sons and daughters, and the family was always well-known for its bread and baked goods, but a skill for baking wasn’t the only thing that Josette handed down. She and her descendants also had a skill in the magical arts. The family assumes that Josette herself was a “fournomancer”, a term they use tongue-in-cheek to refer to her supernaturally great skill with bread and baked goods.

The bread was good enough that the family started making small change on the side by selling bread out of their home until, in 1920, Beaumont’s Great Aunt Aurelie, a practitioner herself, finally bowed to suggestions from friends, and to the volume of bread and pastries that she and the family were regularly being asked to make, and opened “Josette’s Bywater Bakery”, in honor of their matriarch, in the Bywater district of New Orleans.
The bakery opened just as Prohibition started, and Aurelie’s husband, Alma Fontenot, also anxious to help make a few extra dollars, decided to take advantage of his knack for oenomancy, and all the yeast that was in the shop, and started making his own ales, beers, wines, and hard liquors and smuggled them to “the poor unfortunates oppressed by the prohibition”. Alma was also particularly talented with veils, and used his varied magical talents to great effect and great profit, becoming one of the most successful rum runners on the bayou.

The building that he and Aurelie set up shop in had been used by the family during Antebellum times to help smuggle out slaves to the North, and was an official “stop” on the Underground Railroad, where fleeing slaves could get a couple of loaves of bread to help nourish them on their journey North. The building, therefore, had hidden (and veiled) access to the city’s drainage system tunnels, which they used to transport the slaves to ships in the harbor.

Alma used these tunnels to store and smuggle out his booze, and eventually other contraband as well, doing a booming business with illegal firearms. Alma always referred to the work he did at Aurelie’s shop as working with “sticky buns, and cakes, and guns, and whiskey on the side.”
Now, one hundred years later, Beaumont is also a member of the family trade, and an heir of the family magical skill. His parents own the shop, and he works there most days to earn a living. He lives in a nearby chalet bungalow, and has an easy commute to work on his beloved, antique, but pristine, slate grey 1938 BMW R75 motorcycle, which he rides every day, rain or shine. It has a sidecar that he can quickly attach, although it’s usually in his garage, and he uses the twin saddlebags to carry things around in. He’s a single guy, living by himself, and he works in his family’s bakery. It’s not like he’s making tons of shopping trips to Costco. He has fashioned a container that mounts on the back atop the spare tire, however, which he occasionally uses to make small deliveries for the bakery.

Tragedy struck young in Beaumont’s life. His sister Edmee was just two years his junior and the two of them were best friends. For practically their whole lives, they would always go to help out Mom and Dad in the bakery. One day when Edmee was only 13 years old, after running a quick delivery to a home down the street, Edmee disappeared and didn’t come back. The family was disconsolate, and worked closely with the local police to try to find her. The police did their best, but couldn’t find any leads. Two days after her disappearance, Beaumont was sitting in Edmee’s room, confused, scared, and sad about his sister’s kidnapping. All of a sudden, he had a strange feeling, that he later could only describe as a “pull”. It was practically a compulsion. He knew where Edmee was, and followed his inner pull until he came to a run-down house in the shadier part of town near the docks. Still following his inner guide, he climbed up the side of the building and broke in on the second floor. He quickly found his dying sister lying on a dirty mattress in a filthy room, weeping in fear and despair as he took her up in his arms.

He attempted to carry her away to safety, but his crawling up the side of the building and forcing his way in had alerted the creatures running the operation. Just as his sister passed away in his arms, a pair of figures burst in and found him there, shaking with sorrow and rage. Beaumont felt a wave of cold overtake him, and he watched as the skin of the pair that had come in changed before his eyes to a pale white, almost glowing it seemed to his eyes, and their eyes turned an unnatural shining silver color. He knew that they had come for him and what was left of his sister, and he was overcome with rage. He flung his arms up and shouted a primal scream for his dead sister. His last memory is of a wave of flame exploding out from him.
When he came to his senses, he was lying on the ground outside of the charred rubble that was once the house, covered in soot, surrounded by dozens of police and firemen, still clutching Edmee’s body in his arms. Of the house there was almost nothing left, just charred stubs and a host of deformed skeletons.

The official report said that there had been a gas explosion, and that somehow Beaumont had rushed in through the fire to save his sister, who died of smoke inhalation, and nearly died himself. The only explanation Beaumont ever gave about how he had wound up there was the only explanation he knew at the time, that he had been “guided” to the house. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t remember anything else. The house had been known to the police as a drug house and a brothel, but had never been the source of anything major before. Now it never would again.

A few days later, after Edmee’s funeral, Beaumont shared the whole story with his parents, who had already suspected most of it. They explained to him about the family’s magical heritage, and how they had been waiting for him to show signs before sharing the whole story with him.

It turns out that the flop house that he had blown up was a front for a prostitution ring that catered to the lowest of the low, run by a nest of white court vampires from each of the three major houses. They used it to slowly feed on humans’ baser impulses, creating a source of lust, fear, and despair. It seemed, though, like someone, probably a young, newly turned vampire, had over-fed and killed Edmee. No one had known about the location before, but after the incident and the publicity, the White Council had sent warden investigators. They discovered what had been going on, and about Beaumont’s particular, innate, gift for both location spells and pyromancy. He had single-handedly incinerated the entire nest. No humans had been killed in the blast, only vampires, so they held no judgement over Beaumont.
Beaumont spent the next few years learning, growing, and practicing with his parents and other more experienced wizards. His parents were mostly fournomancers and used their talents to make their bakery the best in the city, but they found other wizards who could help Beaumont perfect his skills.

Now, Beaumont spends his days working with his parents in the bakery, but has let it quietly be known that he will do anything it takes to help anyone find and rescue lost children. He hasn’t yet opened up a store front. He knows other wizards have, but he doesn’t want the questions or the scrutiny. Instead, he has helped find dozens of children in and around New Orleans, all quietly and without fanfare. The police know him as one of those people who can inexplicably find clues and leads when they are at their wit’s end, and will on occasion call him in for a consultation. He is on good terms with both the local police force and the sheriff’s office, with whom he generally prefers to work.

Beaumont took a huge payment for his services one time, the very first time he found the kidnapped daughter of local wealthy shipping magnate, Roald Landry. He felt so terrible about taking the money he tried to give it back, but the girl’s father wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted that he could never repay him, and that if Beaumont ever needed help with anything, to come to him, and he’d make it happen.

Soon, though, Landry came to Beaumont, and this time introduced him to a friend whose son had disappeared, and asked Beaumont to help. This has happened many times, and now Beaumont runs a semi-official finder of lost children service. Ever since that first time with Landry, though, he has never accepted monetary payment, just a promise of assistance in the future should he ever need it, whether as part of an effort to help him find another missing child, or for some other reason. Consequently, Beaumont now knows people from all different walks of life, from all over New Orleans and the surrounding areas, and most of them happily owe him favors.

In recent years, Beaumont has formed an association with two important organizations that have the same goals as he does. He works with both the Rescue Aid Society, and Operation Underground Railroad. During one of the investigations he was helping out with in the northern swamps, he made friends with Bernard Blanc, one of the top investigators for the Rescue Aid Society, an organization that specializes in helping children in trouble all around the world. Beaumont stays pretty local, but Bernard generally looks Beaumont up for assistance if he’s anywhere near the area. Through his association with Bernard, Beaumont has also had the opportunity to work with Operation Underground Railroad, and is a close friend of Tim Ballard. Ballard once asked Beaumont to accompany him on an operation in Southeast Asia. Beaumont was gone for a month, and tells that the operation was hugely successful and extraordinarily dangerous, but doesn’t usually talk about any of the details beyond that.