Description

Title: Duke of Pyroborea

Age: Thousands of years old, if not millions - he doesn't disclose exactly how old he is.

Role: Visitor

Contract Status: Contracted to Remy Faux

Vespasian is possessed of two forms, although he is quite happy to mix and match the two to gain the desired effect. As a human, having shrugged on his glamour, he is fairly short, as such things go, possessed of long, ash-black hair that seems like smoke when he lets it loose, although mostly it is bound back with a simple rose-gold clasp in the shape of a curling phoenix. His skin is pale, as a human – Vespasian has reasoned that, if he’s going to have to appear as a human, he might as well appear as one of some substance – and his features are refined and rather sharp.

He is possessed of an extremely disconcerting smile, which can appear far too large for his face, and his eyes are a warm and inviting chocolate-brown – unless he decides to change them.

The most common hybridization of his forms that Vespasian will use is converting his hair to a brilliant cascade of blood-red flames, rippling and burning hypnotically. It generally serves to convince the general populace he is no mere human, no flicker-life. His other favoured change is to convert his eyes to living fire, which again instantly dispels any notion of humanity.

In terms of clothes, Vespasian dresses to impress, a nobleman’s attire in the very latest fashions. His overrobe is a masterwork, of such a dark red that it appears almost black – it adds much-needed definition to his physique as a human. It is elaborate, befitting of his station, embroidered with crimson stones in ornate patterns, and illusory forms dart and flicker through the folds. He wears, always, a crisp white undershirt with ruby buttons and cufflinks of the same stone, coupled with a wine-red waistcoat and a crimson silk cravat, held at his throat by a golden crest in the shape of a rising phoenix. He also has a heavy golden ring set with a magnificent black opal that sparkles with all the colours of the flame, perhaps more than any stone has a right to. His boots are sturdy thigh-length constructions, perhaps more suited to tramping through the wilderness than the marble halls of the capital, but polished to such a high gloss as to be almost mirror-like.

As a fire spirit, he appears as a conglomeration of blazes, an inferno under deadly and precise control. He is fond of the forms of birds, often amusing himself by appearing as various forms wreathed in and made of fire of every shade of the rainbow. They will often have a disconcertingly-human face to allow him to communicate, should he desire it. He can also forge a form that is much the same as his human skin, simply wrought in flames.

Personality

Vespasian is haughty, and somewhat removed from most mortal concerns. He is also a little impatient at times, a characteristic that is a holdover from his earliest existence and his link to the hungry flames. He is, however, perfectly capable of polite speech and easy conversation, should he find it advantageous. In short, Vespasian is capricious, very much like the flames he embodies.

He has a horror of large bodies of water, an utter dread of sea travel – baths and ponds, even small lakes, he’s perfectly fine with as his power can boil them dry if necessary, but the vast expanses of oceans terrify him more than anything else, save perhaps an entire realm of water.

He can appear as self-centred as a spinning-top, a luminary concerned only with himself and the next entertainment, allowing him to weave question and manipulation around his unwitting opponent. While he hates to do it, he can bind down his signature to those attuned to the arcane if necessary, although not indefinitely by any means.

Flamboyant and stylish, Vespasian can be the perfect playboy; the revels and balls of the upper classes are second-nature to him, and he enjoys them immensely, regarding them one of the few compensations of having to shrug on a restricting glamour in public, when contracted to Earth.

Equipment

Vespasian does not carry a great deal of equipment, as per se, preferring to rely on his powerful magics in the main. He has his clothes, of course, an elaborate rapier that easily carries flames and an eightball derringer as a weapon of last-resort.

His main powers involve anything to do with heat and light and fire. A being whose entire soul is aflame, he has almost-unparalelled mastery of the flames and light as a solar luminary in his own right, and consequently a plethora of extremely nasty spells at his fingertips. Unsurprisingly, he's also immune to fire, hailing from Pyroborea as he does. He could wade through an active volcano's crater and come out none the worse for wear.

He has no 'profession', as such, and certainly no job on the Earthly plane, but he is the Duke of Pyroborea, ruler of that vast realm of elemental flame, continually balancing the conflicting demands and arguments of lesser fire spirits from his sprawling, sentient castle of shimmering fire and lava in the pulsing heart of that burning plane, holding court with thousands of lesser elementals from all across the realms and always cementing his position.

Vespasian finds the Earth a strange and conflicting realm, a chaotic meeting of all the elements, a supremely confusing, and therefore interesting, plane. A nice place to visit, to be sure, but he certainly wouldn’t want to live there permanently. Fiercely independent, Vespasian would brook no outside interference in his own affairs and the affairs of those fire spirits in his dominion.

Living to a different timescale than mortals, a bargain of a Summoner’s lifetime is an eyeblink to him, on the order of a small holiday from his cares and duties in Pyroborea – perfect for him wanting to unwind, insofar as he can need to unwind, that is.

Of course, Vespasian is something on the order of an opportunist, and he certainly wouldn’t waste his holiday contract – he would almost certainly demand the soul of the Summoner, to increase his own power and cement his position.

He has done so several times in the past - though he is a little hazy on mortal timeframes; what was to him 'a little while ago' could well turn out to be twenty-four centuries past as humans measure time.

History

Vespasian came into being aeons ago - he will tell no-one of the exact time of his nascency, but his sheer power - and strange perception of time - tells that it must have been a long, long time ago.

He is a solar luminary - though what stars he is patron of is not known - and the ruler of the vast elemental realm of flames, Pyroborea. A powerful figure and well-respected in the Elemental Court, his opponents, such as they are, tend to find themselves vaporized in a million degrees of solar fire. Anyone able to impose order and structure on the chaotic fire elementals of Pyroborea is certainly a figure to be reckoned with, in any case.

He has been summoned to Earth on several occasions, in what he calls more 'enlightened' times - when his powers were able to be loosed without restriction, often worshipped as a god of fire and used to keep the local population in line.

His current incarnation on Earth began when the Burning Duke, fresh from the latest millennial settlement of the Elemental Court, saw that Pyroborea could manage without him for a few years - a mere flicker as elementals measured time, but enough for a satisfying stint on that confusing plane at the hub of the realms - Earth.

And so, the Duke of Pyroborea exerted his power on the aether, his spirit seeking someone...receptive, to dreams of fire and power and terrible majesty at their fingertips, and also someone who could accomodate him in the style to which he was accustomed. He found Rembrandt Faux, from the once-royal family of Eudona, wanting to restore their rightful place in the world.