Theme: You Know My Name - Chris Cornell
Role: The Dhampyr
Gender: Male
Nickname(s): Vic, or in some circles he's known as "The White Cloth"
Age: 128 (visual appearance is a man of 20 or so years)
Race: human/vampire hybrid
Build: Lithe and lean, but with tightly pack muscle underneath.
Appearance: Victor has a very pointed features, giving him a very angular and sharp appearance. This gives him a very 'boyish' at times, though it is offset by his polite and refined behavior. This sharpness goes as far as to include his ears, and with his very pale completion many have made the assumption that he is an elf, or at least part elf. Victor has made no attempts to deny these assumptions, as it helps to cover his true existence.
Preferred Clothing: Victor's attire usually sports white or silver colors, and he seems to avoid more earthen colors like greens and browns like the plague. Occasionally you might spot a black cloak and hood that he carries around, but it seems that he uses it more for protection from the weather then for fashion. For the most part though, he keeps his preferred colors at a very neutral tone.
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 153 lbs
Hair Color: light blond that almost appears white at times.
Eye Color: A light grey most of the time. However when he lets his vampiric side take over they start to take on a reddish glow.
Personality: Victor is an odd one, as many will attest to. On the surface he seems to have a duality to his personality. At times he takes the appearance of a calm and refined man. When in social gatherings he is kind, courteous, polite, organized and cheerful, walking and talking with a certain amount of grace to himself. And like any sophisticated individual takes maters of culture and poise to be the utmost importance.
However once the normal social pleasantries are over his more mischievous side pops out. Often his cheery attitude is coupled with much teasing, as his finds it delightful to watch others start to stutter with indignation and embarrassment. Further more he is an insufferable flirt, nearly shameless in his attempts to woe a woman. Because of this he has gained a reputation as both a deviant and an eccentric for his bipolar behavior and his strange sense of aesthetic values.
Beneath it all however is a very, very different person. Living for as long as he has, Victor has experienced much and has been shaped by his experiences into a very cold individual. The events he's partaken in and the scenes he has witnessed over the long years have turned Victor into into a cynical and disillusioned man. He has very pessimistic world view, often seeing and even expecting the worse of everyone and everything around him. This leaves him just a bit bitter and angry inside at the way things are, resigned to the belief that he can't do anything to change it.
This repressed resentment affect Victor in other ways as well. Already suffering from the predator urges as a half-vampire, he would reluctantly admit that he may very well be a sadist in his own right. He likes violence, much as tries to model himself as a gentleman, he can not deny the natural blood lust that comes with being a dhampyr. It's not a great problem for him, as he can easily keep control of his impulses provided he's kept himself 'fed' enough. However when his blood is pumping he can't help but get the desire to spill some belonging too someone else.
Oddities: As you can guess he has a number of traits from his mixed heritage that clash at times and disturb his attempts at a normal life style.
First of all he can't spend long periods of time out in the sun. During the day he finds himself getting tired easily, and if he stays out under the suns rays for to long he starts to develop headaches, which later leads to him becoming dizzy and even passing out if he remains out to long. However the opposite also holds true, and he finds himself full of much more energy once the sun sets.
Another problem he finds with his dual genetic traits is the way his human half undermines his vampiric diet at times. While he can get by on normal food just fine, his vampire side still needs blood to sustain itself. Unfortunately he can't digest blood as well as a full vampire, and he finds that it settles badly in his stomach.
Likes: Books, moments of solitude, wine, flirting, teasing, classical music, spending a 'passionate evening' with a woman, and the occasional exercising of... rough housing.
Dislikes: Hot sunny days, messes, loud erratic noises, his inherent vampiric traits clashing with his human half, boredom.
Hobbies: Painting, night time strolls, gardening.
Phobia(s): pyrophobia - its a minor one, more inborn from his vampire heritage, but Victor can get uncomfortable around open flames.
Skills: Painting, lock picking, violin playing, sneaking, cooking, silent killing, tea brewing, escaping artistry.
Weapon: Victors often practices with a curved saber, but he also employes a various daggers and knives.
Fighting Style: Victor fights with a strange mix of finesse and brutality. He makes controlled and prices movements at first, showing a clear sense of discipline and leaving the impression of a refined fencer. Once his adversary has been lulled into this illusion he shatters it with low kicks, throwing dirt into the face and scathing insults or taunt and generally showing that he has no qualms about fighting dirty. Then he slips back in his 'regal fighter' persona just as quickly, as it is all just part of some clever ruse to keep the other combatants off balanced and confused.
Abilities: Being a Dhampyr has its ups and downs. While he will never obtain the same wide range of powers a full fledged vampire would have Victor does have a few inborn talents gained from his dual nature.
- Hypnosis: His most potent power which he has developed over the course of his long life. Crucial to his ability to remain hidden in the civilized world, Victor has mastered the art of hypnotic suggestion. By simply staring into the eyes of another person he can implant mental commands within their minds without them knowing. Even against an aware target they would have to be particularly strong willed and struggle hard to resist the power in his gaze, and simply breaking eye contact would take a tremendous effort.
- Vampiric Senses: The blood of the vampire has granted a major boost to his perceptive abilities. Sight, smell and hearing are especially effected, allowing him to see in the dark and detect others by the sound of their foot steps and the smell of their body odor. Most greatly, though is that he has been granted a 'sixth sense', a sensitivity to magic.
- Dhampyr's Flesh: While he has always resented that being a half-vampire has caused him many problems health wise and granting him only 'half the power', it has given Victor the boon of having only 'half the weaknesses'. To put it bluntly, Victor is both half living, and half undead, and as a result is only particularly effected by the energies that would harm either. The kind of magic explicitly designed to make a living or undead creature to cringe in pain only causes discomfort unless it had the capacity to harm both, such as fire magic. Also, while he lacks the inborn talent for casting magic, his inherited physical strength has not been diminished by his mixed blood. If anything his physical abilities are the one thing that he can hold as superior to that of most full blood vampires.
Personal History: Victor has not had an easy life. His father seduced his mother for blood and abandoned her when he found she was pregnant, leaving her to have a very difficult and dangerous birth that nearly killed both parent and child. Ostracized for having 'spawned a monster child' Victor's mother was forced to take him away from their home and resort to wandering the dangerous roads from town to town looking for a place where she could earn money to feed them and a place they could stay. All the while having to hide what Victor was less they face persecution and attacks.
Just when they had finally found a place where they could live after years of wandering, the first of many tragedies would hit Victor's life. Victor, just starting puberty, would suffer a condition that all Dhampyr's occasionally wrestle with called a blood rage. With his powers suddenly blooming the young inexperienced hybrid would loose a battle with his instincts and suffer a temporary lapse in sanity, during which he went into a frenzy and killed his own mother. When he finally came too Victor was horrified by what he had done and was forced to flee from his new home by both his own shame and the angry villagers who had come to investigate.
Left on his own in a world that was not kind to him, Victor did whatever he could to survive even if it included having to lie, cheat, steal or even kill on some occasions. He eventually got good at these things. Very good. Still feeling some resentment against those that would despise him for feeling different, Victor would put his newly acquired skills to use as an assassin, taking contracts on those he felt abused their power over others. As a dhampyr he had begun to age more slowly then other after his puberty. This made it easier for him to catch his prey, as who would suspect a small child of being a accomplished killer. As his talent grew so did his fame. He even started leaving calling cards behind, in the form of a small white handkerchief with the targets name sewed into it upon the dead body. He became a ghost story among the rich and powerful for decades. A silent phantom that would slither through the shadows and seep between cracks in the walls and take a persons life in the night, only to vanish at dawn with only a white cloth and a corpse to be the only sign it was ever there.
For over half a century he went on this crusade of his, rooting out the filth that plagued and shackled society. And to this day the name of the White Cloth is still feared. But over time he started to grow disillusioned, as it seemed that no matter how many of corrupt he struck down there would always be more that continued to gnaw on the weak and the innocent. In time he retired, opting to live the rest of his long life in a quiet isolation, settling down in one town for a few years and eventually moving away before the locals got suspicious. Some 'imitators' have risen up in the following decades of his absence, but Victor himself does little more then observe the on goings of the political and criminal underworlds these days. He simply sits alone quietly in leisure, quiet...
... and ultimately, a disgruntled boredom.
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