Dracul Veles (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} __bodiceripper) wrote,@ 2013-01-30 05:44:00 |
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blue jeans, white shirt walked into the room you know you made my eyes burn APPEARANCE I KNOW YOU, I WALKED WITH YOU ONCE UPON A DREAM I KNOW YOU; THE LOOK IN YOUR EYES IS SO FAMILIAR A GLEAM At approximately 6’ 1, Dracul is clean shaven, with brown hair that he usually smooths back (or he develops curtains) and eyes far too reminiscent of Riddick in that his irises and pupils are a uniform silver-white with a slightly darker ring around them, and reflective. Especially in the dark -- when they don’t just reflect, they outright glow their silver-white demonic pride to the world. His current Official Story is that his eyes he was blinded during the first demonic uprising, but a master white witch successfully restored his vision over a period of nearly two solid months of using healing magics on him -- the strange colouration he is left with is ‘magic scarring’ of sorts. You’d be amazed just how many people seem to believe it, though probably because they want to. This particular aspect of his appearance means he tends to wear either very darkly coloured (blue, purple, green… maybe red) or mirrored sunglasses regardless of the season or time of day, taking them off only when alone, for impact, or because he knows he is in ‘good’ company (that said, a great many women these days seem to find his eyes deeply attractive, which he considers only natural). Yes, ladies, they do come off in bed, but by that time it’s rather too late. Oh, and the totally black sunglasses are saved for incognito moments only. His ears are perhaps a little peculiar -- just pointed enough to be noticeable once you’ve bothered to look, while the outer curve is just a little ribbed. Scaled, in fact, if you’re inclined to touch it as well, though said scales are the same colour as his skin even when he tans. Otherwise, he is in superlative physical condition, thank you very much for asking, and you’re welcome to check regardless of gender. Due to past abuse of the ‘blind man’ angle he developed a habit of coming complete with his own cane -- the wooden kind, not the white foldable things that are safer to ‘accidentally’ hit people with. The white canes are hideous, according to him, and look undignified. No, he’d rather use a proper mahogany cane with a silver top (said top is perfectly weighted, carved with a scene that would make anyone but a demon blush when viewed under a microscope, and if you tug it hard enough, it turns out to be the hilt of a stiletto knife long enough to be called a sword; it’s cursed too, so it’ll really give someone most than a nasty jolt if he hits them with it). Dracul’s clothing is always impeccable right down to the very last detail, since he has a habit of never letting anything go unnoticed regarding his attire -- or anyone else’s. Even when the wind just blew his tie out of place; there’s just a certain… something about him that gives the distinct impression he was never meant to look any other way. He nearly always chooses to wear a suit above jeans, but manages to look hideously sharp either way. Cufflinks, shiny watch, a sovereign ring that he claims was his grandfather’s but actually belonged to an angel whose entire family he slaughtered -- oh, and sometimes a tie-clip. Sometimes. His accent, by now, has become more British than anything else, though it remains very clear he comes from Eastern Europe originally (not just because, when the mood takes him, he sounds like he should do audiobooks for Bram Stoker). It rather leaves him with a vague air of mystery to add to all the rest. Oh, and the butt of many Dracula jokes. Unlike a fair number of demons, Dracul’s elemental abilities are not reflected in his wings. They are a large, dragon-like affair, charcoal-grey in colour with a silver-white sheen, and a large silver-white claw at the end of each supporting section. Down his back his skin looks very much like someone tried to copy Ralph Fiennes’ tattoo from Red Dragon, though it has been neatly adjusted to not be so obviously a tattoo of someone’s painting. Instead, he is left with a back that looks very much like it was taken from a dragon, the spine of which is actually ribbed enough to make you question what it is you’re looking at if you’ve not yet seen the rest of the man. The fact his wings and tail are perfectly placed in terms of his markings probably adds to explanations regarding why his mother named him ‘dragon’/‘devil’. The changing patterns of black skin also reach up his neck in points shaped rather like spearheads, rings dozens of times around the top of his right arm in a script that looks like it might be an ancient language but means nothing whatsoever. When it comes to his chest he has forgotten what he was born with and what is a tattoo because they merge so easily (except for the compass rose placed over his heart, pointing south … that is definitely a tattoo). All the markings he was born with are tailored to fit his contours in a disgustingly flattering manner. The only scar that can really been seen past them is the bite mark he has on his left forearm: the demoness he was bedding at the time got over excited but all of the bitch’s teeth were fangs. Lastly, there is his tail: with the precise same colour and shine as his wings, it is as long and thin as a whip (often used as one) with exceedingly sharp twin spikes on the end -- also silver-white. The tail in its entirety can usually be found wrapped around his leg, inside his clothes. PERSONALITY & I KNOW IT’S TRUE THAT VISIONS ARE SELDOM ALL THEY SEEM BUT IF I KNOW YOU, I KNOW WHAT YOU’LL DO... With his arguably perfect choice in suits, unwavering confidence (which is based off an equally unwavering arrogance and an ego the size of Australasia), and a quietly controlling air that falls just short of ‘cold’, Dracul is very easily the kind of man nobody would really be surprised by if they heard that he harboured an active interest in BDSM. Especially if it was during office hours and not so much a secret as he simply neglected to voice it. And, really... it’s funny because it’s true. Not that BDSM/S&M is an absolute must for him, but don’t you think that variety is what counts in a sex life? That includes the women/men involved, not just the positions, et al. There is actually very little about his daily outward behaviour that gives him away as being as oversexed as he actually is. If anything, he will make himself seem as out of everyone’s league as possible -- he finds it makes the end result more interesting, and he prefers a woman who has the steel to approach him rather than wait for a courtesy bottle of champagne that isn’t coming. While he is aware of pretty much every woman in the room he doesn’t let himself become distracted by them (unless one is already unhinged/has a mental disorder, because that has so much potential) because he refuses to ever let any accurately accuse him of being unobservant. Despite his being an incubus, female advances are often met with a calm indifference -- that is, unless he really would rather bed them. Or they’re one of his girls, who tend to treat him like some kind of saviour due to the ideas he leaves in their heads, and he always has time to stop and spent a while actively manipulating them while awake. Anyone around might see a man counselling a girl with obvious problems, while he is actually dropping suggestions of murder into their minds which they will more than likely act upon. In the meantime, Dracul really does play that gentleman (gentleman being the operative word; this particular role has won over more women than he could ever be bothered to count) that just might have a somewhat deviant sexlife behind closed doors. He has manners you could take home to your mother and a surface-level charm, brandishing human concepts like fairness and common decency alongside the other weapons in his arsenal. Beyond that surface he is cold and detached with a constant need for control regarding his surroundings/situation. Attempts to break past Dracul’s veneer of pure self-control and charm is futile unless he has lost his temper; after that, all bets are off. All that said, his self-control does not mean that he does not still deliberately spend his time luring women in, even if he does end up turning them away. Either they jump another man of their choosing or they try to jump him. He may not let them, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s simply because he can. Besides, it’s funnier when most of those around are humans/mortal and all the men are slapped with the reality of who their wife/girlfriend would rather sleep with. Since his interests lie more in creating chaos than bedding as many women as physically possible (although that part is fun too), playing around in the subconscious and all those that come with the dreamworld are what he is best at. Both intelligent and creative -- with centuries-worth of experience to draw on, thus never out of ideas -- he knows how to kept Azraelans, Dream Eaters and oneiropaths on their toes (or hanging by them…) for however long he sees fit and takes great delight in doing so while they watch him render the woman’s dream they were visiting become his own personal space for turning her into Miss Jack the Ripper. Because that’s what Dracul is interested in -- scrambling the minds of these girls and then watching them go on to murder their friends, families, acquaintances, random people who irritated them on the street… It’s a beautiful thing. As his girls grow and develop as killers and choose ways to, well, kill, he always needs to know how it was done -- and teaches himself their methods, unless he is already familiar with them. By now he rather is. Countless dreamwalkers also know of his existence and what he does, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not a one has ever been able to touch him. SKILLS, STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES A PORTRAIT OF INSANITY, APPROACHED WITH PURE HUMANITY COME SEE OUR GIRLS, CRAZY GIRLS ✖ WEAKNESSES Physical Tells -- “Is that a tail coiled around your leg or are you really that happy to see me?” If Dracul was to strip Holy Tells -- If his normal tells didn’t give it all away, these do. There are various levels of Dracul’s “I hate God” campaign and they all pile up depending on how long he sticks around the holiness. Step #1, his eyes turning black. Full-on necromancer black. Oh, and he can’t talk, because otherwise his voice is far, far too loud. It’s like someone wants everyone to notice him. Step #2, he starts crying sticky black tears -- you could argue it was watered down tar. He argues it’s messy and inconvenient. Step #3, is the same as #2 only this is generally where the migraine kicks in (this migraine will grow over time and eventually spread to a piercing pain in his ears). Step #4, has a bit more of a gap before it starts, possibly because Lucifer felt like being nice when he added it. Dracul’s hands and then feet eventually begin bleeding through his skin -- in that order, depending on whether or not he was able to get out of dodge first. The perversion of the stigmata. Weirdly, his own tell is the only reason he truly believes God and Lucifer exist. His Girls -- Dracul will target pretty much any woman, but if he can get them with mental problems or even just Daddy Issues already built in then that’s a bonus. These girls are his type. The ones that he likes to truly destroy and then let them destroy others as and when they felt like it until apprehended or killed. Unfortunately, many of them recognise him from their dreams, where he paints himself as their saviour -- and, every so often, one will approach him. A woman with a truly broken mind with never take it well when told that she hasn’t been recognised by the only person she trusts, though, and those little incidents never end well. Women -- Well just because he professes a certain level of indifference to their faces that doesn’t really make it so. This incubus is about as oversexed as any other one of his kind, and somewhere there are a motherfucking fuckton of kids to prove it (because he’s not renowned for playing ‘safely’ either, you know?). And a man’s got his needs. It’s just that his are a whole lot more substantial than most and when it comes to sex and nothing but sex, he can go through women faster than any vampire could hope to go through blood dolls. Superiority Complex -- He’s an incubus, he can’t very well help it. Not that he would ever want to. There’s nothing wrong with knowing you’re better than even many demons simply because you were born as such. The succubi and incubi are creatures of myth and legend on a global level. They are the most powerful and the most feared of their ilk. For crying out loud, they’re that dangerous they actually need structure in the form of a hierarchy and an elder. Dracul is proud to be the figurative problem child that scared the rest of the class so much that it actually needed a minder to keep everything in line. Not that he’s calling Seraphina a ‘minder’. She’d destroy him and while he is an arrogant sod he’s not quite ready to try going toe-to-toe with her just yet. Vice -- Mostly sex, smoking and alcohol, but if he wants it he will damn well have it. As and when he wants it. He has very little interest in drugs, if any, purely because the one time he tried cocaine he reverted to speaking Romanian and couldn’t speak anything else until it wore off. He finds this inconvenient in a very tedious way, so cigarettes and alcohol it is. Women is a given. Men when he feels like it. That said, to Dracul, vices are a little like Pokemon, but if you’re not going to collect them all you at least have to try them all at least once. Vanity -- He is in possession of a mirror and eyes that function perfectly well, despite what he has told people in the past. He knows that his eyes, however peculiar, are actually quite attractive. He also knows that if his body-shape changed at all, his markings wouldn’t be quite so flattering. In general, he knows that he is an exquisite looking incubus and believes it to be a waste that he can’t have his wings and tail out on display more often. Narcissist? Why, yes. So whatever you do, don’t cut his face. Temper -- Depending on the reason, it can take decades (or longer) for someone to successfully chip away at his temper, or you can suddenly realise he lost it two minutes ago and forgot to give you the memo but for the blood that is already spilling. There is a middle ground somewhere, and that is usually where it tends to fall (on the middle line where most ‘reasonable folk’ do), but he need to control certain aspects of his life and consequently himself can meant that his temper can be bottled up for a while. Thirty years or so is the longest he has managed so far. Naturally, when he finally lost it, it was devastating for all involved or within a certain perimeter, and if he could get into their head that night there was a chance their traumatised psyche would not allow them to wake up. ✖ SKILLS & ABILITIES He is a skilled blood witch, with most of his skill lying in flinging the nastiest curses and setting wards with the worst effect. Being something of a wanderer, Dracul speaks a number of languages: Romanian, Hungarian, Serbian, Russian, Slovak, German, Italian, Greek, Norwegian, French and English. He speaks all of them conversationally, but is only fully fluent in a few. He doesn’t remember which until he tries, though English and Romanian are among them. Since he made a point of learning every method of murder he noticed His Girls coming up with, he is also pretty damn proficient in ending lives the human way. Be it via blades, poison, firearms or garotting (which he was already mostly familiar with anyway), Dracul polishes up on things like the most efficient way to swing an axe at the back of someone’s head whenever he hears/reads that a lunatic he is responsible for cleaved the back of her husband’s head off. ✖ STRENGTHS Patience, patience -- If there is any virtue that Dracul is guilty of, it is this one, because the bastard has the patience of a freaking saint. Of course, this is only when it comes to something he is actually willing to wait for. Every other request he makes is generally expected to be met there and then -- and it usually is because he exploits the Incubus factor and approaches female staff, etc. -- but when it comes to his investments? He can plan the smallest seed of psychosis in a teenager’s head and will easily wait decades to see what happened afterwards. Well-Versed In Murder -- Dracul honestly does know how to fillet a human/humanoid well beyond Hannibal Lecter’s standards and once, in his boredom, went so far as to write a book on poisoning (that at one point had to be taken off the shelves because pissed off wives across the Western world were actually using it). That only really touches on the number of ways he knows how to kill a human creature and even those methods can be twisted or combined to prove more effective, etc. When it comes to purely being a demon with a definite lack of a conscience and a love of all things that result in bleeding (because have you seen what he can do with the blood?) there is absolutely no end to methods of murder knocking around in his head -- or the heads of the women he plays with. It Wasn’t Me -- There’s something about driving women to the point of mass murder and helping them in joining the elusive club of female serial killers that is so damn satisfying. All these people die and none of the blood was actually spilled by him. It’s so funny you could just fucking die. At least, that’s how he sees it. And no matter how many psychic poke at him, nobody could prove a single thing -- because if one woman was to stand up in court and rightly claim that a demon made her do it then… they’d all start. It would become the blanket excuse for everybody, and it would be better than the fucking insanity plea. POWERS & DEMONIC ABILITIES IT’S LIKE A DARK PARADISE; NO ONE COMPARES TO YOU BUT THERE’S NO YOU, EXCEPT IN MY DREAMS TONIGHT ✖ INCUBUS • The Incubus is a seductive creature that drives its prey to madness, or at least uncharacteristic behavior. These demons have had the finger pointed at them for any host of reasons: death, dishonour, insanity, and of course, unwanted pregnancies. • The male of the species is an incubus, while the female a succubus. Each has the power to dreamwalk -- that is, visit the dreams of any species, as long as it is of the opposite sex. An incubus may only enter the dreams of a female, and the succubus a male. In a dream, they have complete control. Additionally, they can tap deeper into the subconscious of the dreamer and obtain information. The most powerful of the species may sometimes even plant ideas or feelings in the mind -- an ability Dracul abuses. The object of dreamwalking for the incubi/succubi is usually to drive a person to madness. They love to spur on wicked behavior, and are often found to be pulling the strings of serial killers. Also, oneiropaths, dream eaters, and House of Azrael vamps that attempt to connect, enter, or feed on a dream with one of these demons commanding it will be in for a nasty surprise. Any of the three will be sucked into the dream itself, and at the mercy of the demon. Worse yet, they will be unable to awake on their own until the demon releases them. Upon waking (if they ever do), they will be completely drained of energy for days. Dream eaters will awake on the brink of starvation. • In the waking world, the incubi and succubi have the ability to incite lust in the opposite sex. • Finally, there is a strong hierarchy where the incubi and succubi are concerned. Because they are one of the original demonic races, they are widely respected in the demonic community. They can give orders to any younger demon, and while many won’t listen, legionaries must. ✖ MAGIC • Unholy Magic: Unholy magic can be used to curse items, places, or people, and it's an immensely powerful curse. Not only will it serve as a ward against anything angelic, but its very presence can hurt anything angelic. It can be used as an offensive magic against anything angelic, fallen angels, and ascended demons. Inversely, unholy magic can be used to heal anything demonic -- included demonic-blooded humans. • Blood Magic: Demons are natural blood or black witches. In Dracul’s case, he is a blood witch -- and a proficient one at that. He is specialised in extra-offensive spells, curses and wards; it is more or less a guarantee that anything laid down by him is really going to pack one Hell of a punch (or thirteen). ✖ PSYCHIC ABILITIES • Finder: Finders do just that: find things or people who are missing. If he were human, Dracul would be the equivalent of a master/fifth level finder, having never lost anyone or anything he wished to find in all his years regardless of what state they were in. [Level 5: Missing persons can be found without a focus if they have a personal relationship with the Finder (though depending on the strength of the gift, some finders can lock onto people they've only met once or twice before) or with a focus if the Finder has never met them before. Consciousness nor coherence is required, though an altered mental state can affect the strength and clarity of the reading. Corpses can be found with strong effort. Objects can be found easily with or without a focus. Depending on individual strength, range is anywhere from several thousand miles to worldwide.] • Telepath: Telepaths hear the thoughts of other people. Usually. Once in a while a telepath pops up with more limited boundaries -- a little like Dracul, though he also has his fair share of quirks. He can’t hear anybody’s thoughts and his own mind is permanently shielded as though to balance it out, but his thought projection has a far reach to the point of being unnerving, including the projection of images and words (minimal in number regarding the latter because who in Hell can be bothered projecting anything more than a few words?) onto anything he can burn them onto: any kind of film negatives, paper, wood (if he can be bothered thinking about it for long enough to make the impression)… well, anything that would both burn and hold the image (he once ‘burned’ a replica of the Turin Shroud on an idiot’s handkerchief while it was neatly folded in their pocket). This quirk leads him to believe it might be linked directly to his elemental affinity. ✖ FIRE AFFINITY • Passive: The fire Dracul produces is pure white for reasons unknown to him. He was just born that way. His body temperature has also forever been that little bit higher than everyone else’s -- because of his affinity, not because he is hellspawn. Also, he can never be burned. There is also that nagging discomfort around too much water. • Active -- Combat: He possesses the ability to throw balls of fire of varying sizes -- from the size of a pea to around twice the size of a soccer ball. This is very real fire that burns things down, etc. • Active -- Diversionary: He can also create what he calls ‘visual witchery’ with flames that create heat but never seem to burn. They are a little like what one might imagine would happen if you could cross the fae glamour with fire elementalism. White flames that do actually feel hot but cannot actually hurt you; they are a diversion meant to frighten. ✖ DEMONIC STRENGTHS & ABILITIES • Detecting Their Own: When coming across a person that is demonic blooded, demons know it. Plain and simple. They know the person is demonic blooded and how strong it is. What’s more -- they know if coming across one of their own descendants. • Detecting Angelic Presence: Demons automatically know angels, and with this, they automatically know if a person is angelic blooded. What’s more, they can detect blessings (even if they don’t know how to break them). They also know fallen angels, nephilim, and ascended demons on sight. ✖ DEMONIC WEAKNESSES • Holy: The angels have holy magic where the demons have unholy. They’re as weak to it as the angels are to unholy. So there will be no marching in and conquering the angels with unholy magic alone. In this respect, the angels and demons are perfectly even with each other. • Magical Limitations: Every demon is a born witch. The problem is, where most humans have the choice of what they’ll study, demons don’t. Demons are incapable of learning both blood and black magic. It’s always either one or the other, and they have no choice in the matter. It’s random at birth. • Ascension: Demons are not supposed to be capable of certain things. Simple, good things, like, you know, love. Demons are made to be incapable of possessing redeeming qualities. They’re not supposed to be the good guys. If something goes wrong, and a demon is of a weak mind, they can ascend. In other words, they’d no longer be a demon. They’re pretty much the demonic version of a fallen angel, and it’s a bad thing to be. HISTORY COME ON TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE LET ME KISS YOU HARD IN THE POURING RAIN Dracul was born in Romania in 1588 -- or, to be annoyingly specific… he was born in either Wallachia or Moldavia, which were then the principalities that would become Romania, but he does not actually know which one saw him come into the world. Even though she accepted his twin sister Marilena as her own, his mother Viorica tried to get rid of him when she eventually noticed that, being a demon who very literally learned how to fly before he could even crawl, the persistent little bastard was following her around (actually, he was following Marilena around, but to-may-to. to-mah-to and all that). See, she didn’t much care for his eyes. When her efforts at locking him in a church resulted only in the church burning down, a perfect ring seared into the ground around where the little demon had been at the time (this, kids, is called Attention Seeking 101), she decided to keep him. At least until he could walk. Then she had the gall to foist the name ‘Dracul’ on him -- almost singularly because the House of Draculesti was ruling Wallachia at the time and she liked that it meant ‘dragon’. There were idle promises that if he really didn’t like it he could change it, but since Bram Stoker had yet to be even thought of, let alone born, there was very little to make the young Dracul turn his nose up at it. Not even the Romanian contempt in the wake of Vlad III Dracula -- the name ‘Dracul’ is not as normal a name as it once was. From a very early age, Dracul found interest wandering through the dreams of women, and it really didn’t take him long before he found a more vested interest in plucking the strings of their subconscious. His mother was off trawling men, after all, so he had very little to keep him successfully entertained unless he wanted to kill someone (which, given his age, was always a messy affair -- most especially when Marilena got involved). Nevertheless, as a child Dracul delighted in tugging at certain subconscious connections, slicing through the strings attached to them -- creating Daddy Issues where there had been none before, sending women (usually teenagers) into a downward spiral… purely out of experimentation. Viorica deigned only to accept him as her son, but anything beyond that (like pointing him in the rough direction of How To Use The Tricks Up Your Sleeve 101) was too much effort for her to bother with so she left him to work it out alone, though she was more than happy to bestow her knowledge on his sister. Interestingly, it did not precisely drive a wedge between the twins; possibly because they were twins. It did, however, create a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on one’s point of view) competitive atmosphere between them. The young (pre-12 years old) Dracul spent his nights with his head in the dreams of the women in the area surrounding him, driving each and every one of them off the bandwagon of sanity with an increasing finesse that entertained his mother enough to decide it was time he was allowed out to play properly. He had been outside before, of course. Viorica had always dragged him back since he hadn’t ‘earned’ the right to toy with the populace like his sister could -- but not any more. Just as he hit twelve years of age he was free to traumatise and scandalise the girls around his age, which was something he took to like a duck takes to water. The appearance of his eyes were at first assumed to be a problem, but despite the superstitious nature of the people he was living among, they became a point of interest. When asked about them, he claimed to be blind; a convenient lie, because it put them at ease when they thought he couldn’t see them. Marilena would often pose as his ‘guide’ and the two of them would abuse their ability to influence lust in others to manipulate the people around them into all manners of compromising positions while the twins walked by, the picture of innocence. His teenage years saw him progress like someone had hit the accelerator (and maybe turned it up to eleven) and while he really loved bedding every female who turned her attention to him and not the other guy who caught her eye (that just hurt his ego), nothing satisfied Dracul as much as dragging a woman into bedlam while she slept. Preferably after sleeping with her. He would stay around long enough to see she was pushed far enough to do damage to others and not simply herself -- until that became his favourite part. By the time he had stopped aging (on the younger side of 50-ish is his official answer to demons, to humans he claims to be forty-nine) he had sired more children than could be considered in any way normal for anything but an incubus of his age (at that point), killed his mother (with Marilena giggling in the background) for the fun of it but namely wealth she had collected by posing as a prostitute for years, and drifted to Transylvania (where the richer society of the time seemed to live) and had taken to posing as a blind nobleman. His sister did not make the move with him, deciding instead to drift in a different direction. Refusing to wear a bandage over his eyes in public -- since that really would leave him blind and he had no intention to find out what that felt like -- he had spectacles fashioned for him with either blue, purple or green stained glass that he could change depending on how he felt. There was also a cane, that he would make a point of prodding the floor with the way actually blind people seemed to. His alleged disability really didn’t change his behaviour in any other way, though he did develop ‘favourites’ -- the ones who he had tipped over the edge and were truly capable of causing their own brand of damage. Not all of them were unfortunate women of lower classes who had fallen for his ‘charm’. Some of them were the daughters, sisters, wives or mothers of nobility (so much more fun to steal) and ended up locked away, left to be the madwoman in the attic a la Jane Eyre... except Dracul all too often found his precious lunatics and freed them again. Frequently in the middle of the night so they could murder their families while they slept. He did keep track of their whereabouts thereafter. If they were caught and hanged for what they had done… well, then that was annoying, but you couldn’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. The only issue, perhaps, was that the omelette Dracul was making fell into the same kind of category that, say, Hannibal Lecter would eventually fall into when he was dreamt up. He was also breaking pretty much every egg he happened upon. In a time populated by people who didn’t know serial killers were an actuality, who believed the vampire propaganda that was fed to them by each and every house and therefore believed their own messed up vampire folklore, an incubus with an incredibly focused interest in female murderers could cause an awful lot of damage. Which he did. Every night they slept he set about severing as many of their human ties as possible without making them so insane that they would wish to kill themselves. Each woman was completely different from the rest of ‘his girls’; there was -- and will never be -- any set formula for creating the perfect homicidal woman. But it was possible to refine the process and he learned something new every time he turned his attentions back to the women under what he referred to as ‘his charge’. The women who, being a finder, he never lost. Not once. Perhaps disturbingly, these were individuals who would be guaranteed to view him as their saviour if they ran into him during their waking hours. Very few ever did; he could not abide the way the grateful clung to their apparent benefactors, so he did his best not to subject himself to them. Dracul’s waking hours were for broadening his social circles; except when he spent them travelling. The incubus travelled for a number of reasons: boredom with his surroundings, following favourite women who were on the move, and then the necessary expansion of his social circles/sandbox. He travelled through mainland Europe, Scandinavia, then down to Britain over a period of approx. two hundred years, settling down in England in the 1830s after having far too much fun pretending to be a nobleman of whatever title he felt like carrying in whichever court he was in at the time. He stayed in London until the turn of the century; long enough to bear witness to Victorian England at her most grotesque with Jack the Ripper (who, by the way, he thinks may have actually been a woman with an incubus at the helm, but everyone is a conspiracy theorist), the Penny Dreadfuls, serialised stories featuring characters such as Sweeney Todd, and visits to Bedlam for a penny. Not to forget the time he spent milling around Queen Victoria’s court. The country -- like every other country he had been to -- was inspiring, in its own way. Dracul developed a penchant for single-mother families or households that were mostly female during the first few years he spent in England. There honestly seemed to be an overabundance of woman in the working classes… and then again in the upper classes; and as with most households, the majority of the house staff were female. Which was ideal, really. Like most people of a certain class, when visiting England the incubus had been welcomed into the home of a wealthy family who professed to already be acquainted with his. Dracul was claimed by a Mrs Courthope (widowed), her children (four daughters and a son of maybe three years of age) and her mother, Mrs Fairbanks. The elderly Mrs Fairbanks’ mind fell apart quickly, turning her into a wicked old bitch who couldn’t find a nice word to say about anybody -- except him. Mrs Courthope was far more like his traditional target, but with all of her daughters of an age to be attracted to Dracul and able to voice it without scandalising everyone in the vicinity, she rapidly found herself competing with them (and many of the household staff) for his attention. All of which lead to a fascinating kind of friction that verged on warfare the further he pushed them off their rockers. Both Mrs Fairbanks and the infant Mr Courthope were killed while the latter’s sisters made attempts on their mother’s and each other’s lives in an effort to chase Dracul. The staff were dropping like flies; all the male staff having been used as test subjects for forms of poison meant for the women of the family, then jealousy simply becoming too great an obstacle for a number of the maids to see past, causing one girl to be pushed over the banister rail, one to be drowned in the bath, then another to ‘fall’ from an open window and dash her head on the steps. It was the youngest daughter who outlived them all, however -- once a certain demon was finished severing the bonds she had with her sisters… while leaving said bond intact on the other sisters’ side, purely as an experiment -- but being by far the most disturbed at that point, she had certainly killed a fair few herself. In later life she retained problems befriending other women and could never stand the female house staff. When she married, she murdered (or ‘dismissed’, as she claimed) the equivalent of an entire household of staff (all women) before going on to kill her sister and mother in-law after she moved in with them. Everything was fine (her husband was clearly stupid), she went on to have three sons, but the birth of a daughter triggered an almost pre-emptive strike and she killed the child -- along with all the rest. And her husband. When they finally caught her, she was hanged, much to Dracul’s disappointment. And that was the first household he visited in Britain. His next stop was America, and their habits regarding hospitality was not at all that different. There is something about the phrase “rinse, lather, repeat” that he finds strangely comforting and entirely apt. Truly, there is not a blessed thing wrong with hopping from one family to the next, leaving each and every one of them (and some of the people around the edges, like their friends and neighbours) utterly devastated by a swirling wake of psychotic… harpies if nobody seems to have the brains to figure out what the common denominator is. Please. He always gives his real name, he always gives the same age, he always gives details that are 100% true to him at the time (apart from the odd occasion he commits fraud shortly after killing a rich acquaintance -- really, his bank balance doesn’t fluctuate quite so wildly all by itself). He is an incredibly easy man to trace back, should you stop to take the time, and yet he can never remember where he has been. Only the people of real interest he had met. He does remember when women decided they had rights, though. They started parading around and jumping/falling in front of horses and burning bras and things. It was quite ridiculous. To clarify, it was not the idea of women’s rights that was ridiculous. Despite centuries of repression, etc. Dracul is not one of those incubi who actually still believe women belong in the kitchen. The ridiculous part was the parading/burning bras/jumping in front of horses. The much more interesting and better thought-out part was where certain members of woman-kind had decided to embrace their ‘newfound’ independence. Mostly in terms of anything approaching sexuality, really. He looks back on the 1930s with as close to affection as a demon is likely to get; there is just something wonderfully entertaining about how the feisty thing that just left on that mafioso’s arm could be made just as dangerous -- if not more so -- than the man himself. Dracul would hang around the clubs in Chicago with his eye on his girls. The ones who were usually already unhinged enough to take down a grown man the moment they had a little privacy and she thought he’d given her reason to. They all had their individual triggers. And they all seemed as sweet as pie from an outsider’s perspective. Quirky in an interesting way -- a good interesting way. The kind of girl who kept your mind focused on her without really trying. Cut scene, some would-be mobster is taking her home. Cut scene, he’s dead in the gutter and she’s hailing a cab back to the club with bloody hands. The next development he paid attention to after that was the miniskirt. Then the microskirt. Needless to say, he doesn’t really do world affairs or politics in general… although if someone told him that Romania just blew up he might be pissed off for about a week. At some point in the 1970s, Dracul got tired of flower people and finally -- finally -- went to see Hell. As bizarre as it might sound, he had never been. It was a bit of a culture shock, almost, and brought a whole new meaning to “I’ll see you all in Hell” but he liked it enough to decide to knock around there for… Well, until the mid-’90s. Hell is where he got that scar from being clawed; mid-coital violence. But his return to the earthly plane flipped the culture shock on its head, because he managed to get back just before the rest of Hell heard the angels’ Gates had closed. Such fun. Now, did he go back and drag more demons out of the pit, or did he just go on and throw himself whole-heartedly into the hunting season? That would be door #2. And he somehow developed a nasty habit of targeting Guardian Angels -- specifically, through their wards. Since he expects disturbed of the very highest quality in his girls, he felt it was only fair that he at least made an effort to match it in his own conquests. He also relished the challenge that came when an angel gets a boost in their ability when their wards are in danger. Knowing these angels often have more than just the one family unit to cover, he did as much physical damage to as many family members as possible while holding back one hostage -- usually female, to save her for later regardless. Fire-balls and spiked tail aside, Dracul picked up methods of murder as his girls did (because really, he ought to be capable of anything they are/were; it’s a matter of pride), leaving him more than proficient with knives. Several angels returned to the home of their wards to find that he had filleted them with knives taken from their own kitchen. The ‘hostages’ he took were invariably left broken -- mentally, physically or both -- while Dracul refused to give their Guardians the chance to take their own lives when they asked it. Instead, he attacked in full force. Because demons don’t possess respect enough to adhere to an angel’s last wish. The Guardians in particular are the angels who either went to ground and hid around their charges or seemed to give up and go home, because they are among those who really seemed to just… fade. Meanwhile, Dracul continues as usual. He doesn’t stay with rich families any more, but he can stay in hotels and the like. They provide him with a vast array of people (... women) to engage with and entertain himself. Expensive hotels and penthouse suites, they are the modern urban equivalent of the manor house. Besides, he can always go back to haunting the dreams of those silly creatures who devote their lives to praying and living in convents, then turn the Mother Superior into a homicidal maniac. What? It’s fun. ✖ SINCE THE GATES OPENED Dracul was actually in India when the Light of May hit. Why? Because a little time previous to that he realised he’d never been there, either. So he just went. When all the nonsense about supernaturals started hitting that side of the world, he was amused for a time. The chaos was refreshing and for once it really did seem to include everybody. But then they started labeling supernaturals ‘lesser demons’ and, frankly, the incubus began to get insulted. It was time to leave before he became overly bored with the place and pulled out the big guns with both blood and unholy magic. But apparently not before picking up his, uh, his familiar. Raziela is a Common Krait: a 6ft long black snake with thin white stripes. Not only is she venomous, but she is a species of snake that eats other snakes. To be honest, Dracul was mostly concerned with the fact she can also be opinionated and he still needed to get 6ft of muscle to… wherever he next considered home. That ended up being America again, because he felt like it and they weren’t being quite as irritating. His feet and wings eventually took him north to Michigan -- because he’d never been there before and the Hotel di sei Ali was blatantly one of Seraphina’s. Since the adult store Wonderland was ownerless, he bought it. What? It really isn’t so absurd that he might be able to work. |  DRACUL you like your girls insane FULL NAME: Dracul Lucian Veles NICKNAMES: Vlad, Dracula (which, in Romanian, makes no sense.) CURRENT AGE: 421; claims to be 49 DATE OF BIRTH: March 29th, 1588 PLACE OF BIRTH: Romania (but nonetheless hellspawn) RACE: Demon; Incubus MAGICAL AFFINITY: Blood Magic PSYCHIC: Finder & [blocked] Telepath ELEMENTAL AFFINITY: Fire OCCUPATION: Proprietor of Wonderland MARITAL STATUS: Single SEXUALITY: Pansexual CURRENT RESIDENCE: Hotel di sei Ali FATHER: Unknown Incubus MOTHER: Viorica (Succubus; deceased) SIBLINGS: Marilena (succubus; twin), countless others CHILDREN: Radu (incubus), Luminita (succubus), Alina (succubus); & countless others ‘LOVERS’/VICTIMS: Countless, names unknown/forgotten FAMILIAR: Raziela (Common Krait) ‘FRIENDS’: TBD ENEMIES: Angels, fallen angels, ascended demons ...  • Often puts his cigarettes out on his tongue… just because he can. • Carries a cursed cane just in case he needs to clock someone with it. Or feels like it. • Has a fondness for sirens, but the feeling is rarely mutual. • •  NAME: Pippa EMAIL: See contacts page PB: Viggo Mortensen TIME ZONE: GMT LYRICS USED: ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Dark Paradise’, ‘Born to Die’ by Lana Del Rey, ‘Girls! Girls! Girls!’ by Emilie Autumn, & ‘Once Upon A Dream’ from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.  DISCLAIMER: This is a character journal for the RPG Light of May. I am neither Viggo Mortensen nor Dracul Veles and no money is being made from this. It is just for fun. |
