Looking for feedback (retry)

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taintedsoul
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Looking for feedback (retry)

Post by taintedsoul »

Hi, I posted this in the community projects area, but didn't get any feed back, so I am trying it in the general forum instead. Let me know what you think!
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Hi, this is the back story for a Darklord for a domain in the cluster I have been working on. I am looking for feed back. Let me know what you think!

Zhee Kareh, (The Living Vampire)

How I loathe this thing I have become. Once I was a hero, a liberator. Now I live in the embodiment of damnation. I am a plague and a monster. As the light of the sun shines I live, grow old. I do not fall to the thrall of the evil I have become. But as the last light of the radiant sun fades away, replaced by the black ink of night all this changes. Each night as I stand before my reflection, I watch it fade as my heart labors, beats futilely then beats its last. The agony is unbearable, but I would bear it forever, for the true pain comes with the dawn.

By night I become a thing of evil and villainy. To feed on that which I hold dear, Is there any worse torment of the hells? I stalk the streets, myself yet someone else. I find a child, oft a flax haired boy. A boy so much like the one before... By Dawns light my heart beats anew. I remember it all, the fear, the blood. Blood which soaks my hands, stains my lips. The tears come, but never wash the blood from my hands nor my lips.

Caitlin, of course has covered my trail, as she always does. And soon another innocent will suffer for my weakness.

It was not always so. As I said once was I a hero. A hero to the learned and oppressed people of my land who practiced their craft in dimly lit basements and hidden away dark recesses where the eyes of the monarch did not see, for he feared them. Knowledge is power after all.

I was one of them, the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge itself was a hunger to my soul. But as the fingers of old age streaked my golden crown with the first hints of silver, dread encroached upon me. Not the dread of death, that specter haunted all of us who practiced the art. No this was the fear not of the reaper but of father time. With each tick of the clock I felt myself grow older, my strength ebbing.

But fortune would hand me a cure. Cure the would lead me to my damnation.

My love for children is well known. Their adoring eyes upon me, their minds open to the lessons that I teach. In my youth I had wanted a child of my own, but my devotion to my art excluded romance, and so I consoled myself to tutoring the youths of others. I was a teacher, a tutor. In these children I planted the seed of hope, the seed of tomorrow.

But still my passing youth haunted me. If only I could regain that vigor, perhaps a family of my own might be possible. For many nights I toiled and studied. Corpses and cadavers became like tomes to me and I studied them vigorously. This of course was kept from the eyes of others. If the art was condemned, tampering with the dead was even more so.
It came to pass a young boy had fallen to the Nosferatu. A flax headed youth that could be taken for a child of my loins. Brought to my attention by means I shall not reveal here, I came to possess him.

It was here that I saw my opportunity. Youth eternal, a prize sought by many but grasped by none. Within my home I chained him, and begun my experiment. It was my theory that Vampirism was contained in the blood. A malady that in small doses might strengthen a man, and stretch his years beyond counting. I drew from this boy his blood, a little at first, then gradually more each night and transfused it with my own.

After a week I was taking so much that I had to bleed myself nearly dry to take it all in.

But I felt it working, power coursed through me beyond any magic I could wield. More still I noticed the grey fingers of time recede. Yet night brought its own terrors. My heart would labor to near faltering, and darkness would close on me as the sun dipped into the misty mountains. But this passed quickly and strength surged through my body...

In the days that passed the Rebellion rose, myself at its head and crushed our oppressors. But on the fateful night of the final confrontation, I fell to the blade. I watched my life's blood drain away as so often I had drained the child vampire. The darkness of death rushed in.

I awoke to the sun's warmth on my face. It was like the soft caress of a lover chasing away a nightmare. I was ALIVE! By some twist of fate I lived when death should have claimed me. If only I had known I would have mourned. For that which had died that night was my humanity, never to rise again. As the sunset that night I felt the dread grip of death wrap its cold uncaring fingers around my heart. I tumbled to the ground. Eventually, when the last light of day has passed the pain was gone. So was something else. Something I could not place at the time but now know was my life. I was a dead thing. An unholy abomination.

A hunger encompassed me, and instinct led me on. That night I learned the true horror of what I had become. A Vampire. But no normal blood would satisfy me. I have tried to feed from the old, the sick, men and beasts alike. But only the blood of the young filled me. I killed, slaughtering many in my hunger before a small child fed that awful thirst.

I still remember the horror on his face as I drained the lifeblood from him. His face haunts me like a specter...
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Post by Bane »

Very interesting. With the title of Living Vampire, I almost expected something like Morbius from Spider-Man comics. This is a unique creature though. Very good flavor.

Have you put anything into hard stats yet for him? (from the flavor I wouldn't imagine he'd be to uber)
taintedsoul
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Post by taintedsoul »

Not as yet, though IU plan to soon.

As a vampire he is not very powerful, but as a wizard he has great power.

Before the land was drawn into Ravenloft, magic was suppressed. He was a teacher and secretly a magician. He led a bloody revolt that ended in the regicide of the entire Royal family (Think the killing of the Romanov's).

As leader of the rebelion he, he was made king, and the land became a Magocracy.

I am open to suggestions stat-wise however, and when I get them done I will likely post them here on the board, if anyone is interested.
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Joël of the FoS
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Post by Joël of the FoS »

Nice background. A sort of knowing Malken.

To make the caracter more interesting, you should provide adventure hooks to him - what would he say to heroes? Would he be hypocrit and deny his dual nature? Would he ask for help? Etc.

Joël
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