AppearanceFull Name: John Ivan Weston
Nicknames/Alias/AKA: Ivan
Age(Turned): 26
Age(Actual): 158
Gender: Male
DOB: 11/13/1860
Occupation: Security/Bartender at The Shack
Race: Vampire
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Green
Height and Build: 5’10, Lean and athletic
Other Appearance: Although he may not look too imposing he somehow manages to give off a very predatory vibe even when he’s not trying. His eyes, unless feeding, are a dull and dark green, his smile rarely seen and too toothy for most when it is. His skin is fairly pale, he doesn’t do a lot of tanning even with his
ring, which protects him from the sun. His most noticeable feature is the
scar on the right side of his face stretching from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth, and old battle wound from the vampire that sired him. He has a naturally woodys smell, like sandlewood and cedar, usually with a hint of whiskey as well.
History: Ivan’s father, Thomas Weston, was a cousin to the Wellesley’s, born into the American sect of the clan of hunters. As a young lad, his father sailed to China to train with members of the Hao family, and while their he became close with members of the Korikov family as well. His father found himself drawn to the more extreme philosophies of hunting that he learned from the Korikov’s, mainly from an Ivan Korikov with whom he quickly became close friends and then brother’s in law when he married the man’s sister. Thomas and Ivan were hunting buddies, together they had trained with a master from the Hao family, hunted supernaturals throughout Europe before Thomas returned to America with his new bride, Ana, Ivan’s sister. Upon returning to America Thomas brought with him all he had learned from Ivan, a more brutal and ruthless way of hunting than what he learned from the Wellesley’s along with discipline and knowledge from the Hao hunters. Thomas quickly left New York, his ways were seemingly too intense for the Wellesley’s there, and headed west looking to establish his family name, amongst the great hunter families, in wild frontier of the new world.
Thomas and his wife Ana settled in a town in Texas where they began raising their two boys, first Samuel and then John, who went by his middle name, Ivan. Thomas trained the boys almost as soon as they could walk, he was as tough as his own father and the Hao masters had been on him. He needed his boys to be strong enough to carry on the family legacy. When their father deemed them old enough, Sam at fourteen, and Ivan at twelve, he began to take them hunting, short trips for weaker creatures and gradually upping the difficulty. In the meantime, his mother had given birth to another sibling, a baby sister named Rebecca. His mother and sister would stay home while his father would take the boys hunting slowly letting them have more and more control over planning and tracking their kills. They began moving from town to town hunting and tracking anything inhuman, and in the wild and lawless west there was never a shortage of supernatural creatures running around.
Things were going fairly well for the Weston family, they were making a small name for themselves, people were starting to come to them for help, they were starting to train Rebecca in the ways of the hunter and his brother had found himself a wife and had a son of his own. It was when a young deputy came to his father asking for help that their fate took a turn for the worst. The man’s town was plagued by an ancient vampire that had taken up residence near there. He left, along with his father and brother to try and track down the vampire. While they found it easy to track and kill the few vampires within the town, the root of the problem, the ancient vampire, remained elusive. In addition to the many fresh vampires they also managed to kill the main vampire’s mate but by the time they had located his lair the vampire was gone.
With no more clues to the ancient vampire’s whereabouts the men returned home. A feeling a of dread was felt by all three men as they approached the house, even the horses were spooked and would only get so close before refusing to continue. The smell hit them before they even opened the door; hot metallic blood and rotten flesh. Inside he found his mother along with his brother’s wife and young son, lifeless and with their throats ripped out. Even worse they found their sister, barely fourteen, had been turned into a vampire for the sole purpose of giving them a message from the vampire they had hunted. “Marius sends his regards.” The thing that wore his sisters face spoke. “You took his family, now he takes yours.” The monster showed her fangs and lunged towards them, the brothers were to shocked to move but their father grabbed the vampire and dragged her, kicking and shrieking, outside into the light of day, tied her to a tree and left her to burn.
After the funerals, Thomas lost himself in drink, while his sons focused all their time and energy on vengeance. Sam and Ivan tortured and killed any creature they could find until they found their way to a vampire called Marius. Sam wanted to wait, develop a real plan but Ivan had never been a patient man. He would go with or without his brother and Sam would not abandon his brother. In Ivan’s opinion Sam was the much better hunter; he was smarter, studied harder, was more cautious while Ivan was impulsive, always rushing into danger. So many times, his brother had saved his hide in battle, and ultimately both brothers impetuously believed themselves, when side by side, undefeatable. The vampire Marius was so much stronger than they planned on, he had more vampire children and they had so foolishly thought they got them all in their previous hunt.
Ultimately, everything went wrong that day, and surrounded on all sides with debilitating injuries Sam chose to do as he had been taught and took his own life rather than be captured by their enemy. Ivan, with his dagger to his own throat knew what he was supposed to do but he couldn’t find the will. He begged to live and in his own sick way Marius honored his request. In a final act of vengeance against the hunter that killed his mate, Marius turned that man’s son into the very thing he hated most. Then, Marius left and lost, hungry and confused a freshly turned Ivan wandered into the night in search of his father.
Ivan was barely able to maintain control when he stumbled into the tavern to see his father, and with one look Thomas knew what his son had become. In that moment, everything Thomas had worked for died, his heirs gone and his legacy destroyed all he could hope to do if ensure that his name would not be tied to a monster. He drew his pistol to shot his son with a hemlock bullet, but Ivan was faster now, he moved just in time and the bullet struck a bystander. The blood from the man’s wound triggered his hunger and drained every man in that tavern starting with his own father, tearing throats out with his bare fangs. In that moment, he had truly lost everything; not only his family but his humanity. Becoming the very monster, what hated most in the world, was too much for him, the guilt of being responsible for his brother’s death, for having fed on his own father on top of everything he lost already, his switch flipped and his humanity was off.
An unburdened Ivan roamed the savage west, joining various gangs of gunslingers and bandits, indulging his every whim, and remaining almost constantly drunk on blood just to ensure his humanity would stay even further from his reach. He became more animal than man, isolating himself from that could connect him, and gleefully hunting other hunters and supernatural creatures indescribably, for the thrill of the hunt as well as to sample new flavors. He went from gunslinger, to bootlegger, to gangster; adapting well with the times but sticking with a life of crime and leaving various bodies along the way. Eventually he found his way to Dragon’s Blood, a drug that was completely irresistible to him. He got the point where he was taking it daily, a DB junkie, until one night he became completely lost in the most vivid hallucinations. Visions of his parents and their utter disgust and disappointment in what he had become. His brother blaming him for his death, for ruining the family name, and for being a coward. Finally, his baby sister crying, screaming, and burning tied the tree. The amount of DB he had taken was more than even he could handle, he spent two days in the worst trip he could imagine only to come out of it with his humanity switched back on.
Centuries of torture and murder that he had afflicted on people came back to him all at once. Every single awful thing he did starting with murdering his own father and the decades of showing no control made it nearly impossible for him to feed without killing. He knew that even with his humanity back he couldn’t be good again, he was still a vampire, a monster, after all. He tried not to feed, eating rats and other animals he could catch in a desperate attempt to fend off hunger but eventually the thirst would win, he would try to feed from a human only to kill them in the process. He was lost and hopeless, caught in a cycle of starvation, weakness, bingeing, and killing until one night he stopped from making a kill by novice Guardian and powerful witch named Amelia. Although Ivan begged her to do her job and end him she saw something in him worth saving and save him she did.
Amelia used her connections to find him a proper vampire mentor, to teach him control and how to get blood bags rather than feeding off a mundane. She brought him back from his downward spiral and for the first time he felt like he didn’t have to be a monster. She became his closest friend in a long time, his confidant, and then, eventually, his lover. For the first time in almost a century he felt like a person, he was able to control himself around people and he started to make connections to people and other supernatural creatures. She even made him a ring so that he could step out from the shadows and walk in the light. He spent ten good years with her, slowly relearning how to be in the modern world, regaining his sanity and humanity, coping with everything he had been through and all he had done. A guardian’s career is a dangerous one, and five years ago, she died in the line of duty.
Ivan clung desperately to stay the man he’d become, a better man, fighting to maintain control, making the impossible choice every day not to flip that switch when all he wanted was to feel numb again. He woke up every day to a world without her in it and tried to do right by her. He tried to be the man she saw as worthy of saving all those years ago, someone who Amelia and the rest of his long-gone family could be proud of but so far, he’s only managed to keep himself from becoming a complete monster. He still sees himself as a coward; he fears becoming close to people, making attachments because of how much loss can hurt. Although he’s been able to refrain from killing he still drinks far too much blood, mostly from blood bags, to dull the pain, and he’s dabbled with dragon’s blood again. Instead of putting down roots and trying again he wanders listlessly from place to place, recently finding a town called Nowhere. What better place for a man who has nothing and who is no one than nowhere.
He knows he’s slipping and he needs to try hard, to find something that can give his impossibly long life meaning but he’s never be able to find the clarity he had when he was a hunter. Back then he felt like a hero, keeping the darkness at bay for the rest of the world. More recently, when he job allowed it, he had helped Amelia in her Guardian duties, feeling a small sense of purpose helping people once again. Hunting, fighting, killing; these were the only things he’d ever been good at but as a vampire he cannot be a hunter, and as a lawless killer he cannot be a Guardian. So, Ivan plans to find himself in Nowhere, searching for something he’s good at, something he can enjoy and find peace in. Keeping busy and trying to stay connected to the world, Ivan is easing himself in slowly, working security and occasionally bartending at the shack.
Family/Relationships: Thomas Weston/Father (Deceased)
Ana Korikov/Mother (Deceased)
Samuel Weston/Brother (Deceased)
Rebecca Weston/Sister (Deceased)
Andrew Weston/Nephew (Deceased)
Marius/Sire (Deceased)
Amelia/Guardian/Lover(Deceased)
Other/Extra: To add to his list of unhealthy copping mechanisms he's taken to using whiskey to quell his thirst, if he can't be blood drunk might as well be regular drunk right? He can't stand the whole maudlin broody vampire troupe so he tends to save that for when he's alone, instead he prefers to deal with his issues as he was raised to, by shoving them down until they explode, and with dark humor.