"Pan Dushan is a deep sleeper,
But wake him up - and you'll sleep deeper!"Name: Kréslav Dushan Karadžić
Race: Vampire
Age: ~900
Appearance:
Kreslav likes to impress and surprise, just for the sake of feeding his ego. As such, he often implements his flesh-shaping techniques to assume new and interesting forms for every occasion that is worthy of that effort. His default form, though, is that of a large and moderately ugly man in his late forties or early fifties - head covered by a mane of thick and mangy, reddish-brown hair sitting on a neck that'd look more in place on a mighty ox and which in turn rests between two broad shoulders which extend into long and mighty arms, full of well-developed muscle and wide like beer kegs. He is of powerful build, like a hairy and self-important walking mountain to which like cliffs and crags cling slabs of thick, bear-like muscle. His round face, unusually for a vampire, is tan and often almost unhealthily ruddy, with large nose and thick lips behind which hide wide horse-teeth, slightly yellowish in color. Square jaw that protrudes forward a bit too much and gives Kreslav an almost unnoticeable but still present underbite is adorned with a thick, moderately long beard, sometimes braided and decorated with brass rings and fetishes.
Regarding clothing, Kreslav is quite a trendy dandy, taking the best of all ages and attempting to wear something stylish, impressive and preferably really expensive at all times. He expresses particular affinity for color red, high boots and gold embroidery. Additionaly he always carries a silvered ottoman tabar-shishpar on his belt and at very least two or three large knives concealed on his person.
One truly peculiar detail about Kreslav is the fact that he, for some reason, is unable to bring himself to fully conceal his monstrous nature - as such, in all of his appearances there is always something unperceivably wrong about him - a missing or additional finger on both hands, disturbingly perfect facial symmetry, two sets of canines on each jaw, an unnatural color of eyes, something always hints a cautious observer to the nature of his interlocutor.
Personality:
• Determined • Vicious • Progressive •
Likes:[Mounted Hunting]
[Domineering]
[Philosophizing]
[Burning churches]
[Fleshcrafting]
Dislikes:[Idealism]
[Catholicism]
[Turks]
[Lack of drive and self-invented purpose in others]
[B- Blood]
Fears:There is but one thing that Kreslav truly
Fears - this thing is stopping, ceasing, losing motivation or desire to continue on his path of becoming the ultimate being, for whatever reason it might happen. Other than that, there are only things he really, really dislikes, which are as follows:
[Being deprived of freedom of movement]
[Losing control of himself due to anger or hunger]
Kreslav is filled with purpose. That purpose is to better oneself, to overcome and to improve in order to one day achieve total enlightenment and undergo a transformation into an ultimate being that is hindered neither by mortal toils nor vampiric weaknesses and is the one sole creature alone on the top of the world. Kreslav sees the world and everything in it as a riddle to be solved - and afterwards taken apart to be studied and examined. A man with a sharp eye can learn a great deal about a person just by looking at them - but a man with sharp eye and an even sharper knife can look not only at a person, but inside them, into every nook and cranny - and if one adds sharp mind and tongue to that list, one can even gain access into the person's thoughts and desires, the very innermost secrets and longings and beliefs that make them tick.
That said, Kreslav is not merely a machine set on taking apart all secrets of the universe. He is, for now, still a vampire, before that a mortal man and before that still a lowly beast. He relishes not only in discovery and progress but also in more mundane pleasures - long and frequent feedings, domination over his foes, basking in begrudging respect of his peers and fear of his lessers, playing games and dedicating time to his manifold hobbies and objects of interest - all those things Dushan does just like any normal person, but without ever forgetting about his true purpose and goal.
In some sense, Kreslav can be called a nihilist - he believes that there is nothing of value in the world, both in physical and in spiritual sense, except what we make of it, and even if there is, we can't truly know what it is. There are as many points of view in the world as there are sentient beings and there are equal chances for each of them to be right or wrong. Kreslav though does not bother himself with things that are "right" or "wrong", he simply does what seems to him like an acceptable idea at the moment or what he "wants". Also Kreslav does not believes in the concept of "failure" - there is no such thing. You fail only when you are by no means able to ever try again, and that will only ever happen in case of one's absolute spiritual and physical demise. Without that, any difficulties one might encounter are merely temporary setbacks on the road to one's goal.
Bio:
Born into a poor peasant family in Bucovina village in the land known today as Romania, Dushan was a simple and honest lad - it's quite hard to develop a complex personality when the biggest adventure you ever had was your family's only plow developing a vicious crack and you and your da having to ride a cart for many many miles to the nearest city to get a new one. Naturally, a child sought other ways to entertain and amuse himself - and Dushan's particular kind of fun was immensely disturbing and destructive for the village. To burn the recent reap in order to marvel at the flames, to jam someone's fingers with a door, to rub some relatively fresh ginger under the oxen's tails and watch the roaring beasts rampage through the village in futile attempts to escape the horrible burning in their loins. All those horrible pranks, incredibly defiant attitude and endless, never ceasing fights and bouts drove his family to the ends of the world with helpless anger - but all they've suddenly ceased when one day after a mighty and horrible rainstorm Dushan had discovered raw, wet red clay being washed out in and on the coast the nearby river. As soon as his fingers touched the pliant, moldable thing and pushed inside of it, it was like Dushan- he was about nine at the time - became possessed, so rapidly and strangely changed his usual impish behavior, surprising everyone he knew. Every waking moment not taken by working the land he spent crafting figurines and idols and symbols of unknown meaning, oft forgetting to eat and to sleep and to care about anything but the red clay, so desperate for the warmth of his hands. His skills quickly improved and those few who still cared about the mad boy at the rivercoast marveled greatly at the results of his obsession and fluid movements of his hands.
Then, one faithful night, the lord of these lands came and led the boy away, backhanding him sternly when he at first refused to drop his work and follow. The parents, of course, were more than just compensated for the loss of mostly-defunct working hands - the man had left them two pairs of red boots, a horse and a half a brick of solid gold.
The fur coat-clad sir, now deprived of any means of transportation, had the boy walk all the way to his strange dwelling - an ancient castle built soundly into the carpathian mountains - for three days and four nights straight without stopping or resting even once, seemingly untiring and unaware of such petty concepts as hunger, boredom or "slow down". When the boy refused to or was unable walk, the man took him by the hair with a glove-clad hand and dragged him, pain quickly bringing the youth back on it's feet. The lord's return to the center of his domain wasn't celebrated - the monstrous, armoured guards - each and every single one exactly seven feet in height and bearing the same faceplate, spear and shield - and the servants - all different and strange, humans at first sight but always unperceivably... wrong and strange at the second - seemingly lived their own lives as if unknowing about the master's existance until spoken to - but that was not how Dushan was supposed to be. When they've arrived, the lord has spoken to Dushan and informed the boy on the subject of his new life.
"Now I am your master and you are my apprentice," It spoke to him, discarding of the clothing that protected him from sunlight. "You will heed to me and learn to mold things with your hands."
"But i know how... to mold." Dushan whispered back, fatigued and exhausted, barely able to stand.
"Yes," his master spoke, getting rid of the scarf and the hat to reveal his wondrous visage - as beautiful by the strength of it's brow and sharpness of bone and pleasantness of the shape as it was disturbing and unnatural with perfect, too perfect symmetry and the way it was deprived of emotion and gesture. "You know how to mold. But only clay."
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When he was a lad Kreslav got posessed by a spirit of land that entered his body when he touched the red clay of his homeland's river - this strange supernatural entity was quite unlike many others of it's kind, a... creature born that is not quite living or existing in any sense of the word, instead being something like a primal, ambient force of the world and manifestation of various aspects of reality. This encounter with the mystical gave him the strange affinity and understanding of the earth and the act of shaping it. The lord of the land he lived on, a powerful and ancient slavic vampire known as Preljiub Dranko - who is impossible to kill except by an arrow made of clear rock-crystal in conjuction with a torch made of the oak that grows on the faraway island Buyan - Dranko bonded with the land he lived on for so many years and it refused to become his grave unless the fire of Buyan oak burn away that bond - and who by some strange whimsy, decided to shelter the wicked child and see what he can make out of him. After long and arduous training and education and powerful and eldritch sorcerous rituals he made Dushan take full control over the demons inside him and learn to channel it into what he called "Arts" - ability that was later amplified many times when Preljiub made Dushan a vampire and gave him his new name, "Kreslav", because both in life and in death he had inside of his chest a burning fire of Creation which he could harness without getting burned. The greatest Art Kreslav has mastered was the Art of Flesh - with his strong and dextrous hands infused with vampiric blood, Kreslav had learned to shape and warp meat and bone, skin and catrilage beneath his fingers - and after some time, with the power of his mind and blood alone - like putty, like soft and warm clay, in any way he wanted or could've imagined. He had a great deal of practice in his master's vast kennels and stables, learning to control and care for the animals in many different ways, and during his lord's military campaigns against rival and equally ancient bloodsuckers, tending to the injured, sealing their wounds and crafting hideous living weapons from those dead or unable to fight on by their own, fusing flesh of the many together to create one horrible beast, bristling with bony spikes and talons, gushing hot, boiling blood and thirsting for the red meat of the enemies.
But all that was a long time ago. There are no more great wars, there are no more great people, there is little truly interesting in the world - and so Kreslav turned his mind's eye unto himself, seeking endless improvement in terms of physicality, spirituality and even the banal mundane prestige and power, following the recently-developed dream of overcoming the drawbacks of the vampiric condition and eventually turning into an ultimate, vastly superior being on all possible levels. He practices strange induistic rituals, trains extensively in martial arts and yoga, partakes in sorcerous practices invented to harness the true power of Blood and reads every book he stumbles on, hoping that at least some of them will bring him closer to the enlightenment. Rarely, very rarely though, he allows himself to reminisce on the times long gone and travel out into the few existing patches of true wilderness his old country has left and hunt like he did in his days of faithful service to his second father - half-naked, on the horseback, covered in bloody sweat, a whip in his mighty hand and the tumbling, feinting gray back of the hunted wolf before his eyes, heat of the three bodies combined great enough to melt the snow in the rider's wake and paint it red with the fine crimson mist excreted from his pores.
He currently resides in Santa Somabra because this place roils with life and unlife, filled to the brim with wondrous, mystical and supernatural and unknown, meaning that he has the ability to converse and study and conduct research with ancient, experienced and powerful entities in order to bring him closer to his goal. Plus, the company and friendship - or hatred and rivalry - of creatures that are that much closer to being his equals feels pleasant as opposed to indulging in the pitiful mortals. His unliving place is a luxurious and completely legal windowless mansion extending deep into the earth in one of the best parts of the city and his source of income is auctioning his flehscrafted dogs and horses for great prices and some incredibly,
incredibly devoted mortal minions managing his sizeable trust funds - back in the days of riding with his Master they travelled to the south america and stole the cursed gold of aztecs and their bloody serpent-gods - gold that Kreslav wisely saved up and then invested when the right time came up. He mostly derives sustenance from well-fed prisoners fleshcrafted into bloated sacks of blood chained to the walls in the dungeons of his domain, though at times he descends into the city to feed the old-fashioned way.
Other:
In addition to the usual boons of the vampiric condition, Kreslav is versed in Blood Sorcery and the Art of Flesh.
POWER: Art of Flesh
By calling unto the powers of Blood and fires of creation, Kreslav is able to mold and shape organic matter like soft clay. Changes do not happen themselves - they require effort and touch, sometimes gentle and sometimes forceful as he actually mends and breaks the bones, twists the meat and warps the skin into the needed forms. Some transformations are quite simple - to pull one's skin over his eyes and blind him requires merely to swipe a hand over his face, but others, those that require subtlety and beauty might require hours and days and weeks. Kreslav's favorite use for this ability is to create deadly war-beasts and superhumanly endowed warriors by fusing the flesh of many beings together in order to make one incredible and invincible whole. Such monsters are called "Wojowniks", slaved to Kreslav by the power of blood and coming to his aid when it is needed.
Kreslav's own flesh, warped and changed by him too many times, is not quite subject to limitations - he may change it in almost any way he wants by as little as a thought, growing fangs or bone plates, changing faces and complexions, shrinking or increasing at a mere whim. Clothing, of course, is a bit of a problem, but hey, nothing comes for free!
LIMITATION:
Kreslav may only use this power when in contact with his native soil from the outskirts of Bucovina in modern Romania. The vampire is well-aware of this, however and tries to never ever be caught without it. He carries a small sack of earth on a rope around his neck and has another one literally sewn into his stomach. As a little failsafe, his grand mansion in Salem is literally built upon romanian soil that he had brought into this land for a great amount of money. Additionaly, due to this unhealthy need, Kreslav always smells disturbingly of freshly turned earth.
POWER: Blood Sorcery
Dangerous, blasphemous collections of pagan practices, alchemic formulae, hermetic spells and angelic names that Kreslav had amassed through the ages in his pursuit of knowledge and improvement can be used in order to conduct incredible magical rituals powered by the mystical qualities of the vampiric blood. The majyycks are always dangerous, powerful and immensely dificult to conduct properly, but the effect is fittingly glorious - granted, of course, that no mistakes were made. To start a massive earthquake, to call a horrible curse unto a person using only a lock of his hair, to send a deadly plague upon the city, to scry the future, to conjure pure gold from thin air and to command the minds of mortals - all this and more is possible if the sorcerer is willing to take the risks.
LIMITATIONS: Rituals of blood magic are, as it was already said, immensely difficult and long - taking hours and days of preparation and casting in strictly specific conditions, impossible to rush without dire consequences and requiring total concentration and dedication. Powerful spells require very rare ingredients such as the last breath of a 77-year old blonde albino virgin of south american descent or such and also ask for great expenditures of blood - scarce a ritual can be completed without experiencing horrible hunger and requiring to keep a stock of sacrifical victims. Even a smallest mistake or disturbance in the runic circles, the magical chant or the placement of sorcerous foci on the ritual's site can insult the eldritch forces and cause an arcane mishap deadly to the casters and everyone around them.
(this image is a less-than-perfect representation but it gives us a starting point. Her outfit is decidedly less medieval and her dreadlocks flow down from beneath her hood.)
