Play-by: Lead singer of Skillet, John Cooper
Description: Shorter as vampires go, only about 5'7" but don't let his lack of reach fool you. That small stature gives way to a muscular lower body that produces short, quick strides in nearly any direction. His eyes - depending on how long its been since his last meal - range between honey gold and dark red; to which his favored pair of sunglasses is a full black pair with red trim on just the sides of the lenses and the tops of the ear pieces.
Like most vampires, he wears all black - the absence of light - but he allows himself an adornment of two silver cuffs, one on each wrist, to denote his status as a member of the moon worshiping coven. His complexion is pale, but slightly ruddier when he is full, a somewhat peculiar trait among his kind and just one more minor reason for him to prefer moonlight to sunlight. He lines his eyes with a special eyeliner called kohl. His default facial expression is a somewhat bemused half smile. You don't want to see him angry, and if you ever do, run.
Full Name (with nick): Brennan "Cuffs" Barlow
Age: 292
Species: Regular run-of-the-mill bloodsucking vampire?
Faction: Moon
Powers (if any): Speed? Agility? If it absolutely has to be something other than supernatural speed, which may very well already be included in your definition of vampire, then I guess I'll pick...(eenie meanie miney mo ensues)...heat vision.
Theme: Stance on the War: He thinks vampires should hunt only at night. He has a soft spot for softies - his pet name for humans. He likes to let them have their day, and only pick off the dumb stragglers at night. Brennan likes to think it improves their gene pool.
Background: Brennan is the son of a tanner from a small village. The village's primary economy consisted of livestock, which is to say cows. While he learned to ride a horse briefly, he always preferred the omnidirectional freedom provided by running. His father, the town tanner, took animal hides from cow, horse, and the odd wolf here and there, turning them into leatherwork. He wasn't the best at his craft, and as such, didn't have much to teach his short, strapping son.
Brennan grew up to be just another small town boy, although a hit with the ladies in his teens due to his muscles. One lady in particular, a lovely lithe and petite brunette named Lucy caught his eye. The serendipitous couple found themselves on all sorts of adventures, scampering around the village making mischief. Then one night, everything naturally went to hell. Lucy, the more rambunctious of the pair, suggested that they grab two saddles from Brennan's father's workshop and go out riding in the middle of the night.
When the theft was attempted, however, Brennan's father awoke from a sound sleep inside the workshop, lashing out with the nearest available object he could find - a tanning mace. Lucy was struck upon the forehead, splitting her skull clean in twain.
Suddenly, another being appeared in the midst after a couple seconds where everybody but Lucy stood still in shock, watching the young teen fall to the floor lifelessly. A dark figure cloaked in black with a flash of red inside his cloak took in the scene before him for a mere second. The tanner didn't last a moment as he raised his mace to defend himself before he too fell to the floor, his neck snapped with one hand by the mysterious newcomer.
Brennan had backed up into a wall, far past the point of soiling himself as he looked up into the tall stranger's bright red eyes, into the face of his impending death. The creature bared fangs of pearly white, gleaming in the moonlight shining through the shop's lone, small window. "You'll do nicely," he said in a low, gravelly tone that conjured gooseflesh all over the boy's skin and sent shivers down his back. Aware of Brennan's ragged heartbeat, the stranger licked his lips, moved his mouth down toward the boy's neck. Brennan felt a small, short stab of pain that ended almost as soon as it was gone. Then his world began to fade....
~~ Some time later~~
Brennan woke up in a musty, dank cellar with no light whatsoever. He found all of his senses sharpened. With these new senses, he discovered that there was no way out of his current cell; no doors, windows, not even a chimney or loose boards. Somebody had sealed him, trapped him, but who? He couldn't remember his old life save for one name, Lucy. Every time he thought of her name, an unbearable sense of loss came to mind that made him want to forget everything else.
After an interminable amount of waiting, Brennan was visited by the same stranger who had turned him. Brennan had absolutely no memory of being turned, for whatever reason. He was, however, so angry at being trapped that he stared daggers at the taller cloaked man...until he realized that the longer he stared, the man's small goatee was starting to smolder. The taller man noticed it quicker than Brennan did, spinning the newborn around with one arm and pinning him up against the opposite wall. "Oh, so you have hot eyes, do ya kid? Think your sunny disposition is gonna save you from me? Well it's not! And don't you ever fry my beard again or I'll drive a stake through your heart, ya hear?" He shoved Brennan into the wall, then let go, dusting himself off roughly. "Now, do you want to know why I brought you here or not?"
Brennan soon learned all about vampires, the war of sun and moon, and why the sun was supposed to be eradicated. At first, Brennan wanted absolutely no part of this war. Why should he? He didn't ask for any of this shit. Without so much as a word, when the older vampire allowed him a word in edgewise, Brennan used his newfound speed to run out the way the man had entered. The man let him go, content to quietly shadow the eighteen year old vampire newborn until he - Brennan - was ready to come to his senses.
Brennan first realized that they were no longer in his old village, but a full-blown city. There were people swarming all around, and the sights, senses, and even the sun seemed to grate on him like sandpaper. His throat felt that way too, but tenfold. Every time he looked at a human, the pulsing veins in their necks seemed to pop out of their skin. His fingers and toes flexed in time with the beat, his still heart brimming with desire. Forcing himself past them, he ran for the nearest riverbank and dove right in, seeking to quench his terrible terrible thirst.
The water did nothing but make him dirty and sputter for air. Upon a second immersion, trying to drown himself, he realized he didn't even need for air anymore. He howled in frustration, "AAAAAAGGGGHHH!" His howl, being in the early evening hours, attracted a curious thirteen-year-old girl to the stream. "Mister?" she asked softly. "Are you quite alright?" She lifted her skirts in a curtsy. Seeing her, Brennan's thirst-crazed mind compelled him to go to her. The young girl screamed at first, but he covered her mouth with his hand as fangs found skin and he drank deeply.
When she ran dry, he felt remorseful for what he had done. Curling up in a ball over top of her pale beautiful blonde corpse in her skirts, he wept and wept until a villager discovered him and he was forced to run and hide.
Lucy the name welled up within him again, this time amplified by his remorse.
It's all my fault he whimpered in his head. By chance, his flight took him back by the very cellar he had exited previously. The older vampire was waiting, and grabbed him, and recruited him officially into the undead army for the Moon faction, Luna Venatores (Hunters of the Moon). Brennan went willingly, even putting on two silver cuffs given to him by the stranger to signify his Moon faction membership (who ended up getting staked through the heart and burnt alive before Brennan's eyes), wishing to be anywhere but around humans and anything that reminded him of his one remaining memory, that name. For almost three hundred years he fought, until one day came along when even the air seemed to promise change....or at least to make his life interesting. for better or for worse.
IC Motivations and Personality Sneak Peek: Brennan is motivated most easily by beautiful women, alcohol (typically red wine *eye roll*), and chocolate. He is a man of simple needs and complex tastes. He's visibly reserved, quiet, and humble. His humor, while somewhat self-deprecating, is pointedly never sarcastic. Most of his vampiric brethren have a penchant for snarky sarcasm, even dipping into the realm of full-blown bitterness. Not Brennan! He is shrouded in a rather poignant aura of plain, if somewhat melancholic, acceptance. That acceptance seems to be growing the longer he is a vampire; his self-control, niceness, and reason waning with each passing century and giving way to a directionless, dull bloodlust.
OOC Motivation: I made this RP out of the blue, or red as it were, to make things more interesting for you two. I don't usually role play vampires - hence the asking for advice. It's a good way for me to exit, and hopefully expand, my comfort zone. Plus, I don't play dudes and I need the practice.
