"Pan Dushan is a deep sleeper,
But wake him up - and you'll sleep deeper!"
I've got some ideas. I'd like to be a moderately ranking but trusted member of the Morakai, though. Someone wishing to exploit the conflict that is about to arise to seize as much power as possible but without insulting the old ways. Inspired in many things by Vampire Chronicles and Vampire: The Masquerade/The Requiem by the White Wolf.
Name: Kréslav Dushan Karadžić
Age: 350 - In reality Pan Dushan is not quite sure himself but celebrates a birthday every once in a while to keep up the appearances.
Apparent Age: Whatever Kreslav wishes, but usually 40 to 50 years.
Date of Birth: September 13th, 1630
Date of Rebirth: July 6th, 1666
Possible Character ThemeBorn 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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Too tired to write further right now, will finish stuff later. Basically, when he was a lad he got posessed by a spirit of land that entered his body when he touched the red clay of his homeland's river, which 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 possessed 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 demon 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 Salem exactly because it is held by the Morakai coven, meaning that he has the ability to converse and study with ancient, experienced and powerful vampires in order to bring him closer to his goal. Plus, the company of creatures that are that much closer to being his equals feels pleasant as opposed to indulging in the pitiful mortals. His living place would be a luxurious mansion and his source of income would be auctioning his flehscrafted dogs and horses for great prices and some mortal minions managing his 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.
