Marius Vlastos (WIP)

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Karl the Mad
 

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Marius Vlastos (WIP)

Post by Karl the Mad »

Name: Marius Vlastos
Age: Roughly 2400 years old
Gender: Male
Species: Ordo Dracul?

Strengths:

Apart from the significant abilities one would associate with an immortal of his age and experience, Marius has been touched by the Black Speech and since learned how to wield it for himself. He has had a long time and long anonymity to practice in, and while perhaps not a match for the stronger Void Weavers, he is still a formidable user. A specific application he uses is to create "anti-magic" effects, which can nullify and drain away the via in an area of effect, robbing mages and artifacts of their power. He can also directly silence others and suppress their abilities for a short time, and affect so-called "mind rape" powers to a degree that makes Charles Jenkins look like a fumbling toddler.

One of the most notable aspects of Marius' powers is the powerful curse he is under, Damnatio Memoriae. An extremely misguided and misanthropic piece of magic, it literally erases someone from the collective memory of humanity; those so cursed cannot meaningfully interact with anyone else, as any memory of the encounter will quickly drain away, or leave no imprint at all. The only way for Marius to leave any lasting impression is to literally beat it into someone, leave them so traumatized that they have no choice but to remember him. Even then, this must be reinforced periodically, as the curse will eventually reassert itself. As can be expected, this has left a powerful impression on his social skills!

Related to the great curse, of course, is the decades of research Marius poured into trying to figure it out, learn ways to bend it or even break it. And unfortunately for him, the only beings who can remove it are those who are immune to it in the first place; the original caster, Princes of Hell, or Heaven's Archangels. And since the original caster is in no position to help, a Prince would turn any request into a perverted mockery of itself to trap Marius' soul into Hell, and the Archangels are bound by non-interference clauses, he's pretty much stuck. The upshot of all this is that he knows how to extend the curse to cover others, and weave all manner of illusions and obfuscation spells to boot. Of course he is quite skilled in everyday forms of magic too, as well as the parlor tricks and apocalyptic grandstanding one associates with "evil mages": wind storms, fire, great effects of light and darkness, etc etc.

Finally, at night his body transforms into a pseudo-draconic form, complete with horns, claws, wings and rippling musculature. He takes on a foot in stature, and even his skull shifts into a more fearsome visage. In this shape he is of course a fearsome warrior, but he has no occasion to actually fight anyone considering his curse, and he usually has to sleep through the night anyway so he's been taking the suppression enzymes as long as they've been developed. He might even have had an indirect hand in funding and developing them, but he doesn't like to brag.

Weaknesses:

Two thousand years does not weigh kindly on anyone's heart, and Marius is no exception. Already advanced in age before he was turned, the intervening millennia hang like a cloud over his memories; he cannot recall exactly how old he is, for one thing, and details of his mortal life would have to be dragged out of him. Major events of history left an impression, of course, but he couldn't recall blow-by-blow what happened off the cuff. The phantom pains of old age still haunt him most mornings, as it takes a few minutes upon waking for his body to remember it's not weak and infirm any longer. Or maybe that's just him recovering from the nightly transformations his strain of vampirism brought on, when he forgets to suppress them.

The great curse, Damnatio Memoriae, also has its limits, especially in this day and age of nigh-omnipresent digital surveillance. Recordings of him will persist, though there is still a risk of such recordings being deemed unimportant and deleted, and though someone might not consciously remember encountering him, the subconscious memory remembers very well. "The heart never forgets," as it were. If a researcher bothers to write down what they learn of him, that too will persist, and serve as a reminder of what was found out. And the curse is weakening, even without the Information Age's myriad perks; sooner or later it will break of its own accord, if someone doesn't manage to lift it from him first. And then Marius will have to relearn how to interact with the world and its inhabitants on a basic level.

Despite his physical skill, he has not had to actually exert any great force in decades, if not centuries. He would be very rusty in a fight, reliant on his bodyguards at first, so any determined band of combatants could theoretically overwhelm him by sheer focused violence in the hopes of catching him by surprise. If the element of surprise fails, however...

Appearance:

Due to a number of obvious factors Marius is visibly ancient, with white hair, liver-spotted skin that seems pale even through the Grecian burnish, and filmy brown eyes. He is not stooped, standing at a respectable 6'2", although his thin arms and narrow chest obviously belie his immense strength. He has a crooked nose and cracked, dry lips, and a face marred by centuries of nihilism and misanthropy.

As far as clothing goes, he dressed the part of a man with mind-numbing wealth, in the latest Italian fashions.

Behavior:
-Nihilistic and close-minded
Goals:
"Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn..."

History:

Born some time in the 4th century BCE, Marius Vlastos grew up in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, where his family had emigrated following ill-defined drama back home in Greece. He took well to the life of a scholar, preferring to spend his days in study and contemplation over the vast collection of the Great Library. Given his naturally athletic stature however, he was sometimes assigned as security for the library, and he went out on enough retrieval expeditions for new scrolls and writings that he made a serious study of combat and martial arts of the time. He had some talent for manipulating via as well, and studied that as best he could.

This was his life, for the decades that it lasted. He married and had three sons, who like their father showed a scholarly bent early on. Marius was thus in his later years when a visitor to the library one day found an answer which displeased him; of course Marius tried to calm the man, but he wouldn't be calmed and abruptly assaulted the elderly guardsman. He tried to fight back, but given his age he was quickly overpowered, and before he succumbed to death his assailant forced a hot, sticky liquid down his throat. Too late, he realized it was blood, and it was spreading through him like a disease.

When the burning stopped he found himself at home, the bodies of his wife and two of his grandchildren at his feet, drained of blood; his clothes were soaked in the stuff and his stomach felt hot and sour. Horrified, he cleaned himself as best he could, took his weapons and fled the city. It wasn't long before the vile thirst rose up in him once more, at the sight of a water caravan; unable to stop himself he attacked, slew them all and drained them dry. It would be many years before he learned the word 'vampire' and how it now applied to him. Worse still was the nightly transformations his body underwent as he aged unnaturally, growing more outlandish the older he got. In this form he was stronger, faster, more durable, possessed of keener senses and a vile animal cunning. Yet the thirst was harder to resist, and every time he killed and drank, the horror he felt at himself receded.

Some centuries later, he found himself back in Alexandria, at one of the new Coptic churches. It was night and he was in his feral form, and the church had insulted him indirectly. He stormed the place and demanded recompense; when none was forthcoming he took to murdering them all. They offered no resistance, which enraged him further, drove him to greater brutality; more and more of the monks fell to his rage and still they didn't act! Still they only knelt on the floor, praying feverishly! In the end their prayers were answered, seconds too late; no sooner had Marius broken the last man's back and was bringing his neck up to feed, did a blinding flash of light erupt throughout the building. He turned to defend himself against the source of the light, but he couldn't even tell what it was! Was it a man? a man-shaped hole of light? some immense geometric shape compressed in and in upon itself before his eyes?

He did battle as best he could, but all his strength was for nothing. He was forced down into the undercroft of the church, forced to kneel like the monks had knelt, forced to listen to the figure's voice shouting words in a language he could not comprehend. The via surrounding the figure like a storm built to unbearable levels as the shouting reached a crescendo, and Marius passed out before he could witness the culmination of the shouting. He awoke hours later, feeling like his body was on fire from the intensity of the life force still suffusing him.
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