Alexandros Dragesus
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:03 am
Player Name: Cody
Name: Alexandros Dragesus
Age: 22
Race: Human
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 186 lbs
Theme: "Boy With a Coin" - Iron and Wine
Physical Description: Alexandros is a sturdy young man. He had to be, to join the guard. The training they put him through didn't hurt either, it left him lean and capable and gave him the confidence only a man at home with his own body can know. Dragesus keeps his black hair shorn tightly to his head as a matter of easy grooming, and to keep unruly hair from getting in the way when steel meets steel. His eyes are of a relaxing liquid amber somewhere just short of light brown. Long days in the field seem to have affected Alexandros' complexion. His sun-kissed skin is an oddity in Marn, among the city-going circles of merchants and noblemen... Those folk who live in the country, working and tilling the fields day in and day out, share Alexandros' complexion. Alexandros has the hands of a carpenter - callused and tough from constant work with rough hewn lumber in his father's shop.
As a guardsman Alexandros wears his armor and the livery of Marn when on duty. The plate and treated leather fit him well, stretched and bent into shape by the city's finest smiths. A mace hangs from his belt by a leather loop, its tines bent from hard use, across from a small flat-bladed axe on the other side of his hip. Abnormally, for a human, he carries a shortbow and quiver... and seems more at home with it than any other weapon in his peacemaker's ensemble. Only his eyes and mouth, hard and thin, show from behind his armor's sallet-style helmet.
Off of duty Dragesus prefers colorful, and perhaps ostentatious, clothes... albeit of simple cut. He's not a wealthy man and he doesn't pretend to be. He smiles often and is always quick to laugh at a clever or timely joke, no matter how off-color it might be. Especially if it is very off-color.
Possessions:
-Shortbow: A well-cared for recurved composite shortbow, designed for war rather than hunting. Fairly long, approximately symmetrical, with bone stiffeners.
-Woodsman's Axe: A simple axe, designed for battle but utilitarian as well. Capable of chopping through doors or cutting firewood just as easily as it might bring physical harm.
-Mace: A small mace, dented from use and handed down from an unnamed guardsman.
-Guardsman's Armor: Armor in keeping with the traditional treated leather and steel plate of the Marn city guard.
-Coin: A small weathered coin of silver, bares the portrait of a helmed woman on one side and an owl on the opposite. Punched through its top to allow it to hang from a cord of leather from Alexandros' neck. He keeps it tucked away and out of sight to prevent its theft.
Powers or Strengths:
Alexandros is a talented guardsman, especially for his age, and his tutors within the Marn city guard have often been impressed by his sheer physicality and tenacity. He's a relatively large man, to be sure, but he seems just a tad stronger and faster than he ought to. Sickness has a hard time keeping him bedridden - he bounces back with exuberance.
He's handy with his axe and mace... But where Alexandros really shines is with the bow. He handles it expertly, giving many an elf a run for his money. Though his shortbow lacks the punch of a longbow it makes up for it with its mobility and flexibility; what the bow itself fails to overcome of its own disadvantages, Alexandros does himself with calm and precise aim.
Alexandros possesses slight supernatural ability, though arguably not true magic. At some point in his ancestors' past they were blessed with special traits. These traits, however, came with a cost. They were bound to hunt the undead, and doomed to be hunted by the undead themselves. With time their blood thinned and they lost their private battle with the waking dead. Alexandros is heir to this legacy, even if he denies it: when a vampire is near, he feels nauseous. This gets worse the closer he comes to the creature itself. Whatever graced him with this ability marks him too though. Older and more potent vampires feel a similiar effect near him. For truly ancient vampiric entities this feeling could potentially be quite painful for both parties (though not harmful).
The Dragesus' are an old family. Their blood runs thicker than others - bound up with the potent vitality of vampire hunters. Vampiric entities will find it much harder to sway Alexandros, and his kin, with their supernatural wiles than might be the case for more mundane mortals. In general this passive resistance helps hunters buffer the impressive powers a vampire can bring to bear. To put it bluntly, this gives them something slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell against the hungering dead.
Alexandros apprenticed as a carpenter under his father - he's quite good at woodworking!
Weaknesses:
-A target on your neck. The Dragesus' powers have come at a terrible cost. Even now, when their blood wanes and their numbers disappear into the long night. Most vampires would leap at the chance to kill a vampire hunter... Especially one of the Dragesus lineage. Its innate, in the same way that a cat must chase a mouse. There is also, supposedly, something beneficial to their blood... Though so few vampires have partaken in it that it remains hard to confirm.
-The drink. Sometimes Alexandros finds himself in a tavern. Sometimes he finds a drink in his hands... But what starts with one, continues with two, and ends with too many.
-Young. Alexandros is young - he lacks the grizzled toughness of his older peers along with their extensive experience. He's a promising guardsman... but still capable of making mistakes. Sometimes idiotic ones.
-He enjoys his position as a guard, having earned it entirely on his own merit. This makes him look down on the less fortunate at times... and he has, to his own regret, abused his position before in minor ways (an example being a rough "dismissal" of a vagrant from the market square). He's not cruel nor petty, but sometimes enforces the law more strictly than need be.
-He developed an irrational fear of the dark after his mother's death. It feels stifling to him, as if its likely to crush the life from him. He cannot shake the feeling that there are fangs out there, at every moment, waiting to devour him. For a guardsman, who walks the streets of Marn at night, this is a private torture he tries to bear stoicly and without complaint.
-Unfaithful puradyne. Though his father is one of the stalwartly faithful Alexandros' beliefs are comparatively hollow. He mouths his prayers when he must, but little more. This is a source of frustration for the more religious members of his family.
History: Alexandros' earliest years are confused - full of change and uncertainty. His mother, Nikita, took him to many places, never staying in one for very long. To green rolling hills with stones that stood in circles, reaching to the sky. To cities where men wore cloth headwraps to keep the biting sand from their mouth and eyes. Always, she told him, it was in pursuit of monsters. Whatever Alexandros' mother did when she was away she nearly always returned with fresh bruises and bloody gashes. They often went hungry and stretched out what they could: monster-hunting was not a profitable venture.
Nikita raised her son to be a warrior. She taught him how to hold a bow, how to stand with a sword in your hand, and how to bind a wound when most children were busy playing in the streets. And whenever Alexandros asked after his father... She told him that he could know someday, when he was older.
Marn was just another stop for young Alexandros. His mother, pursuing a vampire, had followed the creature there... having tracked it for months. Nikita left Alexandros in the care of Rudrig, a carpenter and old family friend, while she went about her inglorious but necessary work. That night, before she stalked off into the night, she left Alexandros a coin and instructions to do as Rudrig said and be a good boy.
Nikita didn't come back. Though, in his dreams that night, Alexandros swore he saw her again... Broken, alone, and cold.
Rudrig promised Alexandros she would return, though the words came harder to the kindly bear of a man each day. In time he began to raise Nikita's child as one of his own (his own being two other boys and a daughter, raised by himself and his wife Mila). Rudrig forced him to put aside all the weapons and dangerous inclinations of his mother, except for the bow - which, he deemed, could be useful to a practical man. Alexandros was raised now to be an honest citizen. To put aside the hunter's passion, and make something purposeful of himself instead of burning his life away for nothing.
He did. In time Alexandros came to resent his mother for having lived the life she did, instead of caring for him as a mother should (according to Mila). He identified with his adoptive family more than his biological parentage. He worked the saws and learned to form wood into distillations of function. Alexandros cut beams and planks, made chairs and ox yokes, and fixed doors and heirloom furniture. The times before Rudrig and his woodshop seemed little more than a bad dream. Years went by, nearly a decade and a half, and Alexandros turned into a man.
Alexandros was content. More than that... He was happy, life was wonderful. He loved and was loved. When his eldest brother Hendrik joined the city guard Alexandros was quick to be goaded into following him, to Rudrig's chagrin. In time he came to be proud of the two boys though. Even if they had abandoned the carpenter's trade, a guardsman was a respectable sort.
Hendrik found himself outpaced by his brother within a short while. Alexandros was faster, he was stronger, and he never seemed to slacken his pace. Hendrik grew sullen, Alexandros bragged, and tempers simmered til one night in a tavern the two ended up at eachother's throats. Hendrik's hand was broken. Alexandros was demoted.
Since then the two have put their ill feelings towards eachother behind them. Rudrig's family began to feel more distant to Alexandros though - even if Rudrig himself continued to love him all the same. Dragesus has poured himself into his work since, regaining his rank and struggling to prove that he's an honest man. That he's, by necessity, free of the self-destructive fire that dragged his mother down. Things may look bleak but Alexandros is determined to best the challenges ahead of him, and he's going to do it with a grin and a laugh.
And all the while - there is something else, something other than human, that remains for Alexandros to contend with. No matter how much he denies it, there are fangs in the darkness... And they are no friends of his.
Name: Alexandros Dragesus
Age: 22
Race: Human
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 186 lbs
Theme: "Boy With a Coin" - Iron and Wine
Physical Description: Alexandros is a sturdy young man. He had to be, to join the guard. The training they put him through didn't hurt either, it left him lean and capable and gave him the confidence only a man at home with his own body can know. Dragesus keeps his black hair shorn tightly to his head as a matter of easy grooming, and to keep unruly hair from getting in the way when steel meets steel. His eyes are of a relaxing liquid amber somewhere just short of light brown. Long days in the field seem to have affected Alexandros' complexion. His sun-kissed skin is an oddity in Marn, among the city-going circles of merchants and noblemen... Those folk who live in the country, working and tilling the fields day in and day out, share Alexandros' complexion. Alexandros has the hands of a carpenter - callused and tough from constant work with rough hewn lumber in his father's shop.
As a guardsman Alexandros wears his armor and the livery of Marn when on duty. The plate and treated leather fit him well, stretched and bent into shape by the city's finest smiths. A mace hangs from his belt by a leather loop, its tines bent from hard use, across from a small flat-bladed axe on the other side of his hip. Abnormally, for a human, he carries a shortbow and quiver... and seems more at home with it than any other weapon in his peacemaker's ensemble. Only his eyes and mouth, hard and thin, show from behind his armor's sallet-style helmet.
Off of duty Dragesus prefers colorful, and perhaps ostentatious, clothes... albeit of simple cut. He's not a wealthy man and he doesn't pretend to be. He smiles often and is always quick to laugh at a clever or timely joke, no matter how off-color it might be. Especially if it is very off-color.
Possessions:
-Shortbow: A well-cared for recurved composite shortbow, designed for war rather than hunting. Fairly long, approximately symmetrical, with bone stiffeners.
-Woodsman's Axe: A simple axe, designed for battle but utilitarian as well. Capable of chopping through doors or cutting firewood just as easily as it might bring physical harm.
-Mace: A small mace, dented from use and handed down from an unnamed guardsman.
-Guardsman's Armor: Armor in keeping with the traditional treated leather and steel plate of the Marn city guard.
-Coin: A small weathered coin of silver, bares the portrait of a helmed woman on one side and an owl on the opposite. Punched through its top to allow it to hang from a cord of leather from Alexandros' neck. He keeps it tucked away and out of sight to prevent its theft.
Powers or Strengths:
Alexandros is a talented guardsman, especially for his age, and his tutors within the Marn city guard have often been impressed by his sheer physicality and tenacity. He's a relatively large man, to be sure, but he seems just a tad stronger and faster than he ought to. Sickness has a hard time keeping him bedridden - he bounces back with exuberance.
He's handy with his axe and mace... But where Alexandros really shines is with the bow. He handles it expertly, giving many an elf a run for his money. Though his shortbow lacks the punch of a longbow it makes up for it with its mobility and flexibility; what the bow itself fails to overcome of its own disadvantages, Alexandros does himself with calm and precise aim.
Alexandros possesses slight supernatural ability, though arguably not true magic. At some point in his ancestors' past they were blessed with special traits. These traits, however, came with a cost. They were bound to hunt the undead, and doomed to be hunted by the undead themselves. With time their blood thinned and they lost their private battle with the waking dead. Alexandros is heir to this legacy, even if he denies it: when a vampire is near, he feels nauseous. This gets worse the closer he comes to the creature itself. Whatever graced him with this ability marks him too though. Older and more potent vampires feel a similiar effect near him. For truly ancient vampiric entities this feeling could potentially be quite painful for both parties (though not harmful).
The Dragesus' are an old family. Their blood runs thicker than others - bound up with the potent vitality of vampire hunters. Vampiric entities will find it much harder to sway Alexandros, and his kin, with their supernatural wiles than might be the case for more mundane mortals. In general this passive resistance helps hunters buffer the impressive powers a vampire can bring to bear. To put it bluntly, this gives them something slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell against the hungering dead.
Alexandros apprenticed as a carpenter under his father - he's quite good at woodworking!
Weaknesses:
-A target on your neck. The Dragesus' powers have come at a terrible cost. Even now, when their blood wanes and their numbers disappear into the long night. Most vampires would leap at the chance to kill a vampire hunter... Especially one of the Dragesus lineage. Its innate, in the same way that a cat must chase a mouse. There is also, supposedly, something beneficial to their blood... Though so few vampires have partaken in it that it remains hard to confirm.
-The drink. Sometimes Alexandros finds himself in a tavern. Sometimes he finds a drink in his hands... But what starts with one, continues with two, and ends with too many.
-Young. Alexandros is young - he lacks the grizzled toughness of his older peers along with their extensive experience. He's a promising guardsman... but still capable of making mistakes. Sometimes idiotic ones.
-He enjoys his position as a guard, having earned it entirely on his own merit. This makes him look down on the less fortunate at times... and he has, to his own regret, abused his position before in minor ways (an example being a rough "dismissal" of a vagrant from the market square). He's not cruel nor petty, but sometimes enforces the law more strictly than need be.
-He developed an irrational fear of the dark after his mother's death. It feels stifling to him, as if its likely to crush the life from him. He cannot shake the feeling that there are fangs out there, at every moment, waiting to devour him. For a guardsman, who walks the streets of Marn at night, this is a private torture he tries to bear stoicly and without complaint.
-Unfaithful puradyne. Though his father is one of the stalwartly faithful Alexandros' beliefs are comparatively hollow. He mouths his prayers when he must, but little more. This is a source of frustration for the more religious members of his family.
History: Alexandros' earliest years are confused - full of change and uncertainty. His mother, Nikita, took him to many places, never staying in one for very long. To green rolling hills with stones that stood in circles, reaching to the sky. To cities where men wore cloth headwraps to keep the biting sand from their mouth and eyes. Always, she told him, it was in pursuit of monsters. Whatever Alexandros' mother did when she was away she nearly always returned with fresh bruises and bloody gashes. They often went hungry and stretched out what they could: monster-hunting was not a profitable venture.
Nikita raised her son to be a warrior. She taught him how to hold a bow, how to stand with a sword in your hand, and how to bind a wound when most children were busy playing in the streets. And whenever Alexandros asked after his father... She told him that he could know someday, when he was older.
Marn was just another stop for young Alexandros. His mother, pursuing a vampire, had followed the creature there... having tracked it for months. Nikita left Alexandros in the care of Rudrig, a carpenter and old family friend, while she went about her inglorious but necessary work. That night, before she stalked off into the night, she left Alexandros a coin and instructions to do as Rudrig said and be a good boy.
Nikita didn't come back. Though, in his dreams that night, Alexandros swore he saw her again... Broken, alone, and cold.
Rudrig promised Alexandros she would return, though the words came harder to the kindly bear of a man each day. In time he began to raise Nikita's child as one of his own (his own being two other boys and a daughter, raised by himself and his wife Mila). Rudrig forced him to put aside all the weapons and dangerous inclinations of his mother, except for the bow - which, he deemed, could be useful to a practical man. Alexandros was raised now to be an honest citizen. To put aside the hunter's passion, and make something purposeful of himself instead of burning his life away for nothing.
He did. In time Alexandros came to resent his mother for having lived the life she did, instead of caring for him as a mother should (according to Mila). He identified with his adoptive family more than his biological parentage. He worked the saws and learned to form wood into distillations of function. Alexandros cut beams and planks, made chairs and ox yokes, and fixed doors and heirloom furniture. The times before Rudrig and his woodshop seemed little more than a bad dream. Years went by, nearly a decade and a half, and Alexandros turned into a man.
Alexandros was content. More than that... He was happy, life was wonderful. He loved and was loved. When his eldest brother Hendrik joined the city guard Alexandros was quick to be goaded into following him, to Rudrig's chagrin. In time he came to be proud of the two boys though. Even if they had abandoned the carpenter's trade, a guardsman was a respectable sort.
Hendrik found himself outpaced by his brother within a short while. Alexandros was faster, he was stronger, and he never seemed to slacken his pace. Hendrik grew sullen, Alexandros bragged, and tempers simmered til one night in a tavern the two ended up at eachother's throats. Hendrik's hand was broken. Alexandros was demoted.
Since then the two have put their ill feelings towards eachother behind them. Rudrig's family began to feel more distant to Alexandros though - even if Rudrig himself continued to love him all the same. Dragesus has poured himself into his work since, regaining his rank and struggling to prove that he's an honest man. That he's, by necessity, free of the self-destructive fire that dragged his mother down. Things may look bleak but Alexandros is determined to best the challenges ahead of him, and he's going to do it with a grin and a laugh.
And all the while - there is something else, something other than human, that remains for Alexandros to contend with. No matter how much he denies it, there are fangs in the darkness... And they are no friends of his.