Current character sheet¶

Names

Bozhydar, son of Milorad

Bolobor

Nevrat

Memories and experiences¶

Memories and Experiences are important moments that have shaped your vampire, crystallized in writing. They make up the core of the vampire’s self—the things they know and care about. An Experience is a particular event; a Memory is an arc of Experiences that are tied together by subject or theme.

I

I am Bozhydar, son of Milorad, a member of the retinue of Prince Boleslav. I have been risen to lead a troop of armored companions on a war expedition to Bohemia.

In the eerie light of the moon, I imbue my troops with my inhuman bloodlust. I stand with Luboslava beneath the ancient statue, while my retinue return by handfulls, dragging the deserters to our feet. I speak and their throats are slit, silencing their cacophonous shouts one by one.

I speak the entire night and as the light of dawn interlaces the gloom of the cramped shack with its burning stripes, the man whispers frightened denial, “Lord God, just old fairytales.” I lean my face closer; the exposed bone of my visage catches the light and the sun blackens a sizzing stroke across it. “Only the truth,” I reply. We stare into each others eyes, his dialated and haunted.

II

III

Darkness surrounds me as I dive, but it does not matter: my pray’s heartbeat stands out among the weak flashes of life teeming around me. Soon, my left hand crashes up through the water to reach for the side of the boat, as my right grasps the wriggling pike. This will surely pay for the cracked oar.

The priest quakes as always, but the bruises and burns mean he no longer protests. The scent cooked fish wafting into the lean-to acts on his hunger to give him resolve. His blackened fingernails search the tome for the page where we ended the preceding night. He resumes to decipher the foreign markings for me.

I sense my hunter in the distance, but the darkness is on my side. I throw the bound priest into a ditch and he bumps into exposed roots and mossy stones as he rolls down its bank. The gag prevents him from crying out and his whimpers are instantly stopped by the weight of my foot on his chest. I see fear in his eyes.

IV

White bones peer from under the helm, propped up beneath a familiar three-faced statue. The dessicated skull drinks the blood flowing from my wrists, its eye sockets filled with yellow straw and green moss. Luboslava touches her torch to the effigy and red tongues start licking the scalemail from within. I feel a morose sense of release as Bozhydar, son of Miloran blackens and she tells me not to come back.

As I stare at the haunting rays, their warmth reaches my dead skin and for an eyeblink I feel it burn. The pain is excruciating, but the sensation is stragely appealing, a sole forgotten echo of my human past.

V

Blood seeps out of Ratibor’s stomach as we hasten deep into the forest. In their odd dialect, the villagers spoke of Taraz the Ageless, a mad sorcerer who posseses unearthly alchemical lore. In sudden anger, he pushes my head into a crucible. I do not die, but I am marked and fall sensless.

Beauty, nature, and peace

Though the waves and wind finally subside, the shore is too far. Nevertheless, my frustration subsides as the sun paints the black sky in a patchwork of gold and crimson and I am overwhelmed by its forbidden beauty.

Diary entries¶

Diary I

A necklace of smooth riverstones on a leather strap. The beads are scratched with clumsy marks resembling circles, tally marks, and various crosses.

III

The chamber door opens, a flickering candle paints the corridor in light and our tall shadows. My sister recognizes me and her face paints with terror when shes the scarrs showing from under my bandages. The sight of her face strikes me into turmoil and I loose the grip I have held these last weeks. I leap and devour her. I find peace from the alien, clawing hunger.

Racimir, the Quick no longer, stumbles onto the compacted earth, into the view of the gathered companions and my own. I see his grip slipping of his spear and sweat dripping from his pale visage; I can smell the stench of his rotting bowels. I hear the axehead scrape the boss as, with his last effort, he catches Luboslava’s hatchet on his shield. He drops to his knees. I look with fondness as she triumphantly presses that black kitchen knife into one eye socket, then the other.

IV

The tent flap opens and Luboslava leads in a small-framed man. He is a good bowman and has eyes for the dark. She vouches for him, but I peer inside him anyway. He is distrustful of Racimir the Quick and hides lust for Luboslava—he will be loyal. She hands him a string of rowan berries as a marker.

My attention touches upon each guard and each drover as we lie in wait in the dusk. The archers follow my poiting arm, as I direct them to their targets. I feel the intimacy of Luboslava’s closeness as I whisper the descriptions of those of our prey I want to take alive.

I can sense his hearbeat quicker than the footpad can discern my silhouette in the gloom of twilight. I can hear his breathing as he passes the boulder where I crouch. He is within my grasp, but I let him pass—our fresh companions will have their blooding today.

Diary II

A small collection of leather leafs with black markings in a clumsy runic-like script, bound with strips of birch phloem.

V

Blood seeps out of Ratibor’s stomach as we hasten deep into the forest. In their odd dialect, the villagers spoke of Taraz the Ageless, a mad sorcerer who posseses unearthly alchemical lore. In sudden anger, he pushes my head into a crucible. I do not die, but I am marked and fall sensless.

There is a house here. I crawl out of the brambles and fall onto the packed dirt. As the darkness descends again, a woman approaches with a knife in her hand. I live once more.

I rage as my old companions flee before me in panic, but there is no time. In each trembling hand, Milushe holds the reins of a couple of the horses they leave behind. Before we start our gallop North I ask her to call me Bolobor and herself Luboslava.

Diary III

A Catholic bible written in latin, with some pages containing stories scribbled in black ink in an expert, but shaky hand.

II

Shydlo leads me through the forest to a dark grove with a three-faced pillar in the center, the painted runes peeling and faded. I feel the intimacy of shared secrets as he whispers the stories of the old gods to me. He calls me Niedrog, my childhood name.

Leaning over my sister’s corpse, I felt her blood coarsing through my flesh. I looked up to see Luboslava with a new sight. I sensed her heartbeat and felt the humors of her body. I saw every ache reflected on her flesh and the tiredness weighing down her shoulders. I could feel the life growing in her womb.

In the myst I see the bedraggled figure of Ratibor. He holds up his hand in greeting and I see glimpses of bone showing through his skin. He cannot stay; he heard tales of a young mystic who lives among the Prussian tribes and can heal even those who have once passed—like he, like myself. I wish to follow him, but I am afraid.

Forgotten memories¶

III

I hear the clatter of men moving down the trail. They speak, but I can barely recognize the words. They cannot see me buried in the leaves, but I cannot stop anxiety building in my muscles as they pass.

A group of men travel. They wear the same colors as my scale, but their young faces are not known to me. I feel a glimpse of something familiar, but I bury it under the clamour of my fear.

Characters¶

Characters are the people with whom your vampire has a relationship.

Ratibor

The penant-bearer of my troupe; a friend and reliable right hand in the field. Grievously wounded in battle and captured by Taraz the Ageless. I saw him at night, in the myst—he searched for a pagan priest, and I wished I could go with him.

~~Zhyrovit~~

The industrious voyevoda of prince Boleslav, the leader of the armored companions during our expedition. I never saw him after my turning, and he must be long dead.

~~Milorad~~

The castellan of Starogrod; my stern and ambitious father. When he discovered I killed my sister, he tracked me down, but I defeated him easily and feasted on his corpse.

~~Bohuzhyzn~~

My older sister—devoted and full of life. I drain her of blood in a fit of hunger.

Shydlo

A pomeranian worshipper of Triglav, a childhood friend.

~~Taraz the Ageless~~

A mad alchemist living in the secluded woods in Bohemia. Before insanity took him, he was a healer through his preternatural senses. He deceived me and captured Ratibor, whom he claims to have healed. He traveled to Pomerania to hunt me down, but Luboslava helped me stage my death and escape.

Milushe (Luboslava)

A widow of a woodcutter from Bohemian forest, alienated and unhappy in her lot. Headstrong and calculating. She tended to my wounds. She escapes with me North and changes her name to Luboslava—after the massacre, they would have come for her too. She witnessed me devouring my sister when I fell into blood hunger. I saw a child growing in her, even before she herself realized it. She joined me and my troop on our march North—they know she speaks with my voice and fear her. She entered a rivalry with Racimir the Quick, my new penant bearer and so we built a network of spies to counter his plots. Eventually she poisons him and stabs out his eyes in triumph. Enraged, I slashed her face with a knife and blinded her. As an old woman, she is a mistress of the Rowans, a secret organization of spies and thieves. Though we have not spoken for years, she helps me stage my death to fool Taraz the Ageless’ hunt. I do not know why.

~~Racimir The Quick~~

The penant bearer of my reformed cohort. Previously hiding a pagan faith, a loyal and ardent supporter after the slaughter at the old statue. He chafes while having to compete with Luboslava—a woman and a foreigner—for authority within the troop. He duels her, but she poisons him with amanita and wolfberries the day before and pokes out his eyes. He is surely dead by now.

Father Ioannes of Kolberg

A priest of the diecesy of Kolberg whom Nevrat captured to teach him to read and write. The man suffered physical and mental agony through his months of imprisonment, torture, and starvation. Eventually, the diecesy sent an investigator by the name of Tvrtko to find him, but I hid Ioannes deep in the forest, where none but me could find him. This was a brutal act and the man fears me even more and suspects his life is forefeit. I tell the young priest of my exploits under the name of Bolobor, and of the old pagan religions. One dawn he doubts his what his Christian teachers told him about the world, as he faces a demon in the flesh and bone.

Tvrtko of Kolberg

When Ioannes of Kolberg disappeared, Tvrtko was sent by the diecesy of Kolberg to scour the fishing villages and shoreside towns to find the missing priest. He is a tough and smart guard, but one from the city and unused to the wilderness. I evaded him by hiding his objective deep in the forest, where he could not hope to track him down.

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