Name: Belatucadrus
Age: Over 200
Race: Vampire/Human
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175 lbs
Hair: long, black
Appearance: Bela is a cold, dead shell of a man. Pale skin is framed by long black hair. His face is a gruesome mixture of both handsome and sinister properties. Nobody except a blind man would ever be foolish enough to trust someone who looks like Bela. The perversion can be seen in his eyes , hidden deep behind his polite facade. It isn't very hard to guess what vile thoughts must always be floating around in his corrupted mind.
His clothes range from articles that look like they belong in the 18th century to extravagant modern design, although they're always predominantly black. The only consistent piece he always wears are a pair of tight leather gloves that cover his hands well past the wrists. Long dark claws protrude from his fingertips, looking elegant, sickly, and anything but natural.
Po sessions: All of the vampire's material possessions are too many to list here. His wealth is measured in the hundreds of thousands of Bishani, and this fails to account for how much more he could pull in if he were to pull a few strings with the government of Marn. It is likely he could control millions.
Kaledin manor is his home, a beautiful mansion overlooking the dreary town of Shim. The manor is huge, built from thick stone walls and sitting atop a network of underground catacombs used largely for torture chambers and prison cells. Upstairs every room contains beautiful artwork (much of it painted by Bela himself) statues, suits of armor, and other valuables.
Abilities:
Control Shadows - Bela has mastered the control of shadows to the point that he can turn them into solid forms. He can do anything from turning a room pitch black to attacking someone with the shadows themselves. His ability to control shadows is among the best on Pal Tahrenor and is one of his strongest assets.
Vanish - When controlling the shadows fails, Bela can vanish from the mind's eye with ease. Mortals he does not wish to see him will simply not know he is there. Vampires and magical beings can usually see past this sort of trickery.
Flesh Manipulation - Bela can mold flesh and bone on both himself and others. The claws on his hands were created by pulling the tips of his fingers like putty. This effect works on normal and magical beings alike to kill or disfigure them permanently.
Acidic Blood - Bela's blood is acidic enough to burn flesh but not most other materials.
Blood Form - He can turn into an animate pool of blood. The transformation takes only a second, and while in this form he can only be injured by sunlight, fire or magic. Easily his most difficult to perform ability, it requires a lot of energy and he must feed soon afterwards.
Strength - He is strong enough to lift up the average person with one arm and little effort.
Speed - In combat, he is at least as fast as a skilled martial artist. The only difference is that he expends blood to be able to move quickly enough to keep up.
Sixth Sense - He has a basic sixth sense, making it nearly impossible to sneak up on him without the use of some other magic.
Dominate - Weak minded mortals obey his commands when he can make eye contact with them.
Thick Blood - Bela can go for weeks without feeding, but will need the blood of many mortals to fully satiate his thirst.
Weapons: Belas claws are magical in every sense of the word. They can tear through human flesh, bone, and armour with ease. To werewolves, other vampires, and magical creatures they cause remarkably painful wounds that take much longer to heal than normal physical damage.
Other Strengths: Belatucadrus is well known across Thar Shaddin and has a minor reputation throughout Pal Tahrenor. He has many friends in high places and enjoys an almost godlike status in Thar Shaddin. The Marn City Guard and, more importantly, the city sanctioned battlemages and judges are effectively under the vampire's control.
Not surprisingly, he has accumulated a great amount of wealth as well, and can bribe people with all kinds of gifts, material and otherwise.
Weaknesses: His skill at controlling shadows is offset by an extreme sensitivity to light. All vampires suffer flesh burns because of sunlight, but Bela is so offended by light of any kind that even candle light can blind him. While he can use shadows to shield himself from some ambient light, this takes considerable effort and cannot offer him protection from the sun.
Bela can often be too patient. The vampire would rather sit and wait things out than take action in most circumstances, and while this deliberation is often beneficial it can amount to missed opportunities. His brain functions like an old bureaucracy that prefers to take no action at all rather than the wrong one.
History:
Belatucadrus is the name of an ancient god of war known by the celts. The vampire who calls himself Belatucadrus was not born under this name, but his use of it as a pseudonym suggests that he has some ancestry among those people. This is all that is known about his mortal history, which ended some 200 years ago by a powerful vampire who chose Bela to continue his bloodline's legacy.
Since becoming a vampire, Bela has ensured that all ties to his human past have been severed. His family and friends all died many years ago, along with anyone who could identify him by his old name. Most of these deaths, including his own family, were his doing.
His murky past becomes clear around the time that the city of Marn began to grow. Historical documents record the actions of a rich aristocrat who sponsored the immigration of settlers to Marn and helped build the city from the ground up. It is not known how large a role he played in the early stages of the First Settlers, but many believe he orchestrated the whole ordeal and even hand-wrote the revered Tomes of the First Settlers which form the basic tenets of life in Marn. How much of this speculation is true only he knows.
Bela is known as a harsh but fair creature who watches over the citizens of Thar Shaddin, only leaving his home in Kaledin manor when something needs his attention. His reputation is a combination of iron-fisted despot capable of murdering innocent women and children, and honest warrior who lets nothing compromise the safety of his people. While opinions about him may be mixed, the people are not allowed to speak their minds about him lest they be silenced by the judges or even Bela himself.
He is rarely seen by anyone, even his close confidants, but has spies everywhere and thus a way of knowing what's going on in Marn at all times. His time alone is spent doing largely artistic endeavours from painting to writing. Indeed, even his behind the scenes manipulation of the politics of Marn is treated with such love and care that it could be considered artistic. In truth he is far from soulless, especially for a creature of his age. Rather it is his connection to other people that has died over the years, unlikely to ever be rekindled.