Chrishton Radu

[Chrishton Radu]

Player Name: Frug
Character Name: Chrishton Radu
Race: Werefox/Human shifter
Age: 46
Height:
- Human Form: 6'1"
- Half-Fox Form: 6'2" (the ears add an inch)
Weight:
- Human Form: 210 lbs
- Half Fox Form: 165 lbs
- Fox Form: 45 lbs
Hair:
- Human Form: Shoulder length, dark brown.
- Other forms: Soft, white fur.

Weapons: None frequently carried around. Claws and sharp teeth (which do magical damage, harming vampires and any other supernatural creature) in fox forms.

Other Items: In human form he wears his leather jacket, a simple black shirt, old black pants and heavy boots. He wears a small fox head carved from jade on a necklace and always has his trusty flint kit.
In his half-fox form he likes to wear loose clothing and nothing else, so anything from a hooded cloak to hide his face to just a plain white robe. His clothes vanish when he shifts forms, an ability granted by the fact that his shifting is purely magical in nature.

Physical Description:
Human: Truly the template of a gruff brutish man, Chrishton isn't what one would expect to see as the human form for a kitsune. Wearing an old leather jacket that has seen many a battle, cut in slashes and poked with holes here and there, he looks like some kind of reformed biker thug. Well built, with long dark hair that flows down to around his shoulders, his size is most notable in this form. Weighing in at over 200 lbs. and 6'2", he likes to use this to feign a very convincing tough guy act which scares many opponents away. His face is generally unshaven, though handsome in that it reflects the strong muscular look of the rest of his body.
The only thing that defies his hard exterior is, of course, his eyes. They are dark green, but too intelligent for a man his size and demeanor. Rather than come off as entirely stupid and uncaring, when given the chance his good nature and forgiving, carefree heart shines through.
Half Fox: The yin to his human yang, his natural form reflects Chrishton's underlying nature. He is a little taller and much more lean than as a human. The change in appearance is quite astounding, since while in human form he appears rash, crude, unkempt, and intimidating, in this form he looks most harmless. Half fox and half man, he is much like a smaller werewolf. His fur is soft, white and inviting, and everything about him is different in this form - from his mannerisms which become swift and graceful to his voice which is lighter and more lively. Even the words he uses change, since he can no longer put on his chauvinistic act.
As a kitsune he has two tails, meaning he is a relatively low rank (kitsunes can have up to nine tails).
Fox: As a fox he is even more harmless, with his body being about the same size as his tail; around 1.5 feet long. There's not much he could do to anyone like this except bite and yap a lot.


Strengths:
As a human, he's particularly intimidating. Big, muscular, and posessing a twinkle in his eye that can make him look mentally unstable.
He is strong and proficient at fighting with anything from bare hands to swords to any makeshift melee weapon. Years of experimentation, training and adventure mean he can use nearly every type of weapon, including firearms and bows, reasonably well.
His complete conviction in religious faith, as well as a lack of concern for his personal welfare, make him particularly difficult to sway from his chosen path.
He has had years of personal experience dealing with many different creatures, particularly vampires. This gives him an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
He copes well with personal loss provided it doesn't remind him of certain past events.
He can change into a tiny fox when he needs to fit into tight places (or get out of them). Also useful for playing with children.
Finally, he can forfeit his strength and intimidation for speed, and assume his half-fox form, which is more swift and dexterous than any werewolf and just about any vampire. Obviously this also grants him claws and teeth.


Magical Abilities:
Fast: In his fox forms Chrishton is fast. Very fast. Faster than werewolves, and certainly faster than humans and elves. His reflexes are very much on edge, and the slightest threat or sound can send him jumping.
Astral Travel: All shifters are creatures capable of travelling through the astral plane and Chris is no exception. All he needs is a large reflective surface nearby, such as a mirror, and he can vanish from the material plane.
Spirit Friends: Chrishton is constantly followed by a small cloud of mischievous but often useful fox spirits who provide guidance and entertainment. The spirits may or may not choose to alert him of impending danger. He also possesses the ability to speak to all astral creatures (such as spirits) who wish to be heard while on the material plane.
Passage: Barriers and obstacles generally fail to stop Chris from going where he wants. Locked doors open with a touch, guard dogs let him slip by, and parts of the astral plane that are so dangerous they should eat him alive seem not to notice him.
Untrackable: When he's on the run, he's untrackable. There is no scent, and almost no trail to follow.
Charm: On top of his adorable appearance as a kitsune, he can magically charm even the most cold hearted of individuals. This tends to fail on people who already hate him, but neutral people usually buy in and have an inclination towards liking him. This does not work in his human form.
Create Element: He can summon a small amount (enough to fill a cup) of one of the four elements (water, earth, fire, wind).
Invisible: At night he can become invisible, although he is revealed by moonlight.
Origami Decoy: He can bring any origami creature to life, such as a tiger or bird, or another fox. The creature is weak but looks real to the naked eye. It will collapse under any significant attack and turn back into a piece of origami.


Weaknesses and Handicaps:
Yin or Yang: Chris has to choose one style at a time. He is either extremely strong and slow, or quick but weak. In the wrong circumstances, either one can be useless.
Just a Fox: Chrishton is not nearly as strong as a werewolf and lacks any special healing abilities.
Getting Old: Chrishton's age is begging to show in his human form. He is not as fast or as strong as he once was in his human form, and has signs of a gut pushing out his midriff.
Drunkard: Chrishton is a slave to the drink, and can do stupid things if left to such devices.
Crude and Belligerent: Chrishton is prone to crude misbehavior and shows no respect for authority figures or anyone he dislikes. Particularly apparent in his human form, he lacks etiquette and proper manners.
Emotionally Unstable: His past is wrought with events that, when remembered, shatter his spirits and fill him with the pain of regret. His care free attitude is a cover-up that rests on a foundation of tragedy waiting to swell up and destroy his spirits. His behavior is frequently irrational and self destructive, and tempered only by his religious faith.
Speech Impediment: In his human form he sounds rather strange. His accent is not his own, and does not match any real dialect. This is not entirely under his control, and is not present in his half-fox form.
Fear of Dragons: He has a mild phobia of dragons, or anything that resembles the beasts.
Servant of Inari: Chris cannot harm anyone who shows respect around a shrine to the god Inari.


Somewhat Lengthy History:

*** The first chapter ***

Some 40 years ago, Chrishton Radu was born on the outskirts of a small town in eastern Eyropa during a dark time in his country's history. The powers of a ruthless dictatorship had taken hold of the population, and amid the corruption and death the only winners were the vampires. In the night they came, took his mother, killed his father. Chrishton, only a child, managed to run and hide. He doesn't know why they came, and he doesn't remember anything more about his human parents. Even the faint images of what they looked like are fading from his mind these days.
He fled his home to the beautiful green mountains nearby, the most obvious safe place to hide from the corrupt police and creatures that roamed the city streets. There, amid the peaceful greenery of the mountains, he was found by gypsies. Rather than chase him off (for he was clearly no gypsy) they took pity on him and let him stay. They taught him the basics he needed for survival, and in return he worked for them. Stealing, cleaning, spying, whatever needed to be done he did with no complaints. Whether or not the gypsies cared much for him he didn't know and didn't consider. Survival was above all else...

The gypsies told stories at night around roaring campfires about the vampires and other demons and creatures of darkness that were seldom seen. Slowly, as Chrishton grew older, his thoughts of survival turned to thoughts of revenge. The more time he spent living off of scraps in a poor, filthy village, the more he wanted to pay those creatures back for everything they had taken away from him. He was too young to fight then, and unlike many other children he knew it. They were frightening beasts that only a real warrior could ever kill. So he waited, and he worked.

When he was old enough, in his early teens, he left the gypsies behind. Traveling westward, he made his way through Eyrop while stealing anything he decided he needed with relative ease. As a young white boy trained by gypsies, he discovered he could snag anything from right under the noses of spoiled rich folk. Revenge had to wait until he was older and stronger, and as the years passed he repressed his hatred, putting it aside so he could take in the world around him and learn how to become a man.

At 18, already wise beyond his years, he started to reflect on himself and how meaningless his life was looking. He didn't have anything of his own; no home, no family, no friends. It ate away at him that his inevitable revenge was so very far from becoming reality. Thus, when he had gone so far west that he'd reached the ocean, a glimmer of hope landed in his lap. Ships were sailing away to far off places. Like a new world, people spoke about the land to the west as a place one could go and create a new life for himself. And there, the lost young man that he was, he decided to leave it all behind and sneak on a ship to sail away to anywhere but the land he had grown to despise. He told himself that one day he would return to avenge his parents, but he was consumed be the idea of being able to start over from scratch...

The ship took him to a new land known as Ayana. This place was like none he had seen before. Although still inhabited mainly by humans on the surface, the magic and demons he heard about in stories were everywhere. Vampires didn't hide in the shadows, they stood in the open and enticed mortals with promises of immortality. Dragons would black out the sun as they frequently flew overhead. An ordinary looking man on the street would randomly fire off a lightning bolt at a crowd of his enemies, revealing that they all were mages too...
This is where Chris did most of his growing up. Amid the lunatics and megalomaniacs of this realm he had no powers, only determination. He found a trainer and learned how to fight (a necessity for anyone living there). Eventually his work started to pay off. At 25 he was an avid fighter - strong and muscular. He left his first teacher behind, and even forgot the man's name. Thus came the time for his revenge, but before he could return home he decided to gain experience hunting vampires right there in Ayana. After all, they were just demons, and a few less of them around was better for everyone.

*** The second chapter ***

He stalked the bars and clubs in search of bloodsuckers to kill until finally, unfortunately for him, he found them in the form of a woman named Dhari and man who called himself Redfields. They were everything he expected them to be; old, bourgeois, and arrogant. The bull-headed young Chris wasn't interested in listening to anything they had to say. He simply took out his sword, told the two of them what monsters he thought they were, and blindly ran at Redfields. This was the second major turn his life took. Rather than fell either of the vampires, Chrishton's neck was cut open with a simple slash of Redfield's sword, leaving him there to die drowning in a pool of his own blood. It seemed as though the young man had finally pushed his luck too far as he slipped into darkness.

He awoke again under the care of a man who shall remain nameless. This tzimisce (a bloodline of vampires with the ability to manipulate the flesh and bone on themselves and others) had discovered the mostly-dead Chrishton after the incident, and had no trouble sealing up the wound on his neck. The vampire did however have some problems fixing the damage that was caused by massive blood loss. Chris' brain had been deprived of oxygen and nutrients for at least an hour, and part of the reason the tzimisce had decided to save him was just to see if it could be done.

The trauma had shattered Chris' mind.

His memory was reduced to fragmented bits and pieces, his personality became erratic, and he developed a strange speech impediment. This intrigued the vampire, and Chris' personality became a source of amusement. After all, Chris was now in the vampire's debt, and thus was extremely grateful to him. So the vampire let Chrishton go, and was never seen again...

After he had been "reborn," Chris searched out and found the two vampires who had tried to kill him. This time Chris' didn't get himself killed, however. His life had been saved by a vampire, and somehow after the trauma of death he had changed his views. He didn't try to kill them this time (which wouldn't have worked anyway). Instead he spoke to them, explained his plight, and in return they treated him with a good amount of civility when he had put his sword away. Maybe all vampires shouldn't be slated for death, he thought...

Dhari and Chrishton, who became known as Chaos (likely because of his erratic mood swings), spent much time together and she eventually took him under her wing, treating him like a son. He met the different vampires in her coven, and although he was mortal, he was tough as nails yet frequently comic relief. This gained him their respect, and they accepted him into their ranks. They kept their feeding habits to themselves, away from him, and he left the issue alone. As long as they didn't kill anyone, he was fine.
Chrishton spent much time with the coven, helping them to fight their enemies and coping with the social problems within the family. Only one of the family members, his uncle Lars, ever gave him any real trouble. They would resolve their differences later, without words or combat.

But his peace was not to last. The tzimisce's work had more flaws than just the psychological damage left on Chris. Chrishton became stricken ill - something had gone wrong inside his body. The patchwork repairs of the tzimisce had imperfections, and after a year they were taking their toll on his nervous system. Things got very bad very quickly, and nobody in the coven could do anything about it. He was apparently going to die and his suffering was quickly becoming unbearable, even for him. Pounding headaches mostly, along with nausea and loss of energy that got worse and worse as time progressed. He didn't want to die. Not slowly and painfully because of some stupid physical flaws. There was only one obvious solution to his situation, and that was to have a vampire turn him into one of them. The irony of it all was something Lars never let Chaos forget.

Dhari was the most fitting sire for him, already playing the role of his mother, so she drained him of blood and gave him her own, turning the once proud mortal into one of the creatures he'd spent much his life hating. It was the stuff of a tragic novel, and would have made a great one if not for Chrishtons' behaviour. On the inside he hated himself and couldn't bare the thought of what he had become, but on the outside he was the same rash, angry, spiteful, rude jackass he had always been. What he felt in his heart was never reflected in his actions. Maybe it was because his mind was so tampered with, or perhaps there was a frightened lost boy inside him that he kept shut away rather than allow himself to accept the truth. In his short time as a vampire, he never killed a mortal for food. Generally animals were his source of blood, unless it was some prostitute or other woman he got into bed with.

It was as a vampire that he met another kindred named Vivienne. She had always been in the coven, but they never spoke much. Actually, they argued a lot... And the more they got to know each other, the more they argued and fought (Well, mostly she fought and he took it.). Things looked like they were getting vicious between the two, but they had discovered that they really, really liked arguing. It was a match made in heaven. Viv and Chaos shacked it up, and she became his wife. Their marriage lasted a good while, but it was not to be forever.

Although Chaos had the ability to be understanding, caring, and even romantic, he was on the whole a generally abrasive personality. On top of this, he was very headstrong. His way was the right way and other people didn't know what they were talking about. Chrishton refuse to kill mortals for food, and hated any and all kindred who embraced their predatory nature even in the slightest. This attitude, combined with the emotional turmoil of simply being vampires and living with it, led Vivienne to kill herslef.

He didn't take this well. Grief and sorrow killed his spirits and he once again broke down mentally. Perhaps he never fully recovered from his first experience with death. He considered suicide and was careless with his own life, embracing the idea of meeting his final death in one of his frenzies. He didn't really want to die, but he didn't want to live much either. This was how he found his solace in alcohol. You see, vampires can experience the effects of alcohol by feeding off of a drunken mortal. The infusion of alcoholized blood gives the vampire similar effects to what a mortal feels. He discovered this one night with a drunken partner, and promptly became addicted. Finding drunken and willing mortals was easy enough, and when there were none available he found that many other mortal drugs that go directly into the bloodstream worked for him. Sufficed to say, he became a junkie.

This lasted for a few years, and he never fully got over his addiction to alcohol, but eventually, slowly, the pain of grief subsided and he found a new distraction, a new motivation for being: The rest of the world sucked, and he was going to kick the crap out of anyone who pissed him off. Yes, the grief became hatred, and the hatred made him an even more crude, grumpy bitch. He loved his family and his friends still, so he was nice to them, but everybody else was "beggin' fer an ass kickin'."

And he did kick many an ass. He was tough, and had determination in a fight such that shooting him, or cutting off a limb, or beating him with something heavy never kept him down. All his bitterness and anger and hatred fueled his frenzies. He rarely lost his fights, although once he was mad enough to attack a dragon which promptly bit his legs off in the fight that ensued. It hurt so much that he actually crawled away to save his own life, and has since had a fear of the creatures that borders on phobia. It was around this time that he started to get to know a friend of the family named Anga. Ironically, Anga was a dragon who nearly always stayed in her human form. He could handle being around her, because they got to know each other so well, but he constantly pestered her and complained about dragons. She probably only found this amusing, knowing he didn't mean any of it, because she put up with him for years to come. Indeed, the two of them remain close friends to this day. She was able to temper his madness when they were together, bet when apart he was always in trouble.

He continued to become more skilled at fighting, and made a reputation for himself as a real asshole. People started to hate him so much that they put bounties on his head or even tried to kill him themselves. They never succeeded. He was skilled at seeing an ambush coming and taking out the would-be hunters before they managed to get him open. Incredibly, he would even sometimes talk his way out of a bad situation by just confusing his attackers with inane babble and then doing something while they were distracted. He started keeping tabs on how many people wanted him dead at one time and bragging about it. Being a vampire meant he eventually recovered from the worst of his injuries.

Along with he slept around like a dog. Women loved him for various reasons such as his strength, attractive appearance, or general masculinity. Whatever it was, they were more than willing to sleep with him. Dhari called him a womanizer, and that term pretty much stuck. Such was his life until the age of 40. Time means little to the immortals. If not for a chance encounter one night, his life would never have changed.

*** The third chapter ***

Chrishton found solace in nature. The only place he ever remained quiet and relatively thoughtful was the deep woods where the wind and the animals were his only company. When he wasn't out drinking, fucking and fighting, he was alone with nature.
While on one of these outings he heard some noises that sounded like a fight. When he went to investigate, he found what looked like two werewolves attacking eachother, although one was female by the sound of her voice and significantly smaller than the other. Chrishton's knowledge of shifters was extremely limited, and most vampires and werewolves hated eachother. He decided to watch the fight and see who would win. After several minutes of dodging attacks, the female took a swipe to the side so bad that she was sure to die if Chris didn't interfere. So he did, but before he could even attack the larger one it fled, vanishing into the foliage, leaving its prey and the unharmed vampire behind.

When he finally had the chance to get a good look at who he'd just saved, he realized that not only was she part fox, but she was quite beautiful. Falling for an old weakness of his, he couldn't help himself and was completely smitten with the mysterious creature.

He learned that her name was Shakko Koryo and that she was of a species known as the kitsune, close cousins to the werewolves, but foxes. He learned that they were a rare and dying breed... And he learned not to believe a thing she said, for half of it was lies and the other half was questionable at best. But still, somehow, he trusted her, and she responded to his affections in kind... Until the final truth about her changed it all. She was no kitsune, but an avatar of the fox god Inari, one of the major deities of the whole kitsune race. He had saved her, and in doing so earned a gift from the fox god so valuable, so cherished, so incredible that Chris thought no being on any plane would ever give it to him.

He was gifted with his mortality again by being given the body of a kitsune. And so he was reborn for the last time, as a creature of magic, trickery, and an aptitude for tormenting hunters. His human form was the same as always, although he gained the ability to transform into a werefox. Furthermore his life was given purpose once again. He would serve Inari without question, led by a swarm of fox spirits only he could see he went where their fate led him.

Now Chris travels as a servant for the god he is forever indebted to, carrying with him the memories of his dramatic past and the love of the angel he saved. With him follow a cloud of orange spirits that taunt and pester him, and tell him what the fox gods want. Why do they pester him? They would laugh if he asked. Where did Shakko go after she granted him his gift? Was she real to begin with, or was the setting of her rescue staged from the beginning? He doesn't ask. His life has fittingly become an enigma, and the last person who wants to break it is him. He wanders alone, never staying in a relationship for long (indeed rarely even starting a new one). Many of his past friends are dead, or think he's dead, and remain out of touch. Despite it all for the first time in his life he is at peace with himself and truly happy.