Duvall
(a.k.a. The Nightstalker)
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Identifying Characteristics
Special abilities
Specialized Equipment
Mental characteristics
Personal history
50 years ago, on a miserable and stormy night in the pirate isles of Dornica, also known as The Pirate Isles, a strange elderly woman entered the bustling pub, The Salty Dawg. Many pirates and other ne’er do wells sought shelter from the storm that evening, so the strange woman went largely unnoticed amongst the Dawg’s drunken and bawdy customers. The Dawg’s lone barmaid, Abigay, her belly swollen with child, approached the table of the strange woman to take her order of food and drink. Abigay noticed the stranger’s brown skin that had a washed out, or pale, tone to it as if the woman suffered from an illness. Her features were gaunt, her wild dreadlocks grey-ish white, her clothes were bedraggled and unkempt.
The strange woman ordered an ale. When Abigay returned with her tankard, the woman locked eyes with the young barmaid, trapping her in a steely gaze. Abigay noticed a fire burning within the sickly old woman. Hours seemed to pass as Abigay was entranced by the old woman’s gaze, but in truth it was only mere seconds. The night passed and the storm raged, and the patrons of the Salty Dawg staggered out of the pub, one by one, to their lodgings. Once all had left, only the old woman and a well-dressed older gentleman remained. He looked to be of Lumenian descent, and sat on the far side of the taproom, his table facing the eerie woman’s; and like the old hag, his drink and supper remained untouched.
Sully Snape, the proprietor of the Salty Dawg announced that the pub had closed with his usual rhyme,
"Enough, ye bilge rats! The barrels be dry!
Ye’ve pissed on me floor and run out me rye!
If ye ain't out when I’m dousing the light,
Ye’ll wake in the surf with the sharks fer a bite!"
And with that, the last two strange visitors to the Salty Dawg, had wandered out into the stormy night. Abigay tired by the long busy night, as well as shaken from the frightening encounter with the old woman, Abigay retired to her room at the far rear of the pub. She shed her working clothes and donned a nightshirt, extinguished her lantern and laid down in her straw filled bed. She then heard a knock at the window’s shudders. The rapping was faint and could be barely heard over the tropical storm raging outside. As if no longer in command of her own body, the young Dornican woman arose from her bed and slowly walked to the lone window in her room and opened the shudders.
There stood the old woman, now looking more like a ghost than a living being. Her hair and clothes hung loosely on her form, drenched by the torrential rain outside.
“Please child, let me in, I am but a poor old woman stranded here at the port and I have nowhere to go. I humbly beg of you to shelter me from this accursed rain.”
Abigay agreed to let the old hag into her room with the promise that she would only stay til the storm had stopped. The woman did not climb through the pub’s window but instead floated. A gnarled clawed hand reached out for Abigay and seized her by the throat. A soft moan, which sounded almost like a moan of pleasure, emanated from the crone as she opened her mouth revealing two oversized sharp front teeth, like those of a rat. Now more monster than old woman, the creature sank her teeth into Abigay’s neck and began draining her victim of her blood.
Suddenly the door to Abigay’s room was kicked open, almost off its hinges, and standing in the door way bearing a holy symol of Revanna- the goddess of death in one hand, was the middle-aged stranger from earlier in the taproom.
“Relinquish your victim, unclean vermin of the night, and face the power of the Twelve and return to the hells that spawned you!” the stranger shouted.
The monster released her grip of Abigay and hissed at the man that was there to do battle with the hag.
“Behold the holy power of the Twelve, Soucouyant bitch! I rebuke you!” the man exclaimed.
The vile monster that once had the guise of a decrepit old woman, her form had hunched over, her knobby long fingers ended in yellowed claws, and her eyes became two fiery orbs that glowed in the sockets of her skull. She slunk towards the open window, backing away from the holy symbol of Revanna clenched in the man’s fist. With a final growl, the monster’s shape changed once more; now in the form of a large bat, the beast flew out the window and into the stormy night.
The man rushed to Abigay's side, and inspected the gash upon her neck. The young woman was still alive, her breathing shallow. The man reached inside his long coat and produced a vial and poured its liquid contents into the woman’s mouth. The wound on her neck closed quickly.
“Ahoy scallywag! No one’s shaggin’ the wench without payin’ me first!”
Sully, the Salty Dawg’s proprietor appeared in the doorway Abigay’s room, battle axe in hand. Deciding discretion being the better part of valor, the stranger also leapt through the window, disappearing quickly in the rain.
In the following months Abigay had giving birth to a boy, but had died during childbirth. Her last words were christening the infant with the name, Duvall. The babe possessed a few unnatural qualities such as a lightened pallor to his brown skin along with red eyes and slightly pointed ears. The orphaned infant came to be cared for by women of a brothel in Port Regency. It is said that the madam of the establishment bought the babe from Sully for 500 silver dragons. There the boy worked in the brothel while stories and legends of a blood sucking creature with the shape of an old woman fed on those who were unlucky enough to wander into the jungle at night. With the tale of the attack on Duvall’s mother becoming public knowledge, many of the superstitious residents of Port Regency looked upon young Duvall with fear and suspicion.
The young man began feeling an uncontrollable thirst for the blood of the living. His lust for blood consumed him one night and resulted in the young boy being discovered sucking on the blood of a prostitute in the brothel while she lay unconscious in her bed. Duvall was driven out of his former home and fled into the filthy alleyways of the port city. He quenched his thirst for the blood of the living, draining drunken sailors and other unsavory inhabitants of their blood in the port city.
A superstitious mob, complete with torches and pitchforks, sought out the afflicted boy and meant to kill the boy ending the menace of the vampire child who stalked the streets of Port Regency. He was chased and cornered by the mob, but he was saved by a strange man dressed in the clothes of nobility. The man fought off the crowd and hurried Duvall away to a docked ship that was set to sail to the Kingdom of Galador.
On the voyage at sea, the man told Duvall that his name was Sir Cyruss Kassady Montclare. He was indeed a rich and minor noble. He explained to Duvall that he was on a holy mission to rid the kingdoms of the fiends who would prey on the innocent under the cover of night. He also explained to Duvall that the thirst he was feeling came from being born a Dhampir, a being that was half-human and half-vampire. In exchange for saving Duvall’s life, Cyruss would train the lad to become a monster hunter, so he may hopefully retain his humanity by slaying fell beasts. Seeing his need to feed on the living as a curse, Duvall agreed, hoping that if he could someday find the vampire that had bitten his mother he could free himself from his curse.
In the following years in Galador, Cyruss taught him to read and write in several different languages. Cyruss being a minor noble paid swordmasters to train Duvall in the art of sword fighting and combat. He also taught Duvall to use his burgeoning unnatural abilities and educated him in the occult and on lore of creatures from the netherworld. Duvall began to loathe his monstrous nature, and that loathing turned to anger towards vile monsters that could do the same to others. Cyruss fanned those flames of anger, and turned them into a burning need for vengeance.
Upon reaching adulthood, Cyruss turned his protégé’ loose on Galador, while Duvall searched for the vampire that created the monster within the man. He had become legend himself as a killer of evil monsters that hunted under the light Obscura the moon. No vampire, werewolf, devil, or demon would be safe from Duvall, who was dubbed by the underworld as the Nightstalker.
Education
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