Luciano Sunseeker

I remember the sun... they cannot make me forget it. Even over ten thousand years they cannot make me forget that I have gazed upon her majesty. That majesty would slay me now, but the day is coming when I will once more walk into her glory and gaze upon her one last time. However brief a moment that may be. What can they do to me for this that they have not already done, or I will not do myself? ~Luciano Sunseeker to his favorite grandson before the breakout.

Ancient beyond most mortal comprehension the vampire known as "Luciano" is an enigma even to his fellow vampires. The last of the original seed known as the 'Sworn', those whose bargains and oaths had brought vampires into being, he is a force unto himself. The most powerful of them... but alone and apart.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

By modern standards, Luciano is not particularly tall, standing only 5'6" and weighing in at a well muscled 150lbs. He is lean and fit from millenia of consistent practice with a variety of weapons, and honing his endurance for a primitive and brutal form of magic that he has refused to exchange for the refinement of true spells. After all simply being able to grab a lightning bolt and toss it or pull the earth itself out of the ground as a wall without incantations or fuss has its advantages.

Special abilities

Luciano is strong in elemental magics: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water all bend to his will, but the toll to his body and mind for using raw magic is also correspondingly high, though he has developed many techniques to deal with it.

Apparel & Accessories

Luciano prefers fitted, comfortable clothing in high quality fabrics. He rarely wears anything fancy, but clothing should last and be able to endure anything he puts it through. He prefers dark colors, typically in browns and grays rather than brightness, the old stone age part of his brain telling him those are 'safer' in spite of millenia of change.
When he is being fancy his styles are strange to even his fellow vampires, for they encorperate elements of all the ages he has lived in: totems of his past. He abandons the dark colors, and dresses in bright silks and fine furs, some of which he hunted himself.

Specialized Equipment

Luciano carries on him a ritual dagger made of bone. The dagger is almost as old as he is and belonged to his first wife. It is an ancient and magical thing and even he does not know its full properties.

Social

Reign

When he was still Usilmanmekar or 'He who Remembers the Sun' of the Sea Cat tribe, he became Chieftain at a young age. A rival tribe slew the, then, current chieftain and all his sons. Usil saw a weakness in the enemy line and used his magic to exploit it.
A cousin to the old chieftain, he ralied the rest of the tribe and they stood off the remainder of the attack, in no little part due to his magic and that of one of the young shamans.
He ruled well and wisely by stone age standards, though the world was harsh and the magics of the world were unpredictable, especially around the great Fonts, one of which lay in their own hunting grounds.
When a New God rallied his followers to claim the Font of Life, Usilmanmekar once more rallied his own tribe. Crisis delayed, he summoned the other chieftains, and there in the pressence of the Font of Life they wrought a bargain with the Shadow Lord for the strength to hold these invaders at bay.
The Shadow Lord gave them what they asked for, but at a terrible price: Vampirism.
Usilmanmekar alone spoke against this treachery, but the others were too intent on the invaders to heed his outrage or try to unwork the curse. Instead they embraced their newfound power, even with its limitations, and for many centuries kept the invaders at bay, but his protests were the end of his time as Cheiftain.
Instead he embraced his name: He who remembers the sun.
He has often worked against that new god... often discovering his allies are more terrible than the foe he stands against. Yet it is the memory of the sun that holds him. And whatever comes, he will not forget it.

Contacts & Relations

Luciano's line is one of the strongest amongst the vampires, though it is not considered the premier. Smaller in number than the other great lines, those remaining with it all have great power. His line breeds* a wider variety of more powerful mages than any other, it is also the most fertile of the vampire lines due to the conditions of his own request of the Shadow Lord.
The Sunseeker clan forms the core of the opposition to the King of the Vampires, though they do not currently house his greatest rival for the throne, or at least not his greatest overt rival. Numbering only 10,000 strong (less than three percent of the vampires' total number) it is a rare member that is not some degree of mage, granting them a strange status on the Council.
*Vampires, inspite of being technically undead, can breed see Vampirism for further details.

Family Ties

His near descendants are few, his last living son having been slain over 50 years earlier for treason.
He has a single daughter living (more or less) and four grandchildren. Two full vampires and two Dhampir, for it was he who, to his sorrow, discovered that humans and vampires could still breed with one another.
It is the last two he worries most about for Dhampir are viewed as mere tools in Vampire society, something to breed greater fertility back into their lines and male Dhampir are viewed as nearly worthless, for Vampires bear ten sons to every daughter. Too make matters worse his beloved grandson has given himself in service to the very new god that Luciano has so long fought. What will come of this remains to be seen.

Religious Views

Luciano has little use for the gods, any gods. It was a bargain with one god against a new one that made him a vampire. The gods can go to the nether hells and either fry or freeze, he cares little which as long as they leave him and those he loves alone. Of course, they never do. And he wholey acknowledges there are powers as nasty as the gods. The Tower Lord and his own King rank right up there amongst those.
At least with lesser powers there is something he can do about them beyond bribing them to leave him alone.
He does maintain many of the rituals he as practiced since boyhood to keep the gods at bay. Those he can in his current condition. He even leaves offerings for the sun he no longer can look on. For all his Misotheism, he has drunk a long bitter measure of what the gods can do to those who cross them.
Now in Rocco del Mare he has come face to face with the New God that prompted his origional bargain, or at least those claiming to be in his service. Including his own treasured grandson.

Mannerisms

Luciano has, over his long life, developed several strange (to anyone who knows vampires) quirks.
The first is his habit of watching the dawn and only retreating when he must. This is what earned himself and his clan the name 'Sunseeker' which, for a vampire, is as much to say 'suicidal lunatics'.
He maintains many of the old rituals from his youth. The chants to the dawn and the sunset. The thanks for victory on the hunt (though what he hunts now can be very strange).
Unlike most vampire who feed when and where they will, he has a custom of feeding only once a week, a limit he has learned through trial and error as the longest 'safe' time he can go, and feeding only carefully. He remembers being human. He must eat, and he will do no more harm than he must to people he still views as his own.
It has also been his custom to choose two or three humans as his steady meal, thus protecting them from the others (who would dare challenge him personally about his 'property'?) This also allows them to recover between feedings. He treats them as well as they will accept. It frustrates him that he must feed, but he has no desire to repeat the damage a blood frenzy does.

Wealth & Financial state

Luciano has had 10,000 years to collect rarities. He has a treasure trove that not even the King of the Vampires knows about (thanks to some clever magic on his bags of holding), as well as many artifacts that would make historians drool, but to him are simply... parts of his past.
He has totems in jade and other precious stones. Mithril and magic times from the days when magic was strong. Pelts kept pristine by magic from creatures that never to only rarely walk the world now.
To others it is the unfathomable wealth of ages. To him many are irreplacable pieces of his past: the bone and jade cloak pin given to him by his first wife, carved with symbols of protection. The iron dagger made for him by his eldest son just before he walked into the sunrise. And on the list. Fragments of a past long forgotten by any but him. Precious beyond any mortal evaluation.

One of the first vampires, Luciano has always been an enigma to all his kinds.

View Character Profile

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Trutamar

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Lupatiur

Honorary & Occupational Titles

The only title he has ever claimed since he laid down the title of 'Chieftain' is that of 'Sworn'. Or in the vampire tongue "Ulkarik". And a bitter title it is, a reminder of his greatest folly, and the progenator of all his other folly. On the other hand it makes the other vampires squirm. A reminder of his power.

Age

10,323

Gender

Male

Eyes

Grey-green

Hair

Black

Height

5'6"

Weight

150

Quotes & Catchphrases

This is why we always bribed the gods to leave us alone...