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Apr. 13th, 2000 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
italicisedOOC INFORMATION
Name: Gil
Are you over 15? Yes
Contact: PM this account or Dolthalion
Current characters in the game: Nanny Ogg - Discworld
IC INFORMATION
PREINCARNATION
Name: Lord Akeldama
Canon: Parasol Protectorate
Age: Died when he was 24, currently is around 2250
Species: Vampire
Appearance: Blonde, with delicate features (and fangs). Dresses extremely foppishly, extremely fashionably, and extremely flamboyantly. Slim, with long hair.
History:
Canon wiki link
As Akeldama is the oldest vampire around for most of the books, not the main character, and very close about his past, we don't know a lot about it. What we do know is that he was born in or around Macedonia, 2250 years ago. When asked if he was Alexander the great, he doesn't deny it (and actively encourages the thought) but since he also lies about other aspects of his past, this means nothing (screw word of god), especially as he is described as appearing younger than Alexander was when he died. What is more likely is that he lived at a similar time to Alexander – perhaps even knew him (and could even have been one of his lovers), but his character is too dissimilar to what we know of Alexander for me to consider this true.
What we do know about him is that he was metamorphosed by Queen Matakara of Alexandria, Egypt (who was also known as Hatshepsut), some time around 200 BC. He must have left the Alexandria Hive sometime around late 1600/early 1700 since he claims that he left due to an argument over a yellow waistcoat, and while it's heavily implied that this isn't actually the case for it to be a feasible suggestion he would have had to have come to London when that was possible – and early enough for him to be as intrenched as he is.
Having arrived in London, he made himself very much at home, and eventually came to an agreement with Countess Nadasdy to metamorphise his drones, despite his dislike of her. This allowed him to set up a home and start to collect drones of his own, and settle into becoming one of the most powerful roves in the UK.
When the books begin, he already knows Alexia, and has become her confidant, so he is naturally whom she turns to when things start getting strange(er than normal) around her. When she is invited to the Westminster Hive, she turns to him for advice (his advice is to ask the werewolves what they know so that she can go in with more knowledge). Following this, he lets her stay with him over the full moon in order to keep her safe – only for them both to be kidnapped by a scientific group doing experiments on vampires. Akeldama is strapped into a machine that pumps his blood into a human in an attempt to make an artificial vampire, but is saved by Alexia's quick thinking, and then by his drones, who realise who is behind the strange events and find their master missing in time to raid the club that they are being held at.
He remains her confidant through the second book, where he is used to introduce a new form of wireless communication that is used in this book and later in the series, and also sought out once again for advice when things take a turn for the unusual. In the third book, he is once again the person that Alexia turns to when her pregnancy causes her husband, Conall, to turn away from her. However, he has already fled his house, after Biffy was kidnapped. Since he's unable to leave the bounds of central London, it's assumed that he spends the course of the book moving from one safe house to another until Biffy is rescued. However, during the course of the rescue, Biffy is shot, and to save him, Conall turns him into a werewolf. This is significant because not only is someone being transformed without having asked for it, a werewolf has taken a vampire's drone, and Akeldama is furious, although he does his best to keep it subtle. In the end, though, he can't undo what has been done, and has lost lovers before. The vampire that kidnapped Biffy was Queen Victoria's vampire advisor, the potentate, and he is also killed during the alteration, and Akeldama is left as the only reasonable replacement for the role.
During the fourth book, a solution has to be found for Alexia's baby who by being the daughter of a soulless and a werewolf will be born with powers unknown to most of society, but known and hated by the vampires. The solution offered up is that Akeldama will adopt the baby and raise her, thereby removing her from the influence of the werewolves. This is agreed upon, and Alexia and her husband move officially into the house next door to Akeldama – although via a secret connection to their balconies, actually into his third wardrobe. In his position as potentate, Akeldama is involved in the investigation of a threat against the queen, which leads them to discover that Conall's second in command manufactured the events that lead up to Conall taking over the London pack. The plot was actually against Countess Nadasdy, queen of the Westminster Hive, and her house is destroyed, leaving her to swarm out of London, leaving Akeldama the most powerful vampire in central London.
The final book of the original series shows a lot of Akeldama in his new role of father to a child who has the ability to take his vampirism for herself with a touch. He is also once again sought for advice when Alexia is again invited to meet a vampire queen, this time Matakara, where he admits that she was the one who transformed him. He advises her not to go, but her allows her to and to take Prudence, his daughter.
The second series features Prudence as the main character, and therefore once again Akeldama appears. He sets the plot in motion in the first book by sending Prudence off to steal a sample of tea, and then sends her to India to find out if it would be worth while for him to grow and import it. During the second book he also appears at the beginning to help set off the plot, this time revealing to Prudence alongside Alexia that Conall is suffering from Alpha's curse and going mad. He is also revealed to be foresighted enough to commission new technology for Prudence's airship that becomes necessary during the trip to take Conall to Egypt where he will be able to live out the rest of his days as human (and therefore no longer suffer from the curse).
His final appearance to date is in Romancing the Werewolf where he briefly appears with new kittens after the death of his cat. He gets to have a final farewell to Biffy as his former drone cements his new role as pack leader to Conall's old pack by moving them out of the house next to Akeldama and away to the other side of London. He is also the one that Conall's old second in command comes to first when he finds that they have moved – not just because he was their neighbour, but because he will know where they've moved to anyway.
REINCARNATION
Name: Alexander Fleet
Age: 65
Appearance: When he was in his 30s he did indeed look like his pre-incarnation self (minus the fangs and the victorian fashion), but these days he looks significantly older. His hair is faded (but dyed to maintain it's bright blonde), and while he's still healthy, he's not as energetic as he was.
History: Alexander was born to a wealthy family in 1953, the youngest of three. As a child, he never wanted for anything, and was given the best education that money could buy at a posh boarding school. During his teenage years, he very comfortably slipped into the mods culture, and started to unravel his own sexuality. Given that sexual relationships between men were illegal in the UK until 1967 (and then the age of consent was 21 until 2001), he at least attempted to hide his sexuality until he was 18, when he went to Cambridge University, to study history and politics.
Freed from his family home (and the threat of school reports), for the first time Alexander was free to really express himself. While he still had to keep his relationships hidden, as he was still under the age of consent, he could finally act and dress completely as he wished. Of course, it wasn't completely risk free, as although he was safe from his parents' gaze, there were still plenty of homophobes in the world who found him distasteful. Fortunately, he found a strong friendship group of like minded young men of equal flamboyancy who supported each other and helped to keep his spirits high.
He went on to take his masters in politics, before being released to unresisting London, where he almost immediately found his place in the burgeoning LGBT movement. Spearheading movements, riots and rebellions, he became a leader and spokesperson. But the attention proved to have a high cost. One day his parents arrived on his doorstep, sat down with him, and told him in no uncertain words that he had two choices: to return home with them and repent of his ways, or to stay in London and be disowned. There was no choice for Alexander: he remained in London, and despite a few attempts to reconnect with his parents before they died, they never spoke to him again. After their death he was able to reconnect with his siblings, but for most of his young adult life the only member of his family who would speak to him was one aunt who was also mostly ostracised from the family for marrying into trade (her husband owned a small department store in Mossgate).
With his movement and friends now his only family, Alexander threw himself back into the game full-heartedly and spent most of his twenties, and all of his thirties and forties as a full time member of the LGBT movement, and the life of the party. He was well known for his fashion, his scandal ridden sex life, and his utter devotion to the cause.
In the beginning of 2001, the age of consent for same sex relationships was equalised with heterosexual relationships for the first time, and not long afterwards, Alexander's aunt Augustina died childless, leaving him everything as a fuck you to the rest of their family. This included the department store in Mossgate that had been closed since her husband died in the early 1990s. These two events, combined with the beginning of a new millennium (after a year of celebrations, of course), left Alexander to decide that now was the time to begin his retirement. And what better retirement project than his very own LGBT bar/club in the former department store?
By the late summer, Alexander's bar was ready to open. The furniture was a bit of a mismatch, started with the stock that had still filled the basement, and bulked up to make a stylish, if eclectic, collection, and he had to pull in a few favours to bring the building up to (more or less) modern standards. With the basement a club space, the ground floor a bar/cafe, the first floor a private/rentable space and staff only areas, and the second floor converted to a flat for himself, he had given himself a space to cater to all needs, and the bar flourished.
These days, he mostly takes a backseat role, gossiping with the regulars, and eyeing up the barmen, but his hand can be seen in the events planning and style of the workers. And despite his so-called retirement from activism, his hand can also be seen in local politics, and his bar sponsors pride week heavily.
First Echo: One of his regulars compared him to a spider, and his bar his web, pulling in all the juicy gossip. Alexander replied that he would much rather be a queen bee, with his little worker bees and drones bringing him lovely nectar to make honey with. It was the first time that he had referred to anyone as his drone, and it caused an echo, since in his past life as a vampire, that was what his underlings were called. Ever since, drones has felt like the right word to use for his workers, and he has found himself rather liking it. When, in 2015, the bar finally had a revamp, it was redone to a bee theme, and renamed 'the Hive'.
PERSONALITY
Pre-Incarnation Personality: Outwardly, Akeldama is nothing more than a flamboyant fop, full of fashion and flippancies. He is cheerful and lighthearted, and extremely camp, and is devoted to fashion.
However, underneath all of that he is a rove vampire; a vampire who has left his hive and struck out on his own, and moreover an extremely old one. Just to be able to survive on his own shows resourcefulness and strength of character. Despite appearances, he is able to defend himself, and does several times throughout the books. When his home is invaded in the first book, he reaches without hesitation for a weapon that he has disguised as a piece of art (although he's chloroformed before he has a chance to fight). After his favourite drone, Biffy, is turned into a werewolf out of necessity, Akeldama controls himself through three pages of dialogue (including an unwritten summary of the subplot of the book which led to Biffy's transformation), until Lyall says the wrong thing ('Biffy was very lucky'). Quicker than the werewolf can follow, Akeldama releases his anger and moves across the room, around a desk, and grabs Lyall by the throat, only to be disarmed by Biffy waking. And before that, when Biffy is stolen from Akeldama in the first place, Akeldama makes the decision to swarm, leaving his house to keep the rest of his drones safe. He will always make the decision to keep himself and his drones safe.
Akeldama's main passion, even more than fashion, is for knowledge, but the knowledge that he seeks is the gossip of London's high society. He absolutely must know everything that is going on, and he uses his drones as spies to seek out any tidbits of information that they can find. While he appears to mostly be picking up on gossip, he is also interested in the wider context. With his age, he is not only intelligent, but wise, and although he does his best to hide it with his foppishness, he is quite often the one they turn to when they want answers. He is the one who knows what the homunculus is in the first book, and how to destroy it, and he is also the one who explains what Alexia's daughter will be (being the daughter of a werewolf and someone who has the power to nullify supernatural powers).
As a gay man and vampire, Akeldama is open minded, but he is actually even more open minded than you would expect. Despite the usual hang ups between vampires and werewolves, Akeldama is open to co-operation, and even ends up with a pack living next door to him and the alpha living in in his wardrobe. (There are some small advantages to the situation however. Werewolves tend to spend a fair amount of time in stages of undress.) If anything, he seems to be biased against his own kind – or at least against vampire queens, as he warns Alexia against both of the queens features in the novels. He is also able to accept Prudence when no other vampire will because she will be Alexia's daughter and he is open minded enough to be curious about her.
To those who gain his friendship and trust, Akeldama can be extremely loving and kind. To both Alexia and his adopted daughter Prudence, he shows affection and protectiveness, and he is fond of all of his drones (though he always has favourites). Being an immortal surrounded by mortals, he must always be ready to lose his companions, and he does seem to be able to put Biffy aside when he becomes a werewolf. Biffy himself believes that Akeldama's love is always 'transient and shared', but Akeldama was also shown to have truly loved Biffy, and he clearly impacted him, so he must have learnt over many years coping mechanisms to deal with losing those he loves. The fact that he is still able to love while knowing that he almost certainly will lose his lover (since the only way to keep one would be for them to survive the bite) shows his resilience and optimism in love.
Any differences?: Unlike Akeldama, Alexander is neither immortal nor a vampire. He doesn't have the wealth of experience that Akeldama does, nor has he had the time and money to truly intrench himself in one place and gain the complete knowledge that Akeldama has. Although he could tell you most things about the LGBT folk in Mossgate (and some now outdated London gossip), it's a significantly smaller sphere of influence than Akeldama, who knows the ins and outs of all of London's high society. He also isn't a fighter. While he could have at least stood up for himself while he was younger, he is no longer a young man, and doesn't have supernatural abilities to help him. At the end of the day, Alexander is not a vampire who has to rely on other people's blood to sustain him, and therefore has never had to opt to harm people in order to survive, which leaves him kinder and softer.
However, the one advantage to this is that he has never known loss in the same way that Akeldama has. He has been cut off from his family, and he has lost lovers in the past, but he has never had to endure centuries of lovers growing up and away from him, or simply dying. He is unable to cut himself off from people in the same way that Akeldama does to Biffy, because he hasn't had to teach himself to do that. Therefore, when he does lose someone (and he is reaching the age where he is losing friends) he feels it every time, and is losing some of the optimism that Akeldama is able to retain despite his loses. He's also aware of his own mortality. Akeldama is scared to die, and protects himself ruthlessly, but Alexander knows that he will die, and soon rather than later, and is proud of what he has done in his life and not afraid of it. Alexander believes that what will come will come, but Akeldama will do everything to avoid risk.
While Akeldama lives in a multicultural city, and has seen many changes in his long life, Alexander has seen as many changes in his short life. He has seen the computer age come and take over, and has had to adapt to it. Akeldama finds technology exciting and enjoys the prestige of being able to afford the best, but Alexander has more of a working relationship with it where he uses what he has to (aside from social media, which he took to like a duck to water). Alexander will occasionally moan about missing simpler times where people actually spoke to one another, but Akeldama is often enthusing about the future will bring.
Abilities: Lord Akeldama is an old vampire, and has most of the abilities you would expect, with some slight twists for the setting.
In this setting, all humans have or produce aether (/soul), but some have excess (mainly creative types). It is only those who have excess who can survive the bite and be transformed into a supernatural type, but there is no way to know for certain without going through with it. Those who produce no aether are preternaturals and are able to return supernaturals to their mortal selves by touching them.
Vampires form hives around a vampire queen, as female vampires are the only ones with the power to metamorphose other vampires. A hive will normally consist of a queen, several vampires under her, and a collection of drones who act as servants and provide their blood to the vampires in return for being considered to become vampires themselves. A rove vampire, which is what Akeldama is, is a vampire who has managed to remove himself from his hive and his queen, something which takes a great deal of strength. Rather than a hive, he has a home, where he is the only vampire, and a handful of drones, that he must ask a local queen to bite, trading whatever he can offer that the hive bound vampires cannot provide for her.
Strength: At one point it is remarked that he would be able to pull a werewolf's head from his shoulders if he wanted to. They are a lot stronger than humans, but werewolves are stronger still.
Speed: They are faster than werewolves and much faster than humans.
Healing: They can heal quickly, and by drinking blood can heal even faster. However, a broken bone would take longer to recover from than a serious cut.
Heightened senses: Although Akeldama wears a monocle he has no need to since vampire vision is extremely good. They also have a heightened sense of hearing.
Immortal: While dominant werewolves eventually succumb to the alpha's curse (they go mad after a couple of hundred years), and vampire queens seem to have something similar, it is after thousands of years rather than hundreds, and Akeldama is not a queen. He is already thousands of years old and is much more likely to die from violence than a natural death.
Intelligence: As a whole, vampires are shown to be manipulating and cunning. In addition to this, Akeldama has had time to indulge all sorts of knowledge, being as old as he is. He speaks Latin and English, as well as Ancient Greek and Egyptian. He keeps up with modern technology, even the parts of which he can't use.
Fashion this is his special subject. He likes fashion.
On the flip side there are some disadvantage to being a vampire:
Daylight: will cause vampires to burn and die, and during sunlight hours vampires are compelled into a death like, deep sleep.
Garlic and lemon: vampires are allergic to garlic, although not severely, and dislike the taste and smell of lemon (although Akeldama has trained himself out of this so that he can continue to use it to bleach his hair)
Wooden stakes and bullets etc. can be used to kill vampires.
Tethers All supernatural beings have a connection to something known as a tether: for a werewolf it is to their pack and to a vampire it is their hive (or home for rove vampires like Akeldama). While they can move a certain distance from their tether, it is uncomfortable, and if they go too far it can be snapped, which could potentially kill them. The older and more powerful a vampire queen or rove is, the smaller their range to leave the hive/home is. Akeldama is unable to move outside of central London because that would take him too far from his home.
Infertility: As far as we know, all supernatual beings are infertile, including vampires (not that this is an issue to Akeldama, whose tastes mean that pregnancy was never an issue anyway)
ROLEPLAY SAMPLES
- 3rd person/action: Here and here!
- 1st person/network:
Name: Gil
Are you over 15? Yes
Contact: PM this account or Dolthalion
Current characters in the game: Nanny Ogg - Discworld
IC INFORMATION
PREINCARNATION
Name: Lord Akeldama
Canon: Parasol Protectorate
Age: Died when he was 24, currently is around 2250
Species: Vampire
Appearance: Blonde, with delicate features (and fangs). Dresses extremely foppishly, extremely fashionably, and extremely flamboyantly. Slim, with long hair.
History:
Canon wiki link
As Akeldama is the oldest vampire around for most of the books, not the main character, and very close about his past, we don't know a lot about it. What we do know is that he was born in or around Macedonia, 2250 years ago. When asked if he was Alexander the great, he doesn't deny it (and actively encourages the thought) but since he also lies about other aspects of his past, this means nothing (
What we do know about him is that he was metamorphosed by Queen Matakara of Alexandria, Egypt (who was also known as Hatshepsut), some time around 200 BC. He must have left the Alexandria Hive sometime around late 1600/early 1700 since he claims that he left due to an argument over a yellow waistcoat, and while it's heavily implied that this isn't actually the case for it to be a feasible suggestion he would have had to have come to London when that was possible – and early enough for him to be as intrenched as he is.
Having arrived in London, he made himself very much at home, and eventually came to an agreement with Countess Nadasdy to metamorphise his drones, despite his dislike of her. This allowed him to set up a home and start to collect drones of his own, and settle into becoming one of the most powerful roves in the UK.
When the books begin, he already knows Alexia, and has become her confidant, so he is naturally whom she turns to when things start getting strange(er than normal) around her. When she is invited to the Westminster Hive, she turns to him for advice (his advice is to ask the werewolves what they know so that she can go in with more knowledge). Following this, he lets her stay with him over the full moon in order to keep her safe – only for them both to be kidnapped by a scientific group doing experiments on vampires. Akeldama is strapped into a machine that pumps his blood into a human in an attempt to make an artificial vampire, but is saved by Alexia's quick thinking, and then by his drones, who realise who is behind the strange events and find their master missing in time to raid the club that they are being held at.
He remains her confidant through the second book, where he is used to introduce a new form of wireless communication that is used in this book and later in the series, and also sought out once again for advice when things take a turn for the unusual. In the third book, he is once again the person that Alexia turns to when her pregnancy causes her husband, Conall, to turn away from her. However, he has already fled his house, after Biffy was kidnapped. Since he's unable to leave the bounds of central London, it's assumed that he spends the course of the book moving from one safe house to another until Biffy is rescued. However, during the course of the rescue, Biffy is shot, and to save him, Conall turns him into a werewolf. This is significant because not only is someone being transformed without having asked for it, a werewolf has taken a vampire's drone, and Akeldama is furious, although he does his best to keep it subtle. In the end, though, he can't undo what has been done, and has lost lovers before. The vampire that kidnapped Biffy was Queen Victoria's vampire advisor, the potentate, and he is also killed during the alteration, and Akeldama is left as the only reasonable replacement for the role.
During the fourth book, a solution has to be found for Alexia's baby who by being the daughter of a soulless and a werewolf will be born with powers unknown to most of society, but known and hated by the vampires. The solution offered up is that Akeldama will adopt the baby and raise her, thereby removing her from the influence of the werewolves. This is agreed upon, and Alexia and her husband move officially into the house next door to Akeldama – although via a secret connection to their balconies, actually into his third wardrobe. In his position as potentate, Akeldama is involved in the investigation of a threat against the queen, which leads them to discover that Conall's second in command manufactured the events that lead up to Conall taking over the London pack. The plot was actually against Countess Nadasdy, queen of the Westminster Hive, and her house is destroyed, leaving her to swarm out of London, leaving Akeldama the most powerful vampire in central London.
The final book of the original series shows a lot of Akeldama in his new role of father to a child who has the ability to take his vampirism for herself with a touch. He is also once again sought for advice when Alexia is again invited to meet a vampire queen, this time Matakara, where he admits that she was the one who transformed him. He advises her not to go, but her allows her to and to take Prudence, his daughter.
The second series features Prudence as the main character, and therefore once again Akeldama appears. He sets the plot in motion in the first book by sending Prudence off to steal a sample of tea, and then sends her to India to find out if it would be worth while for him to grow and import it. During the second book he also appears at the beginning to help set off the plot, this time revealing to Prudence alongside Alexia that Conall is suffering from Alpha's curse and going mad. He is also revealed to be foresighted enough to commission new technology for Prudence's airship that becomes necessary during the trip to take Conall to Egypt where he will be able to live out the rest of his days as human (and therefore no longer suffer from the curse).
His final appearance to date is in Romancing the Werewolf where he briefly appears with new kittens after the death of his cat. He gets to have a final farewell to Biffy as his former drone cements his new role as pack leader to Conall's old pack by moving them out of the house next to Akeldama and away to the other side of London. He is also the one that Conall's old second in command comes to first when he finds that they have moved – not just because he was their neighbour, but because he will know where they've moved to anyway.
REINCARNATION
Name: Alexander Fleet
Age: 65
Appearance: When he was in his 30s he did indeed look like his pre-incarnation self (minus the fangs and the victorian fashion), but these days he looks significantly older. His hair is faded (but dyed to maintain it's bright blonde), and while he's still healthy, he's not as energetic as he was.
History: Alexander was born to a wealthy family in 1953, the youngest of three. As a child, he never wanted for anything, and was given the best education that money could buy at a posh boarding school. During his teenage years, he very comfortably slipped into the mods culture, and started to unravel his own sexuality. Given that sexual relationships between men were illegal in the UK until 1967 (and then the age of consent was 21 until 2001), he at least attempted to hide his sexuality until he was 18, when he went to Cambridge University, to study history and politics.
Freed from his family home (and the threat of school reports), for the first time Alexander was free to really express himself. While he still had to keep his relationships hidden, as he was still under the age of consent, he could finally act and dress completely as he wished. Of course, it wasn't completely risk free, as although he was safe from his parents' gaze, there were still plenty of homophobes in the world who found him distasteful. Fortunately, he found a strong friendship group of like minded young men of equal flamboyancy who supported each other and helped to keep his spirits high.
He went on to take his masters in politics, before being released to unresisting London, where he almost immediately found his place in the burgeoning LGBT movement. Spearheading movements, riots and rebellions, he became a leader and spokesperson. But the attention proved to have a high cost. One day his parents arrived on his doorstep, sat down with him, and told him in no uncertain words that he had two choices: to return home with them and repent of his ways, or to stay in London and be disowned. There was no choice for Alexander: he remained in London, and despite a few attempts to reconnect with his parents before they died, they never spoke to him again. After their death he was able to reconnect with his siblings, but for most of his young adult life the only member of his family who would speak to him was one aunt who was also mostly ostracised from the family for marrying into trade (her husband owned a small department store in Mossgate).
With his movement and friends now his only family, Alexander threw himself back into the game full-heartedly and spent most of his twenties, and all of his thirties and forties as a full time member of the LGBT movement, and the life of the party. He was well known for his fashion, his scandal ridden sex life, and his utter devotion to the cause.
In the beginning of 2001, the age of consent for same sex relationships was equalised with heterosexual relationships for the first time, and not long afterwards, Alexander's aunt Augustina died childless, leaving him everything as a fuck you to the rest of their family. This included the department store in Mossgate that had been closed since her husband died in the early 1990s. These two events, combined with the beginning of a new millennium (after a year of celebrations, of course), left Alexander to decide that now was the time to begin his retirement. And what better retirement project than his very own LGBT bar/club in the former department store?
By the late summer, Alexander's bar was ready to open. The furniture was a bit of a mismatch, started with the stock that had still filled the basement, and bulked up to make a stylish, if eclectic, collection, and he had to pull in a few favours to bring the building up to (more or less) modern standards. With the basement a club space, the ground floor a bar/cafe, the first floor a private/rentable space and staff only areas, and the second floor converted to a flat for himself, he had given himself a space to cater to all needs, and the bar flourished.
These days, he mostly takes a backseat role, gossiping with the regulars, and eyeing up the barmen, but his hand can be seen in the events planning and style of the workers. And despite his so-called retirement from activism, his hand can also be seen in local politics, and his bar sponsors pride week heavily.
First Echo: One of his regulars compared him to a spider, and his bar his web, pulling in all the juicy gossip. Alexander replied that he would much rather be a queen bee, with his little worker bees and drones bringing him lovely nectar to make honey with. It was the first time that he had referred to anyone as his drone, and it caused an echo, since in his past life as a vampire, that was what his underlings were called. Ever since, drones has felt like the right word to use for his workers, and he has found himself rather liking it. When, in 2015, the bar finally had a revamp, it was redone to a bee theme, and renamed 'the Hive'.
PERSONALITY
Pre-Incarnation Personality: Outwardly, Akeldama is nothing more than a flamboyant fop, full of fashion and flippancies. He is cheerful and lighthearted, and extremely camp, and is devoted to fashion.
However, underneath all of that he is a rove vampire; a vampire who has left his hive and struck out on his own, and moreover an extremely old one. Just to be able to survive on his own shows resourcefulness and strength of character. Despite appearances, he is able to defend himself, and does several times throughout the books. When his home is invaded in the first book, he reaches without hesitation for a weapon that he has disguised as a piece of art (although he's chloroformed before he has a chance to fight). After his favourite drone, Biffy, is turned into a werewolf out of necessity, Akeldama controls himself through three pages of dialogue (including an unwritten summary of the subplot of the book which led to Biffy's transformation), until Lyall says the wrong thing ('Biffy was very lucky'). Quicker than the werewolf can follow, Akeldama releases his anger and moves across the room, around a desk, and grabs Lyall by the throat, only to be disarmed by Biffy waking. And before that, when Biffy is stolen from Akeldama in the first place, Akeldama makes the decision to swarm, leaving his house to keep the rest of his drones safe. He will always make the decision to keep himself and his drones safe.
Akeldama's main passion, even more than fashion, is for knowledge, but the knowledge that he seeks is the gossip of London's high society. He absolutely must know everything that is going on, and he uses his drones as spies to seek out any tidbits of information that they can find. While he appears to mostly be picking up on gossip, he is also interested in the wider context. With his age, he is not only intelligent, but wise, and although he does his best to hide it with his foppishness, he is quite often the one they turn to when they want answers. He is the one who knows what the homunculus is in the first book, and how to destroy it, and he is also the one who explains what Alexia's daughter will be (being the daughter of a werewolf and someone who has the power to nullify supernatural powers).
As a gay man and vampire, Akeldama is open minded, but he is actually even more open minded than you would expect. Despite the usual hang ups between vampires and werewolves, Akeldama is open to co-operation, and even ends up with a pack living next door to him and the alpha living in in his wardrobe. (There are some small advantages to the situation however. Werewolves tend to spend a fair amount of time in stages of undress.) If anything, he seems to be biased against his own kind – or at least against vampire queens, as he warns Alexia against both of the queens features in the novels. He is also able to accept Prudence when no other vampire will because she will be Alexia's daughter and he is open minded enough to be curious about her.
To those who gain his friendship and trust, Akeldama can be extremely loving and kind. To both Alexia and his adopted daughter Prudence, he shows affection and protectiveness, and he is fond of all of his drones (though he always has favourites). Being an immortal surrounded by mortals, he must always be ready to lose his companions, and he does seem to be able to put Biffy aside when he becomes a werewolf. Biffy himself believes that Akeldama's love is always 'transient and shared', but Akeldama was also shown to have truly loved Biffy, and he clearly impacted him, so he must have learnt over many years coping mechanisms to deal with losing those he loves. The fact that he is still able to love while knowing that he almost certainly will lose his lover (since the only way to keep one would be for them to survive the bite) shows his resilience and optimism in love.
Any differences?: Unlike Akeldama, Alexander is neither immortal nor a vampire. He doesn't have the wealth of experience that Akeldama does, nor has he had the time and money to truly intrench himself in one place and gain the complete knowledge that Akeldama has. Although he could tell you most things about the LGBT folk in Mossgate (and some now outdated London gossip), it's a significantly smaller sphere of influence than Akeldama, who knows the ins and outs of all of London's high society. He also isn't a fighter. While he could have at least stood up for himself while he was younger, he is no longer a young man, and doesn't have supernatural abilities to help him. At the end of the day, Alexander is not a vampire who has to rely on other people's blood to sustain him, and therefore has never had to opt to harm people in order to survive, which leaves him kinder and softer.
However, the one advantage to this is that he has never known loss in the same way that Akeldama has. He has been cut off from his family, and he has lost lovers in the past, but he has never had to endure centuries of lovers growing up and away from him, or simply dying. He is unable to cut himself off from people in the same way that Akeldama does to Biffy, because he hasn't had to teach himself to do that. Therefore, when he does lose someone (and he is reaching the age where he is losing friends) he feels it every time, and is losing some of the optimism that Akeldama is able to retain despite his loses. He's also aware of his own mortality. Akeldama is scared to die, and protects himself ruthlessly, but Alexander knows that he will die, and soon rather than later, and is proud of what he has done in his life and not afraid of it. Alexander believes that what will come will come, but Akeldama will do everything to avoid risk.
While Akeldama lives in a multicultural city, and has seen many changes in his long life, Alexander has seen as many changes in his short life. He has seen the computer age come and take over, and has had to adapt to it. Akeldama finds technology exciting and enjoys the prestige of being able to afford the best, but Alexander has more of a working relationship with it where he uses what he has to (aside from social media, which he took to like a duck to water). Alexander will occasionally moan about missing simpler times where people actually spoke to one another, but Akeldama is often enthusing about the future will bring.
Abilities: Lord Akeldama is an old vampire, and has most of the abilities you would expect, with some slight twists for the setting.
In this setting, all humans have or produce aether (/soul), but some have excess (mainly creative types). It is only those who have excess who can survive the bite and be transformed into a supernatural type, but there is no way to know for certain without going through with it. Those who produce no aether are preternaturals and are able to return supernaturals to their mortal selves by touching them.
Vampires form hives around a vampire queen, as female vampires are the only ones with the power to metamorphose other vampires. A hive will normally consist of a queen, several vampires under her, and a collection of drones who act as servants and provide their blood to the vampires in return for being considered to become vampires themselves. A rove vampire, which is what Akeldama is, is a vampire who has managed to remove himself from his hive and his queen, something which takes a great deal of strength. Rather than a hive, he has a home, where he is the only vampire, and a handful of drones, that he must ask a local queen to bite, trading whatever he can offer that the hive bound vampires cannot provide for her.
Strength: At one point it is remarked that he would be able to pull a werewolf's head from his shoulders if he wanted to. They are a lot stronger than humans, but werewolves are stronger still.
Speed: They are faster than werewolves and much faster than humans.
Healing: They can heal quickly, and by drinking blood can heal even faster. However, a broken bone would take longer to recover from than a serious cut.
Heightened senses: Although Akeldama wears a monocle he has no need to since vampire vision is extremely good. They also have a heightened sense of hearing.
Immortal: While dominant werewolves eventually succumb to the alpha's curse (they go mad after a couple of hundred years), and vampire queens seem to have something similar, it is after thousands of years rather than hundreds, and Akeldama is not a queen. He is already thousands of years old and is much more likely to die from violence than a natural death.
Intelligence: As a whole, vampires are shown to be manipulating and cunning. In addition to this, Akeldama has had time to indulge all sorts of knowledge, being as old as he is. He speaks Latin and English, as well as Ancient Greek and Egyptian. He keeps up with modern technology, even the parts of which he can't use.
Fashion this is his special subject. He likes fashion.
On the flip side there are some disadvantage to being a vampire:
Daylight: will cause vampires to burn and die, and during sunlight hours vampires are compelled into a death like, deep sleep.
Garlic and lemon: vampires are allergic to garlic, although not severely, and dislike the taste and smell of lemon (although Akeldama has trained himself out of this so that he can continue to use it to bleach his hair)
Wooden stakes and bullets etc. can be used to kill vampires.
Tethers All supernatural beings have a connection to something known as a tether: for a werewolf it is to their pack and to a vampire it is their hive (or home for rove vampires like Akeldama). While they can move a certain distance from their tether, it is uncomfortable, and if they go too far it can be snapped, which could potentially kill them. The older and more powerful a vampire queen or rove is, the smaller their range to leave the hive/home is. Akeldama is unable to move outside of central London because that would take him too far from his home.
Infertility: As far as we know, all supernatual beings are infertile, including vampires (not that this is an issue to Akeldama, whose tastes mean that pregnancy was never an issue anyway)
ROLEPLAY SAMPLES
- 3rd person/action: Here and here!
- 1st person/network:
Sweet Petunia House
Russell Square
London
My dearest thistle fluff,
I hope that my letter finds you well. I've heard that you have your little house all set up now, and with such a growing family! The children sound utterly delightful, but I hope that you and the other boys have been finding enough peace and quiet to settle down into yourselves. It has been so peaceful here without you all, but my little droney-poos were telling me just the other day how sad it is not to have to prepare one's self to turning any corner to a shirtless gentleman. I have been considering hiring a butler to fulfil such a duty.
That having been said, and I know that you must branch out and make your own lives, but my sweet little Randy was telling me that you allowed one of your boys to go out in mustard last week. Mustard, my sweet! I know how hard it is to get such unruly boys to keep their wardrobes up to date, but that is such a colour from last year, and I must demand that you find the offending article and destroy it before any more minds are blemished from such a sight. Imagine what your new neighbours would think! I realise that Greenwich isn't the most fashionable of places, but even they must know better than to wear mustard. I hate to mention such things, I really do, my bumblebee, but they must be said.
To move on from such a dreadful point, and I am sure that you have heard this already, but the duchess of Kent is pregnant again! But not, dare I say it, from her brute of a husband. Tippy heard it from a dear friend of his, whose footman's cousin is her maid, that after the last pregnancy and that poor little child, she swore never to let her husband in her bedchambers again! I dread to think of his anger when he realises – not that he was ever the sharpest fang in the hive. [Here follows several pages of London gossip.]
But anyway, my darling, we both are important men with important things to do, and I hope that the ramblings of an old vampire haven't distracted you from your work too much. I wish you and Dolly, and the pack, all the best in the world, but really darling, burn the mustard.
Kind regards,
Lord Akeldama
ANYTHING ELSE?
Russell Square
London
My dearest thistle fluff,
I hope that my letter finds you well. I've heard that you have your little house all set up now, and with such a growing family! The children sound utterly delightful, but I hope that you and the other boys have been finding enough peace and quiet to settle down into yourselves. It has been so peaceful here without you all, but my little droney-poos were telling me just the other day how sad it is not to have to prepare one's self to turning any corner to a shirtless gentleman. I have been considering hiring a butler to fulfil such a duty.
That having been said, and I know that you must branch out and make your own lives, but my sweet little Randy was telling me that you allowed one of your boys to go out in mustard last week. Mustard, my sweet! I know how hard it is to get such unruly boys to keep their wardrobes up to date, but that is such a colour from last year, and I must demand that you find the offending article and destroy it before any more minds are blemished from such a sight. Imagine what your new neighbours would think! I realise that Greenwich isn't the most fashionable of places, but even they must know better than to wear mustard. I hate to mention such things, I really do, my bumblebee, but they must be said.
To move on from such a dreadful point, and I am sure that you have heard this already, but the duchess of Kent is pregnant again! But not, dare I say it, from her brute of a husband. Tippy heard it from a dear friend of his, whose footman's cousin is her maid, that after the last pregnancy and that poor little child, she swore never to let her husband in her bedchambers again! I dread to think of his anger when he realises – not that he was ever the sharpest fang in the hive. [Here follows several pages of London gossip.]
But anyway, my darling, we both are important men with important things to do, and I hope that the ramblings of an old vampire haven't distracted you from your work too much. I wish you and Dolly, and the pack, all the best in the world, but really darling, burn the mustard.
Kind regards,
Lord Akeldama
ANYTHING ELSE?
