>>6021506We are of the noble blood of Drakaina, the first Dragon-Eater, the bulwark of the Ordo Vampiris. She consumed the hearts blood of a great dragon, and it cursed her with vampirism. In time, she learned to harness the blood and warp it to her advantage. She still had drawbacks, but now she hunted alongside other vampiris, founding your clan.
We are not like the others. Like Clan Strigoi, we can shapeshift, albeit just one form. But it is a mighty form indeed. Let the Hekatii play with the dead and the Cyrenics dance to their petty politicking. A Drakaina is always straightforward, in action and words.
There was nothing pretty or mystical about the gutters of Fallcrest. As a child, you stole and begged to survive those mean streets. Your parents did not want you. Humans and elves spat at you. Everyone else just didn't want to help. What would they gain from it?
As you reached ten, you decided to help yourself. Before you had even dreamed of Blood Artes, you were a fighter. You gathered the cretins and orphans of Fallcrest into an army of wretches. You took on jobs to clear sewers of kobold and goblins. You terrorized the city and your group grew into thugs.
Finally, you knew triumph. You had victory.
Until one extortion had you steal a merchants prized chalice. You were a young adult by then. Stealing that chalice changed your life. Pouring water into it to quench your thirst, you felt a presence in your mind. It persisted for days, growing in prominence. You couldn't sleep. You were jumping at shadows and locked yourself away in your emergency bolt hole. The secret hideout you never told anyone about.
But she knew it. She had been watching through your eyes this whole time.
She introduced herself, a lamia of the Clan Drakaina. She asked if you wanted more out of life, beyond it. If you wanted power like her. You did not hesitate.
The lamia, Renata, trained you. Your time as an urchin thug-queen proved a great foundation for your new life. You were both a knight and an enforcer. You took to armor like a second skin, and weapons like a natural extension of your body.
After a rigorous decade of training and educating, Renata gave you the Gift. Draining you dry and using your own blood to draw the unholy sigils on and around your cold body, she spoke the Changing Words upon you. And you rose as a vampiris, twice-shunned: once for your half-elven blood, and the second for your unholy immortality.
When Renata formally introduced you to the courts, she gave you free reign to name yourself. Was this new beginning worthy of a new name, or was your old one worthwhile?
>1. Ravenna. It may not have been your birth name, but it's what you know. >2. Midir. Named after a traitorous valkyrie of Wotan, a patron saint of bloodletting. >3. Write in 