Abattoir (young Abattoir)

About

Lord Abattoir is a powerful, nasty young mage with a cocky attitude. He's a necromancer, to be specific, and he's accompanied everywhere he goes by an army of undead. The undead don't have any personality of their own, thanks to the spells he's used to reanimate them, but Abattoir's got enough personality for all of them combined. For better or for worse.

His magical might has gone straight to his head, and now he thinks he's hot shit. He talks and acts like he's invincible. He's the sort of dramatic bastard who will belittle, insult, and lecture his enemies before finishing them off. Definitely the type of villain who spends more time monologuing and gloating than actually casting spells. He plays it off as wanting to "play with his food."

Yes, it's cruel, but cruelty is the point. Abattoir feels that he's been wronged by the world at large, and he's decided to get revenge by hurting people just because he can. He has no remorse or empathy for anyone he hurts. He thinks his magical power proves he is better, smarter, and more valuable than everyone else. He loves to be feared and respected - in his mind, they're the same thing.

Abattoir is a perfectionist control freak who needs to be in charge. He REALLY doesn't work well with others (hence the zombies). He needs to do everything himself, because he doesn't trust anyone else to do things the way he wants. He reacts violently if he's told what to do, and he hates the idea that he's less than perfect. He's impatient and impulsive, and he gets reckless when he's frustrated.

As much as he taunts his foes, it's easy to taunt him back. Abattoir interprets anything less than praise and obedience as an insult, and insults piss him off. You can rile him up by pointing out flaws in his plans, giving him an order, trying to offer him advice, implying he's predictable, literally just ignoring him, or doing about a hundred other things. He gets sloppy when he's mad. It makes him more likely to take stupid unnecessary risks.

Most of all, Abattoir hates to lose. Admitting defeat - admitting he's NOT infallible, because someone else has gotten the best of him - wounds his ego in a way that nothing else can. And because he's insecure and uninterested in personal growth, he'll take that humiliation and turn it into a festering grudge.

He'll hold that grudge until the day he dies. You can bet your ass he'll be back later to tear down whoever made him feel powerless.

Abattoir enjoys having a lair to occupy, but he moves often when a location stops meeting his needs. (Too drafty, not enough bookshelf space, nowhere to put the zombies, frequent visits from annoying hero-types, other normal reasons, you get it.) Woe betide thee if you happen to own a big, cool-looking estate on a hill.

Abilities & Appearance

Abattoir's favorite spells are for mass domination and reanimation. He aims to be sure no one can stand in his way, and with the power of mind control, you can't even want to stop him. He especially enjoys mind-controlling his enemies and making them fight their allies, because you can't spell "trading better strategy for extra cruelty" without Abattoir.

He carries magic items with him wherever he goes. Most of them amplify his powers. A few of them might also be cursed. He doesn't particularly care about that, though - he's still gaining a foothold here, we're really in a "quantity over quality" phase right now.

He will call himself a master of his craft any day of the week, but he's still got a long way to go before he's a true archmage. He tends to wield his magic like a bludgeon, firing off his biggest nastiest spells with little regard for subtlety, resource management, or collateral damage. He's really powerful, don't get me wrong, but raw power alone does not a master make. His inexperience shows through if you know what to look for.

Lord Abattoir is often seen wearing dramatic clothes with high collars, capes he can sweep the floor with, and high-saturation dark colors. He keeps his nails manicured and his mane and tail moisturized. This man wants to look you in the eye with an infuriating smirk while he's ruining your life, and he wants to look damn good doing it.

His eyes, stripes, and horn glow when he casts spells. The glowing stripes are pretty new - that is, he's had them, but they didn't glow - and they fill him with excitement. He just knows the glow means his spells are getting stronger... not to mention he loves how it looks.

Somewhat Less Brief Backstory

As a colt, Abattoir felt crushed under the demands and expectations of his wealthy parents. His family had an image to uphold, so he was pressured to be the perfect child: obedient without question, good at everything, rarely seen, never heard. It made him feel like one of his mother's porcelain dolls, or perhaps his father's antique grand piano. A prized display piece, never to be touched.

His parents had him privately tutored in all kinds of skills, none of which he particularly wanted to learn. He had lessons in music, dance, singing, painting, multiple languages, and of course, magic. His parents made him spend the most time learning magic, and it was his most hated task. It was too hard, too slow, too boring, and he could never get it right. Spells would fizzle, potions would come out wrong, runes were inert, and his tutor's instruction to "focus your magic" didn't make any sense. No matter what he did, he met frustration after frustration after frustration.

Abattoir wasn't allowed to just do something else, of course. He had come from two lines of unicorns who were known for their magic. Every time his progress stalled, his parents would switch tutors, increase his practice times, or simply refuse to speak to him until he could show them something new. For a long time, it would make him cry and protest and beg for their understanding, their affection.

Eventually, Abattoir stopped trying. He knew their love hinged on a perfection that he couldn't achieve. All of his emotion melted down into a simmering, festering resentment.

Finally, one of the tutors made a breakthrough with young Abattoir (or so his parents decided). His focus was improving, his sorcery was better, and his parents were thrilled. They entered him in a mages' competition to win a blood-red crystal - it contained powerful magic, and of course would make a pretty display piece too.

Abattoir dreaded the competition more with each passing day. All his other lessons were cancelled to fit in more magic practice, but he still didn't think he could do it. He didn't know what would happen if he failed to win. The thought gnawed at him constantly until the moment he was onstage.

And then all his nightmares came true. In front of everyone - a silent audience, the other competitors, the judge, his mentor, his parents - he choked. He couldn't focus his magic. Couldn't get past the tightness in his chest, the trembling in his hands, the pounding heartbeat in his ears. Couldn't complete even a single spell.

Every second felt eternal. Abattoir could hear whispers among the audience. Was it mockery? Was it pity?

Which was worse?

The young mage was filled with white-hot emotion that he couldn't possibly deal with. Deep soul-crushing humiliation, terror of the consequences of his failure, fury at the unfairness of it all, grief he wouldn't even understand, a clawing desire to hurt someone, years of resentment finally boiling over, more than he could possibly contain. It all finally burst out in a cataclysmic magic blast.

When he could finally look back at the audience, with shaky knees and tears in his eyes, they weren't moving anymore.

...until a piercing red-pink light ignited behind his mother's eyes, and she lurched out of her chair and onto her feet in a way that definitely wasn't natural.

And then gradually, one by one, the same light overtook the rest of the audience. They shuffled to their feet with jerky movements, as if controlled by inexperienced puppeteers.

They turned to look at Abattoir, still alone on the stage. Their glassy eyes glowed like the unicorn's horn.

And they began to applaud.

Abattoir took home the grand prize that day. He left most of his adoring audience outside of the house that had served as his childhood prison. He took two lucky winners inside.

His father got to carry the crystal. Abattoir loved its deep crimson hue - its facets flashed pink in the right light. It reminded him of the glow in his parents' eyes, the moment he finally took control. He made his father smash it through that stupid piano.

He had his mother sweep all her dolls from their display shelf and onto the floor, so his father could put the crystal in the newly empty space. It wouldn't stay there for long, but it left a deep satisfaction in his core.

Abattoir left his parents there, amidst the shattered remains of their possessions, while he tore up the house's rooms one by one. He smashed the décor, carved his name into the walls, tossed out the stupid little cabinet of awards he'd won for doing things he never wanted to do. None of that nonsense mattered anymore. In the core of his being, Abattoir yearned for more magic.

He loved magic now, now that it was finally his choice. Magic could give him control, autonomy, and power. If he learned the right magic, he could ensure that no one - NO ONE - could ever tell him what to do again.

The thought lit a fire in his heart that made all his insides burn.