Profile
Hvass
Age
100+
pronoun
He/Him
species
Bovine (technically)
height
6'7" or 20 HH
Background
Wild Mage
Class
Loyal Servant
Discip.
08
Power
14
Corrupt.
05
Cost
08
Beast of Nightmares
Disclaimer: Magic will only be used with express OOC permission.
Hvass can become a beast that hunts in either dreams or the waking world.
Dreaming: Hvass can enter the dreams of the sleeping via his magic. There, he becomes a monster that hunts in the dreamscapes of others. If he rips out the heart of his prey in the dream, his prey will never wake again.
Awake: Hvass can use his magic to become a beast while awake, and eminates a miasma from his jaws that makes others start to fall asleep. The range of this smoke is limited and can be evaded or withstood for a short period. In his monstrous state, his urges can be controlled either by Order-issue manacles, or by use of his true name, which he keeps a closely guarded secret.
Every time he is fed, either by a willing mage or through hunts, he becomes stronger. (This will be reflected in purchased stat bonuses.)
Cost
- Magic has a constant adverse physical effect on the caster, whether it is in use or not.
Hvass's magic makes him hungry, and only hunting will sate it. In return, he needs little food and water, and does not need to sleep. His shackles stave off the hunger by muting it, but it will only grow the longer he ignores it. Blood from a mage will satisfy it temporarily, and he can safely subsist on it as long as he's careful.
- Magic impairs the caster's memory so that they may not remember using it.
While using his magic, Hvass lacks inhibition and essentially follows his instincts. If he enters his monster-state with a goal, he will pursue that goal until it is done. Once out of his monster-state, trying to recall what he did is like trying to remember a fading dream.
- Magic has or gives the caster an appearance that frightens or disgusts others.
Self explanatory really, the guy is terrifying while his magic is in use and will definitely eat you if he decides you're a snack
Personality
He is tired. He finds no rest in sleep, and no rest in the waking world from that which haunts him. His main source of peace is found in serving the man he trusts without question, Aristedes Andraste.
Hvass is quiet and tends to think before he acts. He has a good sense of judgement for solving difficult situations quickly, and understands his own limits with a heavy resolve. He weighs all his options on that which will benefit those he cares about, but those are few and far between.
To the vast majority of those he passes by, he has learned not to care. If a stranger wrongs him, he will brush it off and forget. If a stranger wrongs those he loves, he will cut them down without remorse. He cares very little for major politics and bases his priorities on those he cares about, and often their priorities supercede his own. He will push down his own needs if they clash with others and will actively avoid becoming a burden to those he relies on if he can. His magic is burden enough.
It takes much to overcome Hvass' apathy towards the world around him, but for those he trusts, he will go to the ends of the world for them. He does not accept affection from others unless he has made himself useful and deserving of that affection first. As he views himself as inherently dangerous, he will often overcompensate in his own gestures to feel deserving of common kindnesses, and has little sense of how often he skews relationships with unequal generosity. He could repay a thoughtful gesture on the street with a king's ransom, or could return someone helping him with a lifelong debt.
He has a soft side only a handful of people have seen. In quiet moments, when the fire runs low and he lets down his guard, he has a very sweet smile and enjoys close proximity and caring platonic touch. If he sees any sign of his gestures as being unwanted, he will quickly shut down and hide behind his wall of apathy, distancing himself out of respect. His generosity comes easily, but his acts of affection are very fragile.
Underneath his reserved countenance is a deep well of hunger that he pushes down as far as he can. Part of him longs to be free and feel the thrill of the chase, to be powerful, to finally accept himself, but he knows what that would cost. Accepting who he is would only bring him regret after the enjoyment is gone, so he binds himself tighter than his own shackles and denies much of his own wants for the sake of others.
He knows he's committed terrible acts and pays for them as best he can. He defers his purpose to Aristedes to set as he sees fit, which allows Hvass to act without being crushed by guilt or hopelessness. He cares little about what happens to himself so long as he's useful.
[503 words]
Notes
- Was born under the unwavering Awl.
History
CW: non-explicit violence, mentions of blood and death, neglect
Hvasanov is not his real name. It was a condemnation uttered by a home he barely remembers, one that cast him out into the snow for the ill omens he brought on the house. Nightfall had become a thing to dread in his presence, and the only thing they threw after him was an old wolf pelt.
Hvasanov, they spat, as doors closed on him and the blood on his mouth. Accursed.
He was nine.
Winter was a harsh place to grow up in, marked by nicked fingers amidst thornbrush, huddling against fur in old caves, and an ever-empty belly. Sleep was a thing he avoided if he could. In dreams, he became the monster that had terrorized his brothers, craving something to hunt, chase down, devour. There was no dreaming prey in the woods, but in villages, when he felt brave enough to trade his foraged goods for necessities, there was hunting aplently. And oh, how hungry he was, having grown into a wild youth with hair down to his hips.
How good it was to rest in the rafters of a warm tavern, hidden in his furs. How easy it was to dream of hunting such easy prey below him, those who had fallen too deeply in their tankards to make much of a chase. He couldn’t know how many fell to his magic and joined him in the realm of dreams below, but he had his fill that night.
He awoke with that familiar taste of blood staining his teeth. Satisfaction quickly turned to horror, for those he’d hunted in the dream would never wake again.
After that, it was his turn to become the hunted. Word spread from those that escaped his hunt, describing the monster with the wolf pelt who devoured souls in dreams. He became a horror story whispered to children when the sun began to set, a reason to never wander too far into the barren trees. He ran as far from others as he could till he smelled the chimney smoke of a solitary home in the woods.
Kalia was her name. She who invited the wolf inside with heavy shadows under her eyes. She fed him, cut his hair, listened to him speak the first words he’d uttered in years. Never would he dare to repay her kindness by lingering on her doorstep, had she not offered a truth in return: she could never sleep.
Hvass fell in love with her then, or perhaps the idea of what she offered him. She became his home, and he effectively became her servant, ever eager to do anything she asked of him. The air was never one of equals, so perhaps that’s why she looked at him like she did, even when she got with child.
Never had terror been so mixed with happiness at the news. He spent hours at her knees, whispering of all he would do to keep their child safe and warm. Would that they never wanted for a home to call their own, he prayed endlessly.
But a monster can’t know the meaning of peace. Mounting, unsated hunger gnawed at his insides, starved at Kalia’s feet. His dreaming hunts were driven further and further out from the confines of her home until he finally sank his teeth into a new victim. (He awoke each time horrified,) Then another. (and full of sated greed) And another. Secluded as they were, he couldn’t hear the wails of grief he caused when the bodies of his victims were found in the morning.
When their child was born, he swore to put an end to it at any shrine that would have him. As much as he craved the red taste, he couldn’t put their little girl in danger. His family, his home. He resolved to starve for them, but his resolve came far too late.
Torches and pitchforks rose in the night, scouring the woods for him, crying for revenge. What followed was his own personal nightmare that haunts him to this day.
Hvass met the mob outside their home. He fought and took down a few, but he couldn’t stop the torches thrown over his head, setting the thatch roof alight. He screamed, saw Kalia run with a bundle in her arms, saw villagers give chase after her, but no matter how many he fought, he was outnumbered, dragged down, and beaten until darkness claimed him.
There in the dark waited his beast, wordlessly offering its teeth. He took the offer and surrendered.
Thus released, his magic found its place in the waking world. He became the monster from his nightmares, radiating a miasma of slumber through his hungry jaws, tearing the weakened mob to shreds. He lost himself in it, and unlike his dreams, he couldn’t wake up from it. There was only the hunt, and only the ache when he’d licked the last remaining red from his dripping maw.
But wasn’t there more in the village...? And so he turned, all reason forgotten in favor of the hunt.
He couldn’t know how long he ravaged the countryside. He was unaware of how Kalia fought against her pursuers and brought them all down with her, how two strangers found their daughter wailing in her cold arms. All he knew was blood and terror, of how every soul he devoured made him stronger, more massive, and more resistant to the fire and steel that tried to take him down.
He traveled from the frozen north into a lush mountain valley where he was nigh unstoppable. Whole cities fell to ruin, ancestral homes driven to flame, and he was a sign of destruction for seven years.
Only one mage managed to stop him in an encounter so wrought with his dreaming miasma that it hardly felt real. The mage, Aristedes Andraste, called upon his true name he thought he’d buried, fighting him in the nightmare alongside a golden dragon that wrought havoc on Hvass in the waking world - the dragon a long-sleeping ancestor of Aristedes, awoken in the destruction. When Hvass finally awoke from his long nightmare, he found actual chains around his wrists that stifled his roaring magic that failed to twist and claw its way out.
He searched for the one he’d dreamed of, the one who freed him. Before he could even begin to find him, he was captured by inhabitants of the ruined valley who took him and put him to work, repairing what he’d destroyed without rest or mercy. Seven more years did he toil before finally escaping and making his way to Aristedes’ tomb, where the man slept in a stone tomb, untouched by time. Hvass thought him beautiful and decided to wait until he awoke, needing to thank him personally for saving him.
Another seven years passed as Hvass guarded his tomb, watching the seasons pass him by as he also remained untouched by time. He never aged, though he could feel his hunger grow again, restless under the surface. He could have remained there forever had a knight with a golden circlet not arrived to awaken Aristedes.
Hvass tried to bar the way, but the knight was far too clever with his words and charming smiles to be arrested for long. And he did offer a solution to Aristedes’ neverending slumber. He required sacrifice, and who better to supply it than the monster he’d fallen to save?
The knight, Mordreaux, taught Hvass how to release his shackles, hunt with purpose, and to return when that purpose was served. It took strength of will, and worst of all, trust in his magic, but he would do it for him. He surrendered again to that hellish nightmare, only coming back to himself when his true name was spoken, and his sacrifice was offered to Aristedes in the form of blood that sated them both.
And when the man awoke, and smiled at him, glad that he was whole and human again, Hvass swore to serve Aristedes for as long as he lived. From his place at Aristedes’ side, the three of them returned to the valley that had long fallen into neglect and worked tirelessly to restore it to its former glory. With Mordreaux’s knowledge of secrets, Aristedes’ visions of the future, and Hvass’ strength, there was nothing standing in their way from making things right again.
Hvass never grew to trust Mordreaux, and kept silent as the other two men grew close. Mordreaux seduced Aristedes, prompting him to expend more and more of himself in premonitions, and when that long-sleep beckoned Ari once more, Mord barred him from it by drawing runes on Ari’s bare skin, making him unable to rest. Whatever worries Hvass had were brushed aside, and he held his tongue for the sake of their shared goal.
Only when the valley was finally restored did Mord show his true colors. He had used them both for his own gain, shaping politics and infrastructure so that Mord’s daughter could live in the valley peacefully, untouched and ever safe. It was only out of cruelty did Mord reveal that his daughter was actual Hvass’ by blood, the one he lost in the attack twenty years ago.
Ari fell into slumber as soon as Mord released him from his grasp and from his spell. Hvass hunted again for his sake, and when Ari awoke, the seer was heartbroken. Ari had lost his own family in Hvass’ initial rampage, and to have his attempt at loving again be returned with betrayal was unbearable. Hvass could do nothing more than offer to be Ari’s strength in the aftermath, and Ari promised the same in return.
They remained in the valley, arranging for things to run smoothly in their absence, but it was years until Ari could persuade Hvass to go looking for his daughter. When he finally brought up the courage, he was welcomed with the sight of his daughter surrounded by a full and happy home, wanting for nothing in a house so full of protective runes that it could withstand untold disasters and still stand untouched. He found his daughter to be a woman full of wisdom and quiet charm, so much like her mother, and he left with tears of relief that only Aristedes saw and understood.
They traveled together for decades after that, stopping to rest and help whatever local strife they could. Hvass didn’t press for Ari to search for the remains of his own family, especially when Ari’s premonitions only foretold one misery after another that terrified them both. It’s only recently that they’ve settled in Ivras, aiding the Mage Court as they can.
[1755 Words]
-Summoning Circle. 2/25/2023. He begins with +8 Power and +2 Discipline.
4/1/2023.Handmade Idol
4/1/2023.xtended Telekinesis
4/1/2023.Darksight
4/1/2023.Minor Healing
4/1/2023.Mending
4/1/2023. Magic Detection
4/1/2023.Stat Tokens (x10). He gains +4 Discipline and +6 Power, bringing him to a total of 6 Discipline and 14 Power.
5/12/2023.Pact of Fortune. Completed. He gains +5 Corruption.
10/14/2023.Participlation in the Aleister Hunt. He gains +2 Discpline..
