Voland

Jasper belongs to Nocturnalgoth.

"There are those in life who are born with power. There are others yet who simply get lucky in life. And many more who climb the stairs of broken backs beneath their soles towards whatever lofty goals their sights are set upon. Those unfortunate souls sacrificed on the path of ambition and greed oft have nothing else to hope for but the one fleeting aspect of cosmic justice.

Karma always collects its dues."

Physical Traits and Abilities

Voland's tiefling form somewhat resembles that of a goat, a fact that earned him one of his nicknames. Other reasons include the fact that he's rumoured to be able to eat nearly anything without flinching. In reality, there's just very few things that perturb him in general.

Since his birth, Voland's sense of empathy never developed. He doesn't feel emotions or sympathise with anyone in the traditional sense but is remarkably intelligent, heaving learnt to perfectly mimic most emotions and expressions from watching other people in his youth. As a result, he handles most information entirely rationally and maintains his cool in almost any situation. However, he does often grow rather bored and usually entertains himself by intentionally playing with other people's feelings and figuring out what makes them drop their facades.

Voland is a feral tiefling, meaning he doesn't hold alignment to any of the Hells' lords and receives no innate spellcasting ability. Instead, he was born with a pair of bat-like wings that he typically folds in and hangs from his shoulders like a sort of cape. These wings are various shades of red, like the rest of his body, and have some striation and speckling. They also bear a few cuts most of the time owing to Voland's rather turbulent line of work, rarely having time to fully grow over before he's acquired more.

The hooked 'thumb' of his wings, his well developed back muscles and a retractable hook tucked into a metal band on Voland's tail allow him to rather easily latch onto walls and ceilings. His mobility and tenacity make him incredibly effective at ambushes and he often stakes out between ceiling beams and along columns, waiting for hours for his target to appear so he can carry out a plan.

As the captain of a flying ship, he makes most of the final decisions about where the Kismet goes, who it targets and what the plans for those special missions are. His advisory group contains members of the special operatives, the people who carry out the more discreet work of the ship. Break-ins, assassinations, infiltrations and so on.

Most people who meet Voland have vastly different opinions on him because he tailors his behaviour perfectly to what he needs from the other party. However, Ash- a changeling monk that's been with Voland since the ship's purchase- has always said that there's something strange and uncanny about the man. Despite his perfectly tailored images, there's some erraticism to how he makes decisions about where the Kismet goes. Like even he doesn't understand his own choices.

Origin, Introduction

Voland doesn't know who his family was at birth. As far as he was concerned, they left him out on the streets after he was conceived and that was where he'd grown up. Familiar with most other riff-raff on the city streets, he was just a strangely cold and calm child that kept to himself. At a young age he grew fond of watching drunkards gamble, studying the rules of the game and quickly figuring out the best odds to lean on when he eventually joined their circles.

In his idle time, he liked to wander through the city and people-watch, identifying accents, clothing brands and mannerisms. Figuring out everything about people he'd never met was a source of fun for the odd boy, and he'd sometimes even mimic their speech and body language.

When he was old enough to convincingly present himself as a young man, Voland pooled together his gambling earnings and bought himself a fancy suit.

The rich and noble members of the city were soon smitten by the mysterious fiendish gentleman that seamlessly entered their routines, clearly well-educated in etiquette and carrying himself with the dignity and air of royalty. No-one knew quite where he came from, but everyone wanted to get to know the man. Voland became somewhat of a local celebrity to people he'd watched for years, the same ones who'd never even looked his way until he dressed himself in the same finery they did.

Enjoying plenty of new connections, making significantly more money while gambling with the elites and attending parties, Voland had been celebrating his new life with a young married noblewoman in her quarters one evening. Out of nowhere, a vision, or a memory... something shook his mind, throwing the normally emotionally absent tiefling into a state of panic violent enough for him to lose control of himself for a minute.

When he came to, Voland found blood on his hands and the image of another person still lingering in the back of his vision; as if he's stared at the sun and burned it into his retinas.

He fled the tower immediately after and hasn't settled anywhere since then.

Story, summarised and low on spoilers.

Voland commandeers a flying ship named "The Kismet" which he purchased in an auction after all previous owners were chased off by the ghosts of the pirate crew that used to sail it. The ship was salvaged after a crash that had killed the crew and they continued to harass every merchant and noble who sought to take it for personal gain. Voland made an arrangement with the pirates and they now secretly guard the Kismet's treasury, which has been remodelled into a huge flying casino. The ship flies between cities every few weeks, offering gambling, alcohol, theatre and 'adult entertainment' to high-paying customers. It is decorated with crimson sails and iconography depicting chained angels, the largest of which is carved into the front of the ship, holding up the bowsprit with its hands bound at the wrists.

While the Kismet is well-known as a prestigious and pricey entertainment venue frequented by upper-class folk, a small group of people on the ship run a lesser organisation led by Voland that occasionally discreetly organises the deaths of powerful figures that they decide are abusing their privileges.

Every year or two, the Kismet stops by a city known for criminal activity and the tiefling visits their prison, interviewing a few people he selects by some odd, highly specific but unknowable criteria. If they express interest, he pays off their bail and hires them to work on the ship. Most become the regular crew that sees to the maintenance and running of the ship or catering to the needs of their guests and never finds out about the secret agenda.

Most of those the Kismet recruits find a new family there and have no other place to go, but a few claim to feel a strange sense of unease aboard the ship and depart not even a month into their stay. This same odd 'aura' is reported by many who board the Kismet, and others yet say they almost feel like the ship is calling them with how comfortable and safe it feels to stay there.

Trivia

• Voland's eyes are solid white, so it's impossible to tell where he is looking at any time. He often watches people while doing something with his hands.
  
  
• His classes culminate in Voland being a magician. While he knows how to cast actual spells, he enjoys tricks of pure sleight of hand and pranks.
   
• Despite being a tactical mastermind and an effective assassin, Voland is actually not good in a fight and will use underhanded tactics and careful planning to set the odds in his favour.
   
• Voland is very playful and has an incredibly dramatic flair among allies, often teasing them and involving the crew in fun activities like musical numbers and plays.
   
• Voland has a familiar; a massive black cat named Behemoth. Behemoth is bipedal, enjoys alcohol and is usually quite grumpy.
   
• One of Voland's favourite activities when meeting new people is to play dumb and push their buttons until they get frustrated enough to tell him what they truly think and want.
   
• Most of the Kismet's crew actually avoids Voland because they consider him rather unpredictable and creepy, though they still feel respect and gratitude towards what he did. He knows but does nothing to change this.
   
• A pair of young changelings named Ash and Karla have been with him since before Voland founded the Kismet. They're siblings and work in the special operatives. Voland views them as friends, especially Karla, who is far more outgoing.
   
• The strangest acquisition of the Kismet's crew has been Heletris, a wood elven princess who's taken surprisingly well to the Kismet's dogma and joins the special operatives in hunting the corrupt and cruel. Voland takes great interest in watching her growth.