Langelotte Haemondias

content warnings: lots of vampires around here so mostly a lot of blood and death... also sex mention

Personality

 elegant  🕯  charming  🕯  cunning  🕯  sociable  🕯  protective

     Langelotte is exactly what one would generically expect a vampire king to be: elegant, decadent, seductive, and dangerously charming. He carries himself gracefully and has a silver tongue, able to weasel his way out of difficult situations with words alone. He's calm, level-headed, rational, and intelligent, making him an intimidating figure even without taking his vampirism into account. He seems to know the right answers to everything and if he doesn't it only takes a little smooth talking for everyone's secrets to bend at the knee. When he wants something he'll go to almost any extreme to obtain it. He's a passionate and severe sort of person who doesn't do things halfway.

     He fits the title of Blood King well. To his Kingdom he's kind, caring, and self-sacrificing. He always gives his Kingdom priority when it comes to blood resources and has a personal investment in them, seeking to become friends with as many as possible and to get direct feedback from them about improving the Blood Kingdom. He procures as much entertainment as possible as well as various services to ensure their continued happiness (such as counseling and heathcare). He has a genuine, all-encompassing love for all members of the Blood Kingdom and any losses affect him deeply. He tends to be a bit condescending and smug toward outsiders, and to those who bring harm to his subjects he's merciless. He has no qualms with personally destroying and feasting on those who wrong the Blood Kingdom, though he's also smart enough to know when dirtying his hands is unwise.

     On that note, Langelotte seems to have a fascination with those who wrong him and him alone. Those who despise him intrigue him and only prompt him to interact with them further. It's rather strange.

Backstory

 "Be careful to mind your wandering here. We've been known to bite."

     Langelotte is tight-lipped about his past. He does not discuss his life at all from before he was turned, but it's a known fact that he was indeed human at some point. Whether he was born in The Crossroads or wound up there from a different world, however, is unknown to all but him. For a long time he was a nobody, serving obediently under the former Blood King and growing his strength slowly. Through sheer dedication, patience, and loyalty, Langelotte rose in rank and soon become the former Blood King's right-hand man.

     Then came the day when The Immortal Guillotine, Aphelion - a mysterious man who would appear every few decades to assassinate all of the Heads (the various rulers of The Crossroads) - killed the former Blood King and vanished without a trace, leaving a shocked Langelotte to take up the throne. Being a level-headed man who had proven his talents many times already and was by now a popular member of the Blood Kingdom, the rest of the Blood Kingdom approved of his rule and looked to him with optimism. Their trust in him was not misplaced: Langelotte quickly proved himself to be a capable leader, the perfect mix of caring and merciless to lead to the Blood Kingdom acquiring more land and support than ever before.

     The Blood Kingdom was opened up to include not just vampires, but also other creatures of the night who suffered from similar stigmas as vampires. Additionally, Langelotte acquired a vital contract with Viscera Princess Diastole: the ruler of the Viscera Kingdom - a massive underground labyrinth of viscera beneath The Crossroads - and, in fact, the Viscera Kingdom herself. In exchange for allowing his Kingdom safe passage throughout the Viscera Kingdom as well as safe zones to feed in, his people would regularly leave behind corpses for her to consume. The only problem he had for quite some time was an attempted coup, but the fool who attempted to overthrow him... well, he's long since dead.

     As time went on, the popularity of vampires grew and in some circles it became trendy to get turned and become one. This led to a population spike, which became a problem: feeding while maintaining favor isn't easy. Langelotte did his best to ensure there were blood banks and volunteers to make the feeding process consensual, legal, and accessible, but with the population spike blood supplies became strained. Langelotte was forced to issue an ordinance decreeing that members of the Blood Kingdom were no longer allowed to turn others, lest they face legal consequences. This caused backlash from humans and led to a decline in the Blood Kingdom's popularity as fetishization of the vampire lifestyle became discouraged, but the population became mostly steady. Langelotte has since been working to acquire more blood sources for his people and regain favor with other beings, reminding them that if his people starve they'll lose control of their instincts and feed impulsively and indiscriminately.

     There's been another interesting development: namely, the capturing of The Immortal Guillotine, Aphelion before the ritual awakening of his full power. Langelotte found him working at a cheap pizza restaurant and promptly abducted and found a way to dispose of him before he could become a threat.

     Just kidding! Well, the abducting happened, but as it turns out they don't call Aphelion immortal for nothing. After that failed and his researchers could come up with no way to permanently disable him or brainwash away his desire to kill all of the Heads, Langelotte... started a relationship with him? Well, alright. Perhaps his motive is that if he can get Aphelion to truly care about him, Aphelion won't be able to kill him... or maybe it's a ploy to get information about Aphelion's weaknesses right from the source.

     The truth is that they just... mutually find each other Really Attractive. I mean, Aphelion still plans on killing Langelotte and Langelotte still intends on subduing and/or destroying Aphelion the moment he finds a way to, but in the meantime they might as well bang, right? That's a thing you do with your enemies, isn't it? Especially ones who have declared their intent to murder you?

RP History

     None yet, check back in later!

Powers/Abilities

 AVERAGE: 7.3/10

     The origins of vampires are disputed, but vampires in Crossroad Fantasia are humans who have been bitten by vampires and drained of enough blood to result in death. To prevent reanimation, the resulting corpse must be decapitated, burned, or stabbed in the heart with a stake or any material made of silver. Vampires of the Blood Kingdom are required to keep a stake or carefully-stored silver dagger on them at all time to kill any of their victims in order to prevent vampire population growth. Reanimation can take anywhere between one hour to one day. The exact time varies depending on the damage done to the body, the will of the deceased to live, and the strength of deceased's soul.

     Vampires can feed on other beings without turning them, but they must have not drawn enough blood to lead to death. Their saliva has healing powers, but younger vampires often can't resist the urge to drain their victim completely of blood once they've begun. Vampires also have a base instinct to go for the jugular when feeding, which only advanced and powerful vampires can manage to feed from without killing the victim.

     Vampires need to consume blood regularly, but how often they need to feed varies depending on the quality of the blood available. As The Crossroads are home to a variety of different species, vampires have access to all sorts of different kinds of blood. Draining blood from animals is akin to eating a snack: you have to eat a lot of it to have any hope of being remotely full, and even then it just digests too quickly for it to be worth it (in a nutritional sense, at least). Humans are far more satisfying, but the most delicious and filling blood comes from magical beings and other species with potent souls. This is because when vampires drain blood, they're actually feeding off of soul energy from their victim: beings with large or powerful souls give up excess energy easily, while beings with small or weak souls give off a fraction of that energy and don't regenerate as quickly. Beings without souls are completely worthless to them and only good for mindless eating. However, unlike demons they cannot eat raw souls. They can't digest and incorporate raw souls properly and consuming them can result in the consumed soul gaining consciousness within the vampire or taking over their body entirely.

     Crossroad Fantasia vampires have a number of strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. They do have a reflection but lack a shadow. Their bodies are cold, desaturated, and lack a heartbeat. They all have fangs, white hair, and red eyes, though they can dye their hair and wear contacts just like anyone else. They have an inherent desire to sleep in closed spaces such as coffins and will struggle to sleep in open spaces. They are an inherently nocturnal species, which makes since seeing that sunlight burns their flesh on contact. As moonlight is reflected sunlight, continued exposure to moonlight will also result in burns. Unlike with direct sunlight, though, getting burned by moonlight takes much longer and is more akin to sunburn: the burns can become very severe, but for the most part you just need to put on sunscreen and you'll be fine.

     Vampires can also be burned by religious symbols, holy water, silver, and white roses. Eating garlic is akin to consuming poison for them, though a single slice of garlic bread might just make them seriously ill. Aside from stakes, burning, and decapitation, vampires can also be killed by drowning. They cannot cross running water (any span of water that has a length they cannot see the end of from their current position and a width they cannot simply step over and must cross a bridge over or trudge through) without the aid of a non-vampire and will instead stand there staring at it, transfixed. They also cannot enter one's home without being invited inside, though businesses and other non-homes are fair game.

     Though they have many weaknesses, vampires also get several powers to make up for it. They have enhanced strength, defense, speed, and senses, surpassing even a professionally-trained human. They can sense people by detecting the blood inside of their bodies, even able to identify individuals through it in a manner not unlike recognizing someone by their voice. They have an unnatural healing factor and can heal within a day from anything that doesn't kill them.

     The more blood (and, ergo, soul energy) a vampire consumes, the more powers they unlock. Eventually vampires are able to subconsciously influence non-vampires (this ability becoming more powerful through practice and when the victim is more willing), fly short distances, shapeshift into a bat, use telekinesis, outright hypnotize others, and manipulate blood. Being the most powerful vampire in The Crossroads, Langelotte has all of these powers.

     For some reason, upon reanimation many vampires tend to develop obsessive-compulsive disorder to varying degrees. This phenomenon is still being researched, but this research is tied to theories being kept under wraps. A leading theory about vampires is that upon reanimation they're actually being inhabitated by demons from a higher, unseen plane, explaining their need for soul energy and sensitivity to religious symbols and holy water. It's suggested that obsessions in vampires stem from the demons within them and compulsions are the body's way of grounding itself in reality and enforcing the dominance of the vampire's conscious. Vampires who know of this research accept it as fact, especially seeing that obsessions and compulsions become more intense and distressing when hungry and disappear almost entirely for a while after feeding. This theory isn't secret, but it's uncommonly known and downplayed by Blood Kingdom officials who fear that revealing the truth would cause an outbreak of existential crises and a loss of support from other species - things the Blood Kingdom and its increasingly limited resources cannot afford for the time being.

     In addition to all of these vampire traits, Langelotte is also an accomplished swordsman who is talented with rapiers.

Writing Featured In

     None yet, check back in later!