Oliver Ray

An amicable and classy History Professor from Cambridge, England. He's spent his undead years doing what he can to avoid the Jyhad, but life after moving to London is never easy. He's a quick-tongued and a master of backhanded compliments, but a diligent scholar and dedicated teacher.

Born the flighty daughter of a trading company employee, Oliver always had dreams of worlds he never lived in. Pouring daily over manuscripts and poems of years long passed while his family was busy running around him looking for a family to marry him into. In his stories, though, he learned an important skill: forgery. Writing a web of lies in his father’s handwriting, he worked his way into the freedom he had always wanted - a life as a history student, and one as a man. Writing for newspapers and anyone who would ask to pay his tuition and rent, he eventually came to need another income to afford the roof over his head. So, he put up an advertisement in search of a roommate, and in crashed Luca Anglin.

He was nothing that Oliver was prepared for - while a fellow student, he would leave as soon as the sun came down and would only come in near the crack of dawn, trailing behind him blood and stories to tell. Luca was impulsive, uncontrollable, and always leaving more questions than answers. Oliver was left in awe, always wanting to know more but too polite to really pry. Luca had his secrets, and so did he, and it wasn’t until he was drunk beyond belief one night and the truth came out. Oliver admitted his sin in drunken tears, and Luca made it seem like nothing in comparison. For two years of his life, Oliver had been living with a vampire - and a vampire that was deeply in love with him.

Oliver was taken aback, but hated the thought of someone he had grown to care about risking everything by night just to keep himself fed, so he offered himself to Luca. What started as an effort to keep Luca out of trouble spiralled into something more, Oliver falling deeply in love against all better judgement. For the longest time he was enthralled with everything about Luca, his stories, his attitude, how cold he felt to the touch yet could bring him such warmth. He promised to protect Oliver, to always be there, until he wasn’t. After coming home particularly roughed up from an encounter he refused to talk about, he disappeared as abruptly as he came, and didn’t return for a month.

The time away gave him time to think about everything that had happened to him over the past 4 years, they were both to graduate from their master’s programs soon, so Luca had no reason to stay. But he wanted him to stay - vampire bullshit be damned, he really loved him. Sure he was only mortal, and sure he wasn’t the type of man Luca was...used to having, but the time apart only made him wish to be by his side even more. So when Luca returned with a proposal and an offer to embrace him, begging him to consider it with a clear mind, his answer was easy.

His Embrace was simple, as far as embraces go. Luca made sure he didn’t rampage too much, kept him from hurting himself and that he got his teeth in his first victim without too much carnage. Even as the Beast overwhelmed him, he was still collected, speaking clearly and calmly as he shook with hunger. Luca would later go on to say that he was made for it.

Shortly after his embrace, he met an odd little group, old friends of Luca’s, and they would later become his friends in the undead world. Victor, Jeanne, and Ursyn were their names, a Cappadocian, a Ventrue, and a Caitiff. Strange people, but people that were worth his time. It was them that helped him through the chaos that was the first half of the century, after all.

• With some exceptions, Oliver feeds through taking his coworkers out to drink and, through hand waving explanations and minor blood bonds, keeps most of his department under his thumb.
• He refuses to feed from students. All things considered, he just feels that it’s wrong.
• Despite gaining no sustenance from it, Oliver still habitually drinks coffee. It may be disgusting, but it's the right kind of disgusting.
• As a Toreador, he’s entirely fixated on medieval manuscripts and Romantic poetry.