Sándor Oláh

Important Info for Commissions

HEIGHT: 6'4"
BUILD: Fit
ETHNICITY: Tanned (mixed European)
APPARENT AGE: 30s
HAIR: Black, straight, falls to back of neck
EYES: Emerald Green
SCARS: None
OTHER IMPORTANT TRAITS: Regal demeanor
PERSONALITY: Honest, focused on acquisition and spread of knowledge, firm but fair in the classroom

Appearance

Sándor would be considered attractive by most people who look at him. He's healthy, his skin is clear, and his hair is shiny and lustrous. Of course, it's all a part of his natural abilities as a vampire, but it doesn't hurt that he was attractive before he was turned. His skin is naturally tanned, and his hair is a raven black. His eyes are a clear emerald green, and he's tall, standing at 6'4".

Sándor's clothing tends to be on the noble end of things, and given the option he'd dress like a Baron rather than a teacher. Most of the time he's talked into toning it down, but the fact that Manta Carlos is the first time in years he can wear what he wants means he tends to look overdressed the majority of time, even if he's at work.

Personality

Sándor is an honest person, which isn't a good sort of thing for a vampire to be. His life requires that he pass himself off as a human, but it's never been something he's comfortable with. For the most part he's spent his life going out of his way to avoid having to lie, giving people no reason to doubt him or ask questions. He's very upfront about everything else, which does a fair job of staving off questions. He's not the kind of person that most people would suspect, because who would suspect someone who wears his heart on his sleeve? It's not to say he can't lie (although he's far from an expert), but he simply doesn't want to.

His primary focus has always been on knowledge - the acquisition and spread of it primarily. In another life he might have been a librarian, and he likes to think that if he was older he'd have made a large one. However, being a librarian meant staying in place for long periods of time and was never quite viable. Staying in place meant drawing attention, and part of being a vampire meant being able to depart quickly if it looked like someone had figured him out. In the age of technology that can fit in the palm of your hand, the thing that Sándor is most impressed with are things like ereaders, which can hold thousands of books while still emulating the experience. He still does prefer books, but since their invention he's kept several ereaders handy just the same.

The spread of knowledge is something he feels particularly passionate about. Raised in a society where every student was a willing one, Sándor has struggled to adjust to the idea that not all of his students are as enthusiastic for class as he is. When he finds a willing student, Sándor tends to spoil them, and he considers a willingness to learn one of the most important personality traits someone could have.

Sándor finds hunting to be a distasteful but previously mandatory part of life, and he's happy to be rid of it now that he's on Manta Carlos. Previously he made a point of seducing any woman he wanted to feed from in order to make himself feel slightly less awful about taking advantage of them, and strongly disliked any vampire who made like a thug and abducted their victims... especially if they went so far as to kill them. Manta Carlos, with readily available blood packs, feels like a paradise to him, although he isn't against taking willing blood from a donor.

Sándor is not a romantic by any stretch of the imagination. He didn't intend to get involved in a relationship, and for the majority of his years has avoided even the possibility. There are too many complications, in his mind. The large age gap is a large one, but there's also his own doubts about changing someone into a vampire, and thus technically damning their soul to hell. It's only his arrival on Manta Carlos that has opened him to the possibility, since anyone he changed would not be required to take blood from unwilling participants.

Species Abilities

If questioned, Sándor prefers to identify as a vámpír in order to differentiate himself from more modern vampires who might have been born as they were. His abilities and appearance are a mix of a more traditional vampire and a more modern one. Physically, he's closest to the 19th century ideal - attractive, with pale skin and subtle fangs that become more prominent when feeding. He does appear in most modern mirrors (and on film), but does not appear on silver-backed mirrors, or when the photography involves the use of silver nitrate.

Sándor can be killed by a wooden stake through the heart, or if he is decapitated and both parts are burnt. Holy weapons and symbols wielded by a person of faith are effective against him, but will not give him a true death without one of the above methods. Similarly, silver and garlic are irritants, but not enough to kill him. Bodies of running water (streams, rivers, etc) can dampen his powers when he's nearby, and on a boat he's little more than human, save for still requiring certain methods to ensure death.

Sándor will not burst into flames in sunlight, but his powers are dampened by it. In full sun, he's effectively an ordinary human (again, save for the methods of death, which remain regardless), and he tends to be primarily nocturnal, waking in the late afternoon.

Sándor has most of the traditional vampire strengths and abilities. He is immortal, not aging past the point he was turned, and can only be killed by certain methods. Any other damage sustained will be healed slowly (he can fully regenerate over a month), but can be sped up by the consumption of fresh blood. Sándor can eat human food, but gains no nutrients from it. Instead, he is required to feed on human blood. Sándor requires around two pints of blood every two weeks, meaning it is impossible for him to safely sustain himself off the blood of a single human being. Sándor's saliva can help heal small wounds, such as those caused by his fangs, leaving no visible sign of feeding.

He has no psychic powers beyond a very light ability to influence memory. After feeding (and only freshly fed) Sándor is capable of suppressing the memory of being fed on, leaving a gap in the victim's memory.

He is capable of turning a human being (or humanoid being) into a vampire by draining them almost completely, and then having them feed on his own blood. The new vampire requires a large quantity of blood in order to complete the change, easily 10-20 pints.

Sándor's senses have been enhanced compared to those of a human. His sense of taste is stronger, allowing him to pick out poison's in his food (a useless skill, since he doesn't need to eat), and his sense of hearing would be far better than it should be... if Sándor wasn't deaf. While Sándor is capable of regeneration, injuries sustained before he was turned did not recover when he was, and as a result Sándor has no sense of hearing at all. As a result, his vision is excellent. He has perfect night vision, and with a good vantage point and line of sight he can see several miles with perfect clarity, similar to a hawk.

He is both supernaturally fast and strong, fast enough to dodge an arrow but not a bullet, and strong enough to lift a car with some effort but not a tractor trailer. Sándor's own particular skill is his ability to become a substance most akin to darkness itself. While not completely incorporeal, this substance works much like mist, allowing him to slip through cracks and move freely, even flying through the air. While it is not technically possible to kill him in this form, sunlight will force him out of it, leaving him severely weakened and easy to kill. This form is almost impossible to see at night, and can be used as a kind of invisibility, although it's fairly obvious in low-light settings, being seemingly made of pure darkness.

Biography

Sándor's memory is only human, which is unfortunate, because he has a much longer history then most humans ever will. He is unclear on when he was born, although he believes it was sometime in the spring. He knows he was born in Royal Hungary, which would place his birth sometime between 1526 and 1699, but most of his early years were lost. His family were nobles, and he knows from research (not from his memory) that they were likely Barons there. He learned to read and write, and went to church regularly. The names and faces of his parents are lost to them, as is the reason he traveled into the city when he was still quite young. He knows he worked there as something like a clerk, but for the most part it's a blur. He suspects - although he can't confirm - that his family was quite poor despite their title, but he doesn't know for sure. He is fairly sure, although not certain, that he was not born deaf. He's been told that his voice sounds consistent with someone who used to be able to hear, but how he lost his hearing is just another part of his missing memory.

His life only really comes into clear focus when he was changed. That is his first truly clear memory, the pain of it burning it into his memory. He was approached by an older man--who he believed was propositioning him--and when he reacted poorly, the man leapt on him and began to feed. The pain was intense, making no attempt to ease it, and when Sándor begged for his life from the ground he was changed instead.

The life of a vampire did not agree with Sándor. He was repelled by it from the beginning, taking poorly to his new masters commands. His master was impatient and angry that he'd changed someone who was 'broken', frequently beating Sándor when the man failed to respond to orders he could not hear. He did awfully with women, and hated having to lure them away to feed. Early on he killed a fair bit under his masters orders, taught that leaving a human behind who might recognize him would put them both at risk.

They traveled Europe, and his sire recruited others like him. Sándor was just the first of many, and despite telling himself otherwise, he felt slighted just the same. He was the inferior firstborn, a broken experiment, and as the group grew, Sándor felt more and more pushed out. After more than a hundred years with his sire, he rejected the group entirely, leaving them behind. He experimented then, primarily with leaving his victims alive. He learned to clear a person's memories of the encounter from their mind after feeding, Sándor was for the first time capable of settling down in one place long enough to learn and to explore. He encountered other vampires only rarely, but in time learned that larger populations were better, easier for him to hide himself in.

Eventually, taking a great risk, he left Europe entirely, travelling to the new world despite the dangers of open water. The trip was uneventful, and Sándor was able to settle down in a port town, feeding on travelers as they passed through to avoid rousing suspicion.

Sándor was lucky enough to meet one of his sires younger children in America, accepting a tenuous friendship despite his distaste at the other man's methods, and kept in contact over the years. He traveled when the urge took him, moving when people began to become suspicious of his age. Every ten years or so he'd move, picking a new state and a new life. He learned to forge documents, creating identities for himself. In one town he'd be Brian Stevenson, and in the next he'd be Alan Rogers, who was referred by Brian Stevenson for his good work. As cities got bigger and things got more complex, he made things simple for himself and stuck to Sándor, only changing his family name as required.

Sándor was always the sort of person who tried to focus on ethics. He sought out willing women for dates in order to feed, struggling to maintain his lifestyle without killing or seriously harming another human being. The shady world of buying bags of blood had its own messy complications, primarily in the form of someone finding him out, and as much as he hated using it, his ability to erase memories after feeding was necessary. He never stayed in one place for more than a few years, primarily tutoring for money.

The increase of technology made things difficult in many ways. He found himself increasingly filmed and tracked, his old methods becoming harder and harder to manage. He never shied from technology himself, but he wassurprised to find a support group for 'vampires'.

At first, Sándor was convinced they were all fakes. Delusional or desperate humans, hoping for an eternity they shouldn't want. But as Sándor lingered, he found something else--a hidden core of real vampires, ones using the imposters for cover.

He revealed himself to them, empathized, and was immediately approached privately by a scout. While originally hesitant, the offer of a job at a school--a real school, with thousands of students--was enough to convince him, and he departed for Manta Carlos, hoping for a better future.

Extra Info

Sándor is deaf in both ears, and has no sense of hearing at all. He can read lips perfectly after hundreds of years of practice, although he often takes a few moments to figure out what language someone is speaking if it isn't in English. Sándor can speak without issue, and assuming no one tries to call out from behind him, many people won't even realize he's deaf.

Sándor teaches what he refers to as 'mundane' subjects. Effectively, anything that gets taught at a pre-college level in the mundane world is a subject he teaches, whether that's Math, Literature, Science, etc. He doesn't know everything--languages outside of European ones are outside his area of expertise--but hundreds of years of living among humans have given him lots of experience and practice. One of his favorite jobs was working as a private tutor, letting himself expand his knowledge by visiting private libraries.