Datura Rinn, Undead Terror of the North

[Muse]

Name: Datura Rinn
Age: 26 in form, about 80 in actuality
Race: Undead (human)
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 105 lbs
Occupation: Mercenary

Personality: Datura is horrified at his past actions and carries that horror with him through life, along with an unhealthy amount of self-loathing. He is desperate for peace and so throws himself into dangerous situations, and he has been called suicidal by many, but they do not understand his circumstances. He wishes for peace but fears facing his brother again, after all that he has done.

Very smart, he is ashamed of his knowledge for the way it was gathered, though that doesn't stop him from using it. He lacks the muscle memory to do many of the things he understands how to do. He feels he deserves to be alone and so tends to linger by himself, but loneliness haunts him, as does the knowledge that he will outlive all that he might befriend, for he never ages and a mortal would will only take a single soul from him and never his life.

He suffers from terrible nightmares, memories of what he has seen through magic of his brother suffering, and memories of his own dying. He curses still needing sleep despite being undead.

He has a terrible fear of the water, despite that it cannot kill him, for the memory of his original death has returned to him and any thought of entering the way makes him remember choking on water until blackness took him.

He hungers constantly, the need to feed on the flesh of other creatures a constant thing only satiated when he kills and eats a sentient creature, like a human or elf. He tries to trick it by eating animals - raw, never cooked - and sometimes it helps, but the Hunger never truly leaves him. If he lets it go too long without eating anything, he will fall into a mindless hunt and kill and eat everything in sight until satiation awakens him. But doing this will further his suffering, for consuming more souls means he extends his life, and he wishes only for Death.

Occasionally he can hear Death (or someone) whispering in his ear and he takes commands from the creature that owns his soul and heart, but oftentimes he just feels the shadow lurking behind him, taking souls when their time has come, but never his. Never his.

History: Datura was born in Peregrine Reach, in the far north of Salvar, to a family of falconers, who trained birds to aid hunters and send messages. He, like his two older brothers, was given his first falcon to raise when he was young. As was tradition in their family, he and his falcon, Kryat, grew up together as partners. Regular falcons normally lived to be fifteen or so, but these were not ordinary falcons. Their ancestors enhanced with the magic of Datura's ancestors, the falcons were larger, faster, and smarter than regular falcons, longer lived, with a magic of their own in their veins so powerful that they were even able to talk.

Datura and Kryat lived their life knowing that they would be together for all of it, and that he would grow up to carry on the Rinn Trade, training falcons and keeping the birds safe. But the nothern lands of Salvar are a vast place, and dangerous. A faction of Salvar humans who sought more power so they could take control sought to use the falcons in their war, but the Rinn Family would not allow them to take the birds and use them to harm others. The falcons were creatures wise enough to make their own decisions and should not be forced to serve man or beast. They were meant to fly and only assisted as they wished to, hunting for it burns in their blood, taking messages because all birds wish to fly.

The soldiers left, appearing accepting (albeit reluctantly) that they would not gain the falcons' aid, but in the darkness of night, they returned. They ransacked the Rinn homestead, killing the adults and kidnapping the children, capturing what falcons they could and killing what ones tried to attack them. Datura was twelve when Kryat was shot down trying to defend him. She died in the snow alone as the soldiers dragged him and his brothers away.

But clever as the soldiers were to take them by surprise, they had not planned well and the winter stole over them. The cold of the north took many lives as the soldiers dragged them south, and as the days dragged on, it seemed to grow only colder. Datura's brother protected him as best they could, trying to keep him warm. They went to sleep the one night, piled together, but when the soldiers shook them awake in the morning, Eremurus would not wake. The soldiers left his body behind as they dragged Datura and his eldest brother on, their own numbers falling, already half of the soldiers dead from the cold.

A blizzard picked up in the early morning hours one fateful day, blinding them all as they tried to go on. Many of the soldiers were lost in the white out, wandering away and vanishing in the snow, but Datura and Solidaster clung to each other and used the blizzard to try and escape. They ran from the soldiers, fleeing through the white, but they were pursued.

One soldier, furious and determined, kept them in his sights and attacked them as he drew near. They three of them crashed to the ground, and then through the ground, breaking through the ice of a lake and into the freezing cold waters beneath, and darkness.

He woke up later. Years later. In the house of a necromantic healer, he woke choking on water that had been in his dead lungs for the three years he had been submerged. She had already received payment, she explained, for his returning, though she would not tell him what it was that had been paid. Only that he was back, not human, not anymore, but back again in the world, unaged from the moment he had slipped into the lake and drowned beneath the hands of their attacker.

The only thing he could think to do was look for his brother, and so he began his search. He traveled to Lake Hansley, the only clue the old necromancer would give to his search for his brother, and there he found a grave with a marker bearing his name, unearthed and empty. And it drew him, called to him, the desire to crawl back beneath the ground and go... somewhere that he couldn't remember. Somewhere better. Somewhere peaceful.

And the more he wandered, the more that desire grew, for his brother was nowhere to be found, but certainly truths were easily learned.

He did not age. Five years he wandered, yet he never changed. He was frozen in time forever, not living, but not truly dead - locked in a halfway point. And the world was mad, at war with itself, and no matter where he traveled, he found himself thrown into conflict.

He discovered he had magic by mistake, attempting to defend himself from a human who attacked him, thinking him a monster. He didn't mean to kill the man, but the destructive magic rose unbidden, and then the blood... so much blood...

There was a way to stop his thirst, it seemed. It was repulsive to think about, digging for entrails in the stomach of a dead man, but when he was eating, he couldn't bring himself to care. To be satisfied. It had been unattainable since his awakening. Thank the gods he'd found a way...

For a time, the Hunger took him. He didn't know how much time exactly, but when he woke from it for reasons he did not know, decades had passed and the world was again changed.

He continued his search.

His wanderings took him all over the world. He left Salvar behind but traveled, on foot or by horse or cart. Occasionally he would catch a ship, but it was dangerous to be at sea and have someone recognize him for what he was. The dead do not swim well.

His magic had grown, he noticed. He was stronger somehow, his powers more versatile, for reasons he could not explain. His skill with a blade was better, though he lacked the muscle memory his mind said he should have. Still, the knowledge was there, and if the dead could build muscle yet...

He found a clue in The Red Forest, a place filled with magic, and learned of the skill of Necromancy and the cost that must be paid to bring back a life.

It took him another three years to find the necromancer who had raized him from the dead, and what he found was an old woman too ancient to stand, but her memory was strong, and so was her laughter.

"T'was your brother who dug the grave to place you in it, and t'was he who pulled you out again, for I need the body to bring back to life, unless you had wanted his, sweet boy. But still a body is not enough, for Death be not denied. A soul must be given for what will be taken from the Realm of the Dead, and he had nothing but himself. You've searched fifty years for your brother, my dear, but you found him in that very first, when I sent you to Hansley. He is buried in your grave now and has been this last half a century. Whose soul did you think I would take as payment?"

She laughed and laughed, then, and it was that which decided him. Furious at the trickery and the death of his brother, but enraged at her humor, he didn't bother to kill her before he sank his teeth into her flesh and feasted.

It is from the blood and body of his enemies that he gains his skills. He learned this after his feed, when the necromantic power the old woman had wielded coursed like fire through his veins, burning him from the inside out. He disposed of her bones, all that was left of her, in a shallow, unmarked hole a wild animal had dug nearby. Then he set himself up in her house, read her grimoires and tomes, and learned all he could about Necromancy.

When he had read everything she owned and was sure he was ready, he stole into a nearby village - he couldn't recall the name now, nor did it matter - and kidnapped two children who were playing outside. Tying them up, he brought them back to the hut, and there he prepared a ritual to bring his brother back.

Like with his knowledge of wielding a sword, knowing is one thing, but muscle memory another. Without the skill or practice the old woman had known for her years, he failed in the ritual. He opened a portal successfully into the Realm of the Dead, but it was not his brother that escaped.

The two boys - brothers, by their looks - were transformed, consumed by the shades that slipped from Death. Twisted into monsters, they escaped his hold and lay waste to the nearby lands, until they were slain by what villagers remained.

Trapped in the house where he had opened the gateway, locked in place by magics he could not control, he was forced to watch this all happen through a portal that showed him the world. Forced to watch as a father mourned his two dead children, and then watch his brother as he pulled his slack body from the depths of a lake and weeped over him. He watched as he brother buried him, then searched for answers, desperate to find a way to bring his brothers back, both he and Eremurus. And though he found a way to bring them back, it required their bodies and a sacrifice - a soul for a soul.

He did not have Eremurus' body, and though the offer was made, he would take no one else's life from them, not when this loss was his fault. So he found a woman who practiced Necromancy, and he dug up the body of his brother, and he gave the woman his soul in exchange for his brother. And Datura watched as the woman, not yet old, weaved a spell over a circle, and Solidaster fell to the ground as his soul escaped him, a wisp of white that made its way eagerly to the Realm of the Dead, paving a path for Datura's soul. And then the memory returned, of the journey back to his body, following a path his brother had left in his grief and relief. And then the memories of those decades, ravaging the world, killing men, woman, children, and beasts indiscriminately, feasting on their flesh and their insides, taking their knowledge and their magic.

And he thought of his brother, who had gave his soul for Datura, only for Datura to scourn it and become a monster.

He begged for death.

Death did not come. Instead, he felt a breath fill him, air in lungs he hadn't realized had been empty for fifty years, and the skin that had been grey in death turned pale, his brown hair turned to ash, and his blue eyes whitened until the iris was barely indistrnguishable from the whites.

He begged for mercy but the gods said no.

A soul for a soul, the gods whispered in his ears, and you have taken many, and your payment is accepted. He would live, the gods, or Death, or whoever spoke to him deep in his mind, promised. He would live life after life in his cursed body, until his every death equalled the souls he had consumed and they all passed back into the ether. He would appear human, for he had consumed the many souls of humans, but Death would lurk with him, watching him, counting the souls. Death owned him, and he would not free him until he had been paid his due.

And Death wouldn't be denied.

Appearance: Datura is tall and extremely thin, his ribs showing through his skin when he isn't covered. His hair was once a soft brown but turned the grey of ash after his Returning. His appears ill when one looks at him, too pale, as though he is about to collapse, and he tries his best to hide this when able, though he is occasionally unsuccessful. He wears a brown belt at his waist around a black tunic, a shortsword hanging from his hip. His light brown trousers are tucked into black boots, but he covers most of this up with a dark hooded cloak. The clasp at his neck that holds the cloak fast is made of mithril and in the shape of a falcon in flight.

Although he keeps himself covered as often as possible, were someone to see him without his clothing, they would find him to be covered in scars. He bears scars from various blades on his back and arms, burns on his hands and down the left side of his body. The most questionable is a mass of raised scar tissue, pale silver like the others, except that veins of black radiate from it, spreading out across the whole of his chest from where the large stab wound was first made - right over his heart.

Skills:
Swordsmanship - Datura has consumed the souls of many a swordsman in his time, and so their knowledge and skills are his in mind, but performing them is not his greatest talent.

Necromancy - Datura learned the skills of a Master Necromancer when he consumed her soul, and also from reading her mass of tomes and grimoires.

Abilities:
Resurrection - Due to having consumed many souls as a mindless Undead, and Death's demand he pay them back, any mortal wound he takes will eventually heal, leaving behind a scar. It will not heal immediately and he will, technically, die, but it will pay one of the souls he has rather than his own. He is left out of commission for a time and can even "die" more than once if the healed wound becomes infected or is especially destructive. Once he has succumbed to the wound and before it heals, he is also completely vulnerable. If he is "killed" in an RP he will be dead through five cycles of posts (if there are two other players RPing with him and he dies, they together will post ten posts before he can be resurrected).

Raise the Dead - With his necromantic skills, he can bring small beasts back from the dead, like deer or dogs, so long as they have not been dead too long. He can only do this three times in one RP, and he cannot yet bring back anything sentient.

Feast - If he consumes the flesh of another creature, he can gain their knowledge and their memories. He gains the understanding of skills but not the ability to do them without practice.

Equipment/Weapons:
One steel shortsword.
A black necromantic grimoire.
A wooden staff.

[Hysteria]

Howdy, how long does the reanimate last for his Raise the Dead ability?

[Muse]

Two post cycles at present.

[Hysteria]

Ok, you're approved!

I have to say, it's quite a brutal story your character has. It would work pretty well as a thread if you expanded it. Very nice work!