Application
PLAYER INFO
Name: Heather
Contact: LJ= agentgrrl, AIM= adeolucror, Email= adeolucror [at] gmail
CHARACTER INFO
Character name: Antonio Vega
Character journal: charitaslamia
Tattoo number: 79421
Appearance: Image is here. (PB is Oliver Goodwill).
Antonio stands a modest 5'5" (165.1 cm) and it could be said that he fits himself. His body is toned, both from hunting and from casual exercise he takes part in. He keeps his hair cropped relatively short, but it can be found in various states of disarray, depending on how dedicated he is to the current project he's working on. That isn't to say he's incapable of cleaning himself up, and can actually make himself very presentable if the mood strikes him. Born and raised as nobility, the habit of making oneself pleasant to the eye has never left him, and it reflects in his wardrob choices, which are normally comfortable but fashionable. He has a fondness for nice coats, but a very modern viewpoint, and has been known to wear a casual coat over nice slacks and t-shirt. A creature of pertetual comfort, his posture can be described as languid in most cases, except when he's working, when one would find him usually bent over his work table. Tunnel vision is a good way of describing him while working, and he tends to get lost in it. Always quick to smile in social situations, his posture is always open an inviting.
Personality: On the outside, Antonio usually comes off as quiet, reserved, and deep-thinking. He always weighs the effect of every word before he speaks it, knowing that, though the sword may cut and the arrow fly just as true, words hold a power beyond the physical. Language was a gift from God to Adam and Eve, the one knowledge he trusted to them without the penalty of sin. Rarely does he say something pointless or shallow, keeping those thoughts to himself. He believes words should be used to get to a point, not to dodge one. Having lived so long, he’s made a hobby of studying people. He loves meeting new people, truly believing that an individual’s personality is a collection of experiences.
Architecture, in all its evolutions, is his greatest passion, and he spends weeks walking the streets of every new city he moves to, learning it’s angles, avenues, and secret places, feeling that a man is only as strong as the place he calls home. He’s never been held captive by one living place in a City, though, and often moves from place to place in order to be immersed in every aspect of a city’s personality, from its buildings to its citizenry.
To summarize, Antonio can be, in conversations, just about whatever the listener(s) require for communication to progress, having spoken to so many different types of people over the years. Personally, he prefers deep, invocative topics such as theology and philosophy, but can hold his own in almost any conversation, unless it is the topic of popular culture. He’s never really paid much attention to television or films, though he does have a voracious appetite for literature and art, and will actually read a graphic novel if the storyline intrigues him enough. He appreciates a story that gives him a situation to dissect, an aspect of society to examine, or a captivating character to intrigue him. He also takes a lot of solace in the music of the Beatles, seeing them as philosophers in their own rights.
He considers his closest friends his family, and never hides anything from them. The sudden deaths of his parents made him realize how tenuous lives can be, and cherishes what time he is allowed to spend with them like gems. His parents instilled in him a deep love and faith in God, and his faith in Him has never wavered. Even as he fled Madrid, running from the Inquisition, he saw them as lambs that had lost the way. Never did he blame the Lord for their misguidance. He has a very deep understanding that he is not a creature of evil, and believes that He would never let him believe he was good and just if he were not.
The word of God guides many of his actions and beliefs. He doesn’t believe he is good, just, and selfless because the Lord commands, but that he is a creature of God, and so he is God’s image in all things.
Powers/Abilities: Antonio is a vampire. In his world, this means something very different than it would in most other realities. He was never human. Was never turned. He was born, just like any human would be. He grew, as a vampire, and in essence, has always been one. As a vampire, he is capable of super-human speed, agility, can heal faster, though over several days, and can see in nearly complete darkness.
Aside from the abilities afforded him by his very nature, Antonio is a very skilled conversationalist and a businessman. He’s also a very gifted architect and artist. His other skills also include fencing, horsemanship, and sculpting. His past has given him an almost sixth sense when it comes to impending danger, and he’s very good at avoiding it.
Antonio would fall victim to any bullet, fire, train, etc that would kill any other living creature, as he is alive and breathing. He’s just as vulnerable to wounds and wounding as well. He does have superhuman reflexes, speed, and strength, but not resilience. He can catch various diseases, mostly those borne of the blood, and most strains of virus and bacterium that any members of the ape family were susceptible to. His one, singular weakness is ultra-violet radiation. That produced by light-bulbs, aside from tanning beds, isn’t enough to cause him any harm. The light of the sun, however, causes a chemical reaction in his blood that results in the production of cyanide. If exposed longer than a minute or two, the poison builds up enough to make him physically ill. Any longer would result in death.
Aside from physical weaknesses to the sun, Antonio himself has an almost phobic view of it. When he was 25, the equivalent of 16 years of age to his kind, the Inquisition came to the city of Madrid. It was then, watching from a shaded window hidden in plain view, he saw his mother, dragged kicking and screaming from their home, die in agony at the hands of the sun. Of course, it makes perfect sense that any creature affected in such a way by anything would be wary of the thing in question, but Antonio’s avoidance of the sun borders on Obsessive/Compulsive.
Over half the world’s vampire population was wiped out by the Black Death, and half of the remainder by the Inquisition; a situation they’ve never recovered from, which can be attributed to their extremely long reproduction time. A female vampire only goes into cycle once every ten years or so. It has been estimated that roughly 800 vampires survived the Inquisition at all. As a result of this, in his 450 years of life, he’s met a handful of his own kind. Because of this, he’s convinced his destiny is to remain alone, and usually attempts to remain distant from other for fear of losing them.
He has a weakness for a woman with a bubbly personality, though, and it has been his downfall on more than one occasion. He becomes obsessed rather easily, to a point that could border on stalking. Once he gets something or someone ‘in his blood’ his mind will only focus on the object of that obsession. Work, friends, and hobbies fall to the wayside until his curiosity and/or fascination are satisfied.
World Background: Antonio's world is much like ours. The history of his Earth runs parallel to ours all the way to the present day, and there are very few exceptions. All are unknown to the general public. No one knows about nymphs, trolls, leprechauns, unicorns, etc, anymore, beyond the stories they've become. Human expansion and scientific discovery forced many of the creatures into hiding, and others withdrew by choice. When belief shifted from the gods of old, when their names became with witchcraft and the devil, their powers faded, and with them, almost all of their influence over the world at large.
As most magic is fueled by the power of the gods, it isn't nearly as potent as it was in years past, though with the New Age movement and the re-fascination with wicca, it's starting to become more powerful. The populous at large still sits around wondering "could this be real" or "what if this is real". In our world, the answer is no, of course. In Antonio's world, the answer is yes sometimes. There aren't many true witches, or Voodoo practitioners, but some of them do pull things off from time to time. With the very slow revival of the gods, many of their denizens are just starting to come out of hiding: nymphs, trolls, etc, are starting to reinvade the world of men, though the world at large is bargaining off the renewed attacks as things such as gang-related violence.
As far as the setting itself, the year is 2010. The cities, political, socio-economic situation, and the like are identical to that of our world, and the level of technology is the same.
Vampires in Antonio’s world, at least the oldest, can trace their roots back to prehistory. Always creatures of seclusion, they were once much more monstrous in nature. Almost identical to humans in appearance save a slight sheen to the pupils in direct light, much like the eye-shine in a cat’s eyes, and a nearly unnoticeable elongation of the incisors at first glance. If one were to examine the teeth closely, they would find they would find the eye teeth to be thin and razor sharp. Contained within their saliva is a strong coagulant designs to keep their prey from bleeding out after feeding as well as adding a more viscous texture to the blood the consume. The saliva also contains a mild anesthetic, which renders the wound painless during feeding. Like snakes, they only have to feed once or twice a week.
As the civilizations of the world began to grow, vampires (who call themselves the Sanguis), began to move into a more sedentary lifestyle with them, claiming entire cities as their territories and doing their best to blend into human culture. Throughout history, this task was thwarted by the Sanguis crippling vulnerability to sunlight, which contains lethal amounts of Ultraviolet radiation of subjected to prolonged exposure. Due to this weakness alone, and the suspicion of the unknown natural to humans, their numbers have dwindled has mankind’s has risen. The decline of belief has weakened them as well. Once capable of colossal feats of strength, movement speeds capable of being confused with teleportation, and nearly instantaneous healing abilities, with the decline of belief in the gods that created them and with that decline, those gods’ power, the Sanguis have slowly weakened.
They have an established, although secret from humanity, culture of their own. Though part of their survival instinct allows them to emulate human nature very well, at their base, the Sanguis are a savage, nearly animalistic people. The males are very territorial and there territories are known to encompass hundreds of square miles. Females tend to live in small groups of two or three, though the population of vampires has dwindled in the several centuries of the Spanish Inquisition. When a male and female meet, they tend to mate for life and raise their offspring, if any is produced from the union. Very seldom are females fertile, and a family is most vulnerable in the first seven years after the child is born, as it is being taught how to blend into human society.
History: Antonio was born in 1467 to a very ecstatic mother and father. It was very rare, even in those times, for two vampires to find one another, let alone fall in love and be lucky enough to have a child. His father was an architect of great renown whose strictly nocturnal meetings were scrutinized, but tolerated in light of his designing genius. Antonio began apprenticing under him at the age of 13. He learned the intricacies of arithmetic, geometry, and the like. He fell in love with his father’s trade.
One cold, October night in 1492, his father left for a business meeting and never returned. His mother, fretting for her husband’s life combed the city for him, but was forced to return because the dawn was fast approaching. The mob came just after dawn. His mother told him to hide, he complied. They burst into their home and dragged her out, out into the sun. Out into death. He watched from a shaded window as she died, convulsing, screaming, being beaten with clubs until she stopped moving.
He still can’t accurately recall how he fled the house, avoiding the sun, though he can recall the nights thereafter, sleeping in caves to avoid the killing rays, subsisting on animals. He fled east. He avoided towns for the most part, but when he reached the City of Venice, his life was changed forever. He met a man named Leonardo, a gifted anatomist, mathematician, sculptor, and painter. He befriended the lost and lonely Antonio almost immediately, fascinated with his very nature. He learned many invaluable lessons from Leonardo: how to hide one’s actions in plain sight, how angles can be convinced to work with rather than against gravity to create structures that seem to defy gravity. Leonardo’s most important lesson, though, was that, regardless of the evils that plague all of society, there existed, still, genuinely good people, and good friends. Leonardo reawakened Antonio’s faith, both in God and in humanity.
After the death of Leonardo da Vinci, Antonio spent the next 490 years staying below the radar. He hired actors, using funds from the fortune his father’s supposed death had caused him, to play himself during daylight hours, allowing him to work as an architect, and gain quite a bit of renown, under various pseudonyms, throughout the centuries. He has spent time in China, France, India, England, Scotland, and Japan, and is nearly fluent in all the languages spoken in those parts. After the American Revolution, he relocated to the newly created United States, drawn by the land of promise just like so many immigrants. A new country needed buildings, he reasoned, and he wasn’t mistaken. Since, he has lived in New Amsterdam, which has sense been renamed New York, getting lost in the constant stream of newcomers.
Journal sample:
//Audio//
[As the feed clicks on, the sounds of a pencil to paper can be heard nearly constantly as he speaks.]
Any of you listening are free to disregard the following as the senile ramblings of a very old man. Bearing that disclaimer in mind, at first, I thought this strange place in which we've found ourselves to be akin to Venice in my own world. I'm beginning to believe that assessment may have been made in ignorant error. I'm not certain the ground on which we walk is actually connected" to any sort of bedrock at all! [Some more scratchings of pencil on paper.] I realize that may be a bit disconcerting to some of you, but I assure you, bearing in my what we have faced, and by that I of course mean being uprooted to this location in the first place, this should hardly be surprising. Being detached from any sort of land mass not withstanding, I find this revelation rather facinating. What sort of boyant base would be required to keep an entire city afloat? Does this place truly, contrary to architectural and cultural appearance, transcend the engineering know-how of modern Earth? I'm working on a conceptual piece at the moment, and would be more than willing to share my theories with any interested parties.
I thank you for your time.
Prose sample: Unlike smaller parishes in smaller cities and towns, the Cathedral of St. Michael never closed its doors to those seeking the sanctuary of the Lord. Its vaulted ceilings and glittering stained glass depicting the saints were always there, warm and welcoming, promising shelter from the evils that lurked in the shadows. Antonio pushed the large oaken door open slowly, the hush of the chapel within demanding its reverent silence not be shattered by something as finite as a portal, and slipped inside. Immediately, the calm solitude of the Lord washed over him, calming his nerves. He felt the forgiving eyes of Mother Mary upon him, arms outstretched in love and understanding.
Understanding he would need this night. He dipped the first two fingers of his right hand in the holy water waiting at the entrance and crossed himself in reverence, thanking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the strength to deal with the events of the evening. The revelations of…no need to get distracted, Antonio, he chided himself. The Lord will hear.
He made his way quietly past the old woman, Mrs. Carter was her name, who was seated in one of the rear pews. She’d lost her children to hunger in the 40s and now, her only comfort was the church and its promise of Heaven, where she might one day watch them play again. Her heart was pure and soul one of the kindest he’d met in these past decades. He knew her eternal home was with the angels, and it gladdened his heart. His passage was silent and his smiled as he passed her, her head bowed in prayer.
He made his way to the confessional, his haven, where he knew one of his closest friends waited to hear from him. He opened the door, not breaking the silence, and moved inside. He took a seat and laced the fingers on his hands, bowing his head. And waited.
After a few moments, the screen-cover was slid back and he was met with a familiar scent. The smallest of smiles plays at the corners of his mouth. “Good evening, my son.” The voice, as it always was, was gentle, caring, and friendly. It was not the voice of a priest speaking to one of his children. It was the voice of a dear friend.
Still, traditions were in place for a reason. “Forgive me Father,” he began, somber. “For I have sinned. It has been two days since my last confession.” His mind was still reeling from earlier. His…father? Impossible. Improbable, it would seem.
“And what, Antonio, do you have to confess?” He voice was patient, kind. A silhouetted hand reached up and pulled back the screen as well, revealing in the confessional window the worried face of Antonio’s dearest friend. Father Jonathan Malcolm, not in the dusk of his life, had come to the Parrish of St. Michael’s as a young lad just out of seminary. Antonio had been at his first mass. John’s had reminded him of his first commissioned design: beautiful and solid, but rough around the edges, much like the man who’d designed it. Antonio watched him grow into a wonderful man, full of love and compassion, and a friend he’d remember for centuries.
Antonio heaved a sigh. Whoever said time was a river, had never had a conversation with a vampire. “I met my father today.” Simple. Direct. To the point. Why mince words when one of the only men in New York who know your situation was sitting within three feet of you?
Father Malcolm’s eyebrows reached for his receding hairline. “Your father? How is that possible, Antonio?”
Pain clenched its clawed hand in his chest. It was the pain of a young boy, the pain of youthful betrayal. Centuries had past, centuries of knowing his father had fallen to the villainy of false accusations and false benediction. Centuries of lies. “It would seem, Father, we have similar hunting habits.” He swallowed, remembering the hunt, eyeing the girl, stalking her, his mouth watering as he imagined his teeth sinking into her flesh, his mouth filling with her sweet life.
“Antonio.” John’s voice was firm, but patient as always. It spoke with the air of someone accustomed to grasping one’s attention.
Antonio blinked. He hadn’t fed, and he was hungry. His father distracted him from a meal, among other things. He hadn’t eaten in nearly six days. He would have to go back out tonight. “Forgive me, my friend. My hunger got the better of me.”
“Of course, Antonio. Continue.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath, preparing for his tale. It still seemed impossible. “It sounds ridiculous, but we were stalking the same woman. Our eyes met as we closed in.” He ran a nervous hand back over his hair. “It was as though some great finger had reached down from the heavens and rolled back the hands of time. I remember his so distinctly, John.” His voice trailed off as his mind flew back over the centuries, the memories, the smiles, the laughter, the tears. Everything he’d experienced, all he’s witnessed. His mind returned to Madrid, to studying by candlelight at his father’s side, sharing jokes and discussing politics and women.
“How is your father still alive, Antonio?” John slid easily into his role of guide. Antonio often had to be led through his stories, as he tended to get lost in memories long dead.
“Oh, of course.” Antonio returned his attention to his story, to John. “He…he and I made an unspoken agreement to meet in the alley behind the club. I’m still uncertain as to how it was decided upon,” He said, looking a bit confused. “but we did. I made my way to that dark thoroughfare, and he joined me. When I asked how it was possible, he laughed, John.” The pain of a lost little boy filled his eyes.
“He laughed?”
“He laughed.” Emotion gave Antonio’s voice a thick, blanketed quality. “It wasn’t a sweet, mirthful sound, either. It was not the laugh of my father, not the man I recall him to be, in any case. It was filled with arrogance and scorn.” He swallowed the pain that was threatening to choke the words from his throat. His father, the man he’d idolized, had never been the man he’d believed him to be. “And once he was finished laughing, John, he answered me.”
“Very well, Antonio,” John prodded. “What was his answer for his centuries-long disappearing act?”
Antonio was quiet for a moment, focusing on breathing and calming down. “He said he’d known for weeks that the Inquisition was coming. He fled town to avoid being hunted like a dog.” The statement was laced with hate-filled venom. “When I asked why abandon us to the beasts, he casually replied, ‘too long was a weighed down by the mockery of human life we assumed, my son. I had hoped you would learn your true nature by coming into conflict with those that spurned you.’”
Father Malcolm was quiet for a moment, processing. “You’re saying, then, that your father claims to have abandoned his wife and child so that you might learn what it was to be a vampire?”
“That is what I surmised, yes.” His jaw clenched so hard the joints popped. How dare he…after all this time. Generations! How dare he walk into his town, hunt his people, and not…how could he have been so blind?
“I fail to see how this merits a confession, Antonio.” John’s words were spoken as one speaks to an angered dog, gentle and slow.
The pain of loss mixed with the anguish of youth formed a volatile cocktail in Antonio’s mind. They were creatures of God, just as the humans were. They were all His creatures, His creations. None were to be held in any higher standing than any other. His father’s audacity disgusted him. His disgust wrapped itself around all the pain and youthful helplessness and became a vile seed, a seed that took root in his mind and quickly began to flourish. “Because, my friend, if Santiago de la Florentez does not leave this city tonight, I will rip his throat out.” So vicious was the statement, it could not have been spoken with a human voice.
“And do you regret that sentiment?” John already knew the answer. “Do what you must, my dear friend. What you feel you must. Then, come to me. Go with the Lord’s blessing.”
“I pray,” Antonio said, rising to his feet faster than John’s eyes could follow, “God is as forgiving as you are, my friend.”