[Cam] Mason - New Daeva backstory
Mason's history is below the cut for those who are interested in a background hookup. For those who expressed interest earlier, I've put some ideas down - feel free to poke me if you have ideas :)
Brother Mason
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time, run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Go tell that long tongue liar, go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Mason Cavan was born in Chicago in 1966 to a good Irish family. His mother’s side of the family was made up primarily of policemen, and his father’s side of the family all worked in construction or similar areas for the city. Mason tended towards his father’s profession, but his parents wanted him to have a better life than they did, and so they stayed on his case to do well in school, and helped pay for him to enroll in college to receive a degree in civil engineering with a computer sciences minor.
However, Mason’s family was too poor to support him to enter into a graduate program, which was what he wanted to do, and so at age 21 he entered the Great Lakes Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to help pay for his degree. After a few years, Mason went through officer training, and was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant.
As he lived and worked as an Army Engineer, Mason expressed a desire to “be in it” more, and as the Persian Gulf crisis loomed, he submitted for a transfer to artillery command soon after being promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and joined the 3rd “Greywolf” Brigade of the 1st Armored Cavalry Division (his unit was part of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment), which was deployed to the Middle East in 1990. He was placed in command of the Fire Direction Center for a battery of six guns - his unit utilized the M109A6 “Paladin” howitzers - and directed fire missions during Operation Desert Storm.
During a particularly hectic night of fire support missions, Mason received a call from a platoon requesting close artillery support just outside of a town they were holding. Mason took the coordinates and ordered his guns to fire… only to learn that the coordinates caused the guns to blast the town instead of the Iraqi forces, and innocent civilians and U.S. soldiers lost their lives.
Mason was relieved of command before dawn the next morning, and as part of the inquiry, was driven by the town he was accused of being responsible for obliterating mere hours before. Seeing this “broke” something in Mason’s soul, and he put up virtually no resistance during his court martial - the only thing saving him from a prison sentence was the fact that the error for the fire mission was on the part of the soldiers who reversed their versus the target positions during the radio call, which was recorded and played back at the court martial. Because Mason was the officer in charge, and he did not verify the coordinates, he was dishonorably discharged from the military, and sent packing. There was very little press or to-do about the incident, since the Army wanted it kept as quiet as possible.
Unwilling to return home, Mason returned to the Middle East in 1992, winding up in Jerusalem as a bit of a wanderer - unkempt and unshaven, searching for…well, searching for something that he couldn’t quite define. He spent time in libraries in Jerusalem, reading up on history, theology, trying to perhaps find an escape to his guilt in faith. Destiny, however, knew the perfect definition for what he truly sought, and delivered it unto him, in the form of a Daeva vampire of the Lancea Sanctum.
Mason found himself, as if led by some song unheard, coming to a certain library late at night, several times in t he same month, and encountering an American from the “deep south” named Eli. After over a month of these encounters, Brother Eli Tate (Jed) sat down and explained the choice he was giving to Mason - to die as food, or to take unholy communion and cross over as one of the Damned. Mason was given a week, and when the time to decide came, he accepted the offer, and was embraced in Jerusalem after a day of fasting and prayer.
The next two years were purely instructional. Brother Eli was a calm, quiet Daeva, whose desires were for learning more than for anything else. As a sire, he taught Mason the basics of survival and coming into his own as a vampire, Arabic, Aramaic, and also taught him the Testament of Longinus. Eli was a patient teacher, and Mason got the impression that Eli would rather have a thoughtful atheist as a childer rather than a mindless zealot. Mason took great care to learn from his sire in all things, but was always relatively quiet and reserved with his opinions.
Following this time with his sire, in 1994 Mason was placed in contact with Brother Maddox (Mykle), one of the Nepheshim, who questioned Mason for five nights before accepting him, and placing him under the Oath of the Nepheshim, setting Mason on a path to wander for the next five years and five nights in the “Chorbah” - the “desolate places” between vampire domains and civilizations, taking with him the Testament of Longinus as well as a burning desire to find the faith his soul had been clamoring for before his embrace.
(1994-1999, wandering Nepheshim)
- Meets Ethan who is teaching classes on military science and religion, attends night classes here and there as he passes through. (Mark duc_de_duras)
- Meets… (Nicole ladynissa)
- Meets Godspell… (Ray R. witchmystic)
- Meets… (Scott poly_scott)
- Meets Eddie Brewer (Stu)
In 1998, during one of his travels, Mason made the acquaintance of Mary Jane (Kat) and Nicodemus Fell (Ray B.), Mary being someone that Brother Maddox had mentioned as a friend. The three of them traveled together on that trip, and Mary gave Mason a way to reach her. Later that year, Mary and Mason met up again, and spent many nights up almost until dawn talking theology, exploring Mason’s burgeoning Exotheism. Eventually, the conversation found its way to talking about the practice of Fire Dancing, something Mary engaged in. After hearing the philosophy behind it, Mason wanted to do it, and so he and Mary built a fire the two of them could manage, and they worshipped in this unique way…until they realized that it was very, very close to dawn. Scrambling quickly but calmly, the two of them found a place to hunker down, amidst some sarcastic and lewd humor, which cemented their friendship even further. Mary and Mason stayed regularly in touch ever since.
In 1999, after Mason’s Oath expired, he gave serious thought to returning to his home in Chicago. Along the way, he stopped off at a town in Illinois, and met a Daeva named Grace (Sarah), who invited him to stay and party with her. A month of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll ensued, but by the end of it, Mason realized that he could not abandon discipline entirely with his oath expired… Grace’s partying, which was probably too hearty for a whole South American country to handle, drove him away from thinking about returning to Chicago to relax and enjoy himself. Instead, he returned to the road.
(1999-2009, wandering post-Nepheshim Oath)
Over time after the beginning of the 21st century, through friendship with Mary, Brother Maddox, and others of the Sanctified (and one unaligned named Bones), Mason found himself semi-adopted into a coterie of war veterans who, like him, had experienced some sort of horror in war, and it changed their world.
In 2007, during one of Mason’s year-long jaunts around the Chorbah, he came across a young female Daeva in a run-down truckstop of a town, being slightly careless with her affections as she sought a ride to take her on a journey of her own. Her naïveté brought a smile to his face, thinking about how he might be under similar circumstances, without his past to haunt him, or his place in God’s plan laid out before him. Engaging her in conversation and learning her name as Katana (Shannon), Mason offered to accompany her and protect her in exchange for her company and hearing her stories, so he could learn. Mason and Katana spent the year traveling here and there as friends, companions, and lovers. As Katana was still somewhat of a novice in the Circle of the Crone, Mason took time that year to learn about that covenant from the perspective of a newcomer, so he could incorporate what the Sanctified considered pure heathen paganism into his own theological paradigm - specifically, how the crone was influenced by mortal religious practices that pre-dated Christianity, and how similarities might be found in how Sanctified theology had been changed by mortal practices.
Then, after nearly twenty years since his fateful decision to leave engineering to rush to smear blood on his hands, Mason decided it was time to return home - to Chicago. After expressing this in a conversation with Mary in May of 2010, she directed Mason to seek out Cardinal Sebastian at the Lancea Sanctum Basilica in DeKalb, near Chicago. Mason and Sebastian met and spent several nights in conversation with one another, their mutual association with Mary getting them started on excellent terms. When they parted ways, Mason had agreed to serve Cardinal Sebastian as a protector and paladin, and to try and bring some level-headedness to the diocese of Chicago.
Brother Mason
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time, run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Go tell that long tongue liar, go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Mason Cavan was born in Chicago in 1966 to a good Irish family. His mother’s side of the family was made up primarily of policemen, and his father’s side of the family all worked in construction or similar areas for the city. Mason tended towards his father’s profession, but his parents wanted him to have a better life than they did, and so they stayed on his case to do well in school, and helped pay for him to enroll in college to receive a degree in civil engineering with a computer sciences minor.
However, Mason’s family was too poor to support him to enter into a graduate program, which was what he wanted to do, and so at age 21 he entered the Great Lakes Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to help pay for his degree. After a few years, Mason went through officer training, and was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant.
As he lived and worked as an Army Engineer, Mason expressed a desire to “be in it” more, and as the Persian Gulf crisis loomed, he submitted for a transfer to artillery command soon after being promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and joined the 3rd “Greywolf” Brigade of the 1st Armored Cavalry Division (his unit was part of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment), which was deployed to the Middle East in 1990. He was placed in command of the Fire Direction Center for a battery of six guns - his unit utilized the M109A6 “Paladin” howitzers - and directed fire missions during Operation Desert Storm.
During a particularly hectic night of fire support missions, Mason received a call from a platoon requesting close artillery support just outside of a town they were holding. Mason took the coordinates and ordered his guns to fire… only to learn that the coordinates caused the guns to blast the town instead of the Iraqi forces, and innocent civilians and U.S. soldiers lost their lives.
Mason was relieved of command before dawn the next morning, and as part of the inquiry, was driven by the town he was accused of being responsible for obliterating mere hours before. Seeing this “broke” something in Mason’s soul, and he put up virtually no resistance during his court martial - the only thing saving him from a prison sentence was the fact that the error for the fire mission was on the part of the soldiers who reversed their versus the target positions during the radio call, which was recorded and played back at the court martial. Because Mason was the officer in charge, and he did not verify the coordinates, he was dishonorably discharged from the military, and sent packing. There was very little press or to-do about the incident, since the Army wanted it kept as quiet as possible.
Unwilling to return home, Mason returned to the Middle East in 1992, winding up in Jerusalem as a bit of a wanderer - unkempt and unshaven, searching for…well, searching for something that he couldn’t quite define. He spent time in libraries in Jerusalem, reading up on history, theology, trying to perhaps find an escape to his guilt in faith. Destiny, however, knew the perfect definition for what he truly sought, and delivered it unto him, in the form of a Daeva vampire of the Lancea Sanctum.
Mason found himself, as if led by some song unheard, coming to a certain library late at night, several times in t he same month, and encountering an American from the “deep south” named Eli. After over a month of these encounters, Brother Eli Tate (Jed) sat down and explained the choice he was giving to Mason - to die as food, or to take unholy communion and cross over as one of the Damned. Mason was given a week, and when the time to decide came, he accepted the offer, and was embraced in Jerusalem after a day of fasting and prayer.
The next two years were purely instructional. Brother Eli was a calm, quiet Daeva, whose desires were for learning more than for anything else. As a sire, he taught Mason the basics of survival and coming into his own as a vampire, Arabic, Aramaic, and also taught him the Testament of Longinus. Eli was a patient teacher, and Mason got the impression that Eli would rather have a thoughtful atheist as a childer rather than a mindless zealot. Mason took great care to learn from his sire in all things, but was always relatively quiet and reserved with his opinions.
Following this time with his sire, in 1994 Mason was placed in contact with Brother Maddox (Mykle), one of the Nepheshim, who questioned Mason for five nights before accepting him, and placing him under the Oath of the Nepheshim, setting Mason on a path to wander for the next five years and five nights in the “Chorbah” - the “desolate places” between vampire domains and civilizations, taking with him the Testament of Longinus as well as a burning desire to find the faith his soul had been clamoring for before his embrace.
(1994-1999, wandering Nepheshim)
- Meets Ethan who is teaching classes on military science and religion, attends night classes here and there as he passes through. (Mark duc_de_duras)
- Meets… (Nicole ladynissa)
- Meets Godspell… (Ray R. witchmystic)
- Meets… (Scott poly_scott)
- Meets Eddie Brewer (Stu)
In 1998, during one of his travels, Mason made the acquaintance of Mary Jane (Kat) and Nicodemus Fell (Ray B.), Mary being someone that Brother Maddox had mentioned as a friend. The three of them traveled together on that trip, and Mary gave Mason a way to reach her. Later that year, Mary and Mason met up again, and spent many nights up almost until dawn talking theology, exploring Mason’s burgeoning Exotheism. Eventually, the conversation found its way to talking about the practice of Fire Dancing, something Mary engaged in. After hearing the philosophy behind it, Mason wanted to do it, and so he and Mary built a fire the two of them could manage, and they worshipped in this unique way…until they realized that it was very, very close to dawn. Scrambling quickly but calmly, the two of them found a place to hunker down, amidst some sarcastic and lewd humor, which cemented their friendship even further. Mary and Mason stayed regularly in touch ever since.
In 1999, after Mason’s Oath expired, he gave serious thought to returning to his home in Chicago. Along the way, he stopped off at a town in Illinois, and met a Daeva named Grace (Sarah), who invited him to stay and party with her. A month of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll ensued, but by the end of it, Mason realized that he could not abandon discipline entirely with his oath expired… Grace’s partying, which was probably too hearty for a whole South American country to handle, drove him away from thinking about returning to Chicago to relax and enjoy himself. Instead, he returned to the road.
(1999-2009, wandering post-Nepheshim Oath)
Over time after the beginning of the 21st century, through friendship with Mary, Brother Maddox, and others of the Sanctified (and one unaligned named Bones), Mason found himself semi-adopted into a coterie of war veterans who, like him, had experienced some sort of horror in war, and it changed their world.
In 2007, during one of Mason’s year-long jaunts around the Chorbah, he came across a young female Daeva in a run-down truckstop of a town, being slightly careless with her affections as she sought a ride to take her on a journey of her own. Her naïveté brought a smile to his face, thinking about how he might be under similar circumstances, without his past to haunt him, or his place in God’s plan laid out before him. Engaging her in conversation and learning her name as Katana (Shannon), Mason offered to accompany her and protect her in exchange for her company and hearing her stories, so he could learn. Mason and Katana spent the year traveling here and there as friends, companions, and lovers. As Katana was still somewhat of a novice in the Circle of the Crone, Mason took time that year to learn about that covenant from the perspective of a newcomer, so he could incorporate what the Sanctified considered pure heathen paganism into his own theological paradigm - specifically, how the crone was influenced by mortal religious practices that pre-dated Christianity, and how similarities might be found in how Sanctified theology had been changed by mortal practices.
Then, after nearly twenty years since his fateful decision to leave engineering to rush to smear blood on his hands, Mason decided it was time to return home - to Chicago. After expressing this in a conversation with Mary in May of 2010, she directed Mason to seek out Cardinal Sebastian at the Lancea Sanctum Basilica in DeKalb, near Chicago. Mason and Sebastian met and spent several nights in conversation with one another, their mutual association with Mary getting them started on excellent terms. When they parted ways, Mason had agreed to serve Cardinal Sebastian as a protector and paladin, and to try and bring some level-headedness to the diocese of Chicago.