This was a pleasure to write! I didn't get into his Monk side - but focused on his hunting. I think I found an easy way to say why he might not remember his name... because, well, perhaps he never had one? Read on to see what I mean - and as always, would love to hear your thoughts (as well as anyone else who reads this or any of my submissions!) - here in this thread, as it keeps it bumped and alive (and helps me, and who knows, maybe someone else will come along and ask for some writing - or someone who has before will ask for another! I welcome it all)KyleG wrote: If you are feeling inspired I would like to flesh out an idea.
Dhampir (but playing into the vampirism lore a little more) Ranger/Monk, really that’s just for mechanics as really he is a hunter armed with a rifle of sorts.
I want him to be old, like really old. I think he slumbered away somewhere for several centuries at a time. I think holding that history in a brain isn’t healthy. I think he's a little mad.
He is clearest when hunting, lying in wait or taking the shot(s). But when he is around people (despite being quite personable/persuasive) his mind starts to slip, names muddled (he himself has had many), time confused. Not quite sure how I’m going to play to that yet.
Perhaps he doesn’t have a name currently perhaps he just goes by what the people call him, stranger, hunter...
I think he was a perhaps a priest once but long since gave up on the gods. I think he does feed off the living but unless first attacked, it’s not violent; it’s almost an offering? Now he is getting creep...not sure about that even as I right it...I like it but....hmmm.
Love to see what you can do with him.
Anyway, enjoy!
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I am caught between life and death, light and shadow.
Long ago when Elves were hidden away in the woods, and dwarves deep in the mountains, the world was still young and Man was little more than savages, my life was forever changed.
I was one of those men – one of those savages. I knew only to hunt and kill and cared very little for anything else. For the World of Man, such as I was, there was little else to the world but survival and hunting. The “tribe” I belonged to, was loosely even considered what most would call a “tribe” today. People came and went, so long as they provided for others in some way, they were a part of this tribe. But it was not uncommon for members of this tribe to depart and never be seen again or form their own tribes, in an effort to overpower other, weaker tribes.
The world was callous, brutal and savage – and so were the Race of Man who lived during that time.
During a hunting expedition, I found several wolves, lying in a circle – their insides ripped from their bodies in a grotesque display. However, in the epicenter of the carnage lay a man, like I had never seen before. Unlike myself, who was adorned in furs that I’d skinned from kills, holding a primitive dagger, forged from a sabretooth’s fang – this man, laid there in clothing of fine leathers, and on his belt, a dagger that seemed to glisten in the pale, moon light.
My instinct had told me to run – because if this man adorned in strange clothing – had somehow slain eight wolves and tore out their innards – this man, though he looked to be dying – was far more dangerous than any Man or animal I’d ever encountered.
He spoke – in words I could not understand – but they were somehow soothing and welcoming. I could not understand the words he spoke – and yet somehow I understood in my mind, the concept of ‘a gift’ to be bestowed upon me. I approached, my primitive dagger clenched tightly in my hand, towards the dying man. As I kneeled close, he suddenly sat up with surprising speed and I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my neck.
Had he bitten me?
Instinctively, I reached for the dagger that had been on his belt, for the shock of his movement and his bite upon my neck, had flung my arm back, and my own primitive dagger had flown from my hands. With his dagger in my hand now, I plunged it repeatedly into his chest, and still he bit. I could feel my own life ebbing from my body, as my eyes began to roll to the back of my head – but I never stopped plunging his dagger into his chest.
I blacked out.
When I awoke, there was snow everywhere. I sat up, surprised. It’d been the hot day of summer when he had bit me. I reached for my neck and the blood was dry. Around me, the corpses of the wolves were now decayed, most of them picked apart by other scavenging animals. Yet none of the scavengers had come for me? Why?
When I returned to where my “tribe” had remained, deep in the caves, I discovered they were gone. There was no evidence of where they’d gone. Perhaps the cold winter had driven them out and they had found shelter elsewhere?
I wandered aimlessly, seemingly blacking out from time to time, coming in and out of consciousness even as I walked. I am eventually found by another tribe, who takes me in, having found me face down near the river. Over the many years, I take many lovers, and that is when I notice that everyone around me is growing older, but I am not aging. I am the same. Countless suns set on the horizon, hundreds, if not thousands – and yet, I never age. My lovers bare children. My children age and die before I even seem to turn a day older.
They become suspicious of me – fearful of me. So I move on. Find another tribe. Take on many lovers, bare many children, and the same thing happens. This goes on for years upon years – back then we never counted the days or the years.
Unsure of what I have become, and what has happened to me, I venture into a cave that is known for its endless caverns. I hope to get lost here and die, because I cannot keep living the way I am, and yet I cannot seem to find the will to take my own life.
I crave something I do not understand. I feel weak. Perhaps, finally I can die. I lie down next to an underwater lake and wait for death – who seems to have forgotten me – to come find me and sweep me away from this life.
My eyes close. I open them to the sound of loud pounding. I arise and look around. The sound echoes through the cavern and I climb and find my way out. I am shocked to see that the woods that once covered these woods are all but gone and wooden buildings have sprung up everywhere.
When I walk through the town – everyone is looking at me oddly. I am adorned in my leathers that have not aged gracefully and are all but falling apart. But it is summer again, somehow, and the furs were only to fight the cold. The people of this town are all adorned in clothing similar to the man I had found wounded – the one that bit me.
Are they all like him?
I am taken and placed in a cage where someone comes to visit me, speaking with words I do not understand, but words that sound like the words the man who had bitten me used. Unable to communicate, they released me – but my curiosity would not let me leave. I lingered and listened, and discovered some of their more common words and phrases – I also discovered what it was that I craved – it’d been blood. No longer did I crave meat, but rather the blood of meat.
As the years seem to go by quickly for them, time remains ever slow for me. I watch this small town grow in size and population. They people who met me have come and gone, lived and died, and all the while I learn from them. I remain silent at first, and I learn the word “Mute” which is what they call me – it’s a name I adopt for awhile. In truth, I do not speak, because my words are growls and snarls, and I am still learning their tongue.
By the time the small town has blossomed into a larger city, the wood replaced by stone buildings, I’ve learned many more words and speak more frequently. Among them, I am “The Great Hunter” is what they call me – using my heightened sense, my fearlessness, and experience to hunt and bring food to the city. I am employed and given coin. My title earns me the affection and attention of many – some of whom share a bed with me. But I’ve learned. Do not stay. When they begin to get older, I disappear during one of the hunts, and they believe me dead. And it remains that way. I live on my own for many, many moons – before returning to the city where no one knows me, and I can once again, become the hunter.
The city’s growth also attracts the attention of other creatures – and I take great pleasure in hunting and killing them. There’s some sense in me that when I hunt, I am the most alive – for lack of a better word, for I have come to understand, that the day I was bit in the neck – I was no longer alive, nor dead. My flesh is still warm as any human’s, but I am not the same person. Whoever or whatever it was that had bitten me changed me forever – and when I hunt – perhaps because that’s what I was originally – as a savage – a hunter, a gather, a protector – it brings me back to the core of what I once was – and that is where I find the most peace.
I’ve learned the words – they call it “The Common Tongue” – and I socialize, and people now flock to me, when I speak of stories – but though many seek my attention and affection – around them, when I stop speaking, when I stop thinking of hunting – my mind becomes a mess. I have seen too many lives come and go, outlived so many whom I have loved and hated by hundreds of years now, sleeping in the “Endless Echo Caves” nearby when I need to “die during one of my hunts” – that I’ve forgotten the names of my many sons and daughters, and with whom they’d been with. It becomes clear, when I speak of anything other than hunting, that my mind is not clear – and I try to explain it away by saying I’d taken a hard hit from a massive bear, once – that rattled my brain.
Lying, it’s a new concept to me – as a primal savage, so long ago – there was no need to lie. We were like animals who just hunted and survived. Now in this more “civilized” world, there is need for deception and it is odd to think the more civilized we become the more potential for evil exists in us to do.
One of the scholars who comes to hear my stories takes an interest in me, and shares his library with me – and he speaks of how long ago, this land was home to a vicious vampire – when the land was still unexplored here in this region. As he describes what this Lord Vampire was like, I now realize that was who had bitten me centuries ago.
Now I try to find my place in the world – hunting is what I do best.
And I wonder how long it will be, before I will need to go into hiding, yet again, because I do not know how to tell those around me, the truth of what I am.