Post by maljra on Jan 24, 2009 0:42:50 GMT -7
The Handler
Name: Brother Mikel Jonas Blackstone
Nickname: Brother, Father, Preacher, Holy Man, and just about anything you can call a member of the church. Only a few people have ever called him Caliban. None have lived.
Classification: Cambion
Gender: Male
Age & Birthday: roughly 25, birthday unknown to him (March 3rd 1983).
Appearance: Mikel stands at a decent 6 feet tall. His athletic frame is on the softer side of trim, nothing really muscularly defined. He weighs in at roughly 190lbs. He has short brown hair that is neatly combed to the side with a matching neatly trimmed goatee. His cobalt blue eyes further enhance the almost supernatural quality of his appearance. He walks with a subtle limp on his right leg, which he had since childhood. He has no tattoos, because they are extremely frowned upon in the Catholic religion. He carries no scars, save for one. On his right leg on his upper thigh, a ragged scar goes from just at the top of his knee, up his thigh, to his hip.
There is a subtly about his overall physical appearance. Something that pulls people's attention towards him. It's hard to actually say what it is but he just seems to capture ones focus. It might be how his slightly tanned skin seems to catch the sun just right, or his deep blue eyes that can seemingly shimmer in the sunshine. It could even be a certain something about the way he holds himself that gives off the air of calmness and peace. People just gravitate towards him. His face is caring and concerned, always ready to give his advice on a situation. His physique is not toned for strength, but he appears strong
Attire: Brother Mikel always wears a dark colored cassock that was homemade, but looks very fine. Only on closer inspection could one see it is not a real cassock. He replicated the vestment from the religious magazines his mother received. The outfit is meticulously clean and is rarely seen with any dirt or dust upon it. The black buttons are made of black alabaster he carved himself. He wears black trousers with a black leather belt under his cassock and a white dress shirt. He wears dress shoes to complete this outfit, shining them to a mirror shine everyday. With his shoes, he wears black dress socks.
When out in public Mikel will wear a large black leather duster over the cassock. The duster is a little worn at the bottom, but in otherwise good condition. Besides the cassock, he wears no religious symbols. Any other time, he usually wears his dark slacks and shirt sleeves. In colder climate, he wears a blue muffler and black leather gloves. He wears no jewelry.
The Creation
Name: Brother Mikel Blackstone
Power List:
1. Power of suggestion
2. The Winds of Morpheus
Detailed Power:
Power of Suggestion: Power of Suggestion: The Cambion are well known for their power of suggestion. When a Cambion puts a thought into the head of mortal they tend to act on it. This is not mind control by any means. A person might not act on the commands or might even forget about them all together. They are only suggestions. Mikel is no exception and has developed it over the years. When Mikel decides a person needs to do something, he will start up a conversation. As he speaks and begins to lay the seeds of his evil, his voice takes on a distorted, almost superimposed quality. This effect culminates into a crazed frenzy until, at the climax, the command is implanted. His voice then slowly returns to normal and only he is aware of what happened.
When he uses this power, only he and his victim can hear the distortion. As soon as Brother Mikel issues the command his voice returns to normal and those effected forget the conversation and Mikel. The commands bury themselves into the mind of the victims. All it need is the trigger. This power greatly weakens Mikel if used on more then one or two victims at a time. Microphones, bullhorns, video, or any similar electronic equipment can amplify his power. All he needs is something to carry his voice.
The Winds of Morpheus: The inherent nature of the Incubi/and Succubi is that of lustful pleasures. Sleep is deeply tied to the nature of an Incubi/and Succubi. Some legends tell that one could simply walk into a room and exude and unnaturally long breath that with in seconds sends all those present into a deep sleep, unable to wake as long as the demon stands over them. Mikel through simple lucky genetics has inherited a weakened version of this. If he breathes into a sealed room with about 5 people they will fall asleep for about 15 minutes, unable to be awaken. Should he actually breath into someones face and airway they will sleep for 1 hour also unable to be awakened.
The Potential
Alignment/Occupation: unaffiliated
Weapons: A pure silver ceremonial dagger, which was his mothers. Aside from this he has what he considers his most powerful weapon; his withered leather bound bible.
Personality: Brother Mikel appears as extremely pious man. His faith and zeal allows him to fear little. He is a powerful orator and an extremely convincing man. His presence can be felt by all who are within his voice. He always put on a face of relaxation and extreme control. No one has ever remembered him showing any other emotion.
The only time the man ever seems shaken is when he hears the sound of church bells. There is something about them that always seem to agitate him. He avoids most churches for this reason alone. He prefers to preach to his flock in the abandoned barn he grew up in. He has 68 members in his flock… though… his flock is just as strange as he is. Seeing as they are all mannequins. When he was young he would sneak out and steal them to keep him company. He has an infatuation with mannequins because he perceives them as models of religious perfection like he wished he could be.
He has a mild case of paranoid delusions, causing him to see or hear things that are not there. He perceives the voices and sights as his father trying to tempt him. Secretly, he knows what he is and he loathes himself for it. Raised as a religious child, the thought of being a demon tears at him daily. Slowly, he has been spiraling deeper into a very dark place, a place complimentary to what he is.
To others he comes off as a well educated man of the cloth with a bit of eccentricity splashed in here and there. No one can see the evil that dwells behind those eyes of his. And those who do witness the evil are not long for this world, or they end up becoming a part of that evil. The darkness is growing, his disdain for what he is enrages him. He has been having a harder and harder time holding it back. He clings to his bible and his faith as a center, a rock so to speak. But he is no preacher, no man of God, and he knows it. The cassock and bible are only a weakening facade holding back his true, malevolent nature. Deep down, his darker side allows him to act with no sense of recourse.
Skills: Mikel knows the books that make up the bible by heart in English, Latin, and Italian. He is fluent in English and Italian, and knows a bit of Latin. On his many mannequin collecting trips as a young adult, he has learned to be stealthy, aware, and quick. He also has basic burglary skills such as lock picking and slight of hand. While not physically strong, he has good stamina and a high pain threshold. He posses many odd skills such as sewing, cooking, leather working, and nature survival. His knowledge is patch worked with plant biology, chemistry, and homeopathic medicine. He gleaned all of these skills from the many books he has read over his lifetime.
Strengths: Mikel's main strengths are his commanding presence and intelligence. He is also a mildly imposing figure and powerful speaker. He is a master of his emotions and can control them to show whatever face he needs to. He has a level of calmness honed from years of focus and meticulous concentration. He can push the world around him aside and focus in on the task before him. He could be reading in the middle of a war zone and not be distracted.
Weaknesses: In hand to hand battle, he can hold his own for only a short time. He lacks the brute strength to do any major damage to his opponent. Due to his childhood revelation on what he is, he has developed a paranoia and fear of church bells. When hearing them, it is the only time he ever seems to loose control of his emotions. His other major hindrance is his genetic mental illness. He suffers from paranoid delusions passed on to him from his mother. The limp in his leg makes it hard for him to run and makes walking a bit of a difficulty. The scent of Sandalwood attracts his kind. Should he smell it he disregards all things including something he was doing in purist of the smell.
His dark side is his biggest hindrance. He spends to much trying to hold it back. Trying to hide behind his bible is getting him no where. Pretending to be a catholic preacher will only continue to drive him crazy. His biggest fear is what would happen if he just let it all out.
The Story
History: For Mikel his life started long before conception. As a cambion, quite a bit of effort was put into his creation. Because succubae and incubi are unable to properly conceive a child they need to work together to create an offspring. The succubus collects what she needs, passes it to an incubus, who then uses it to create the child within the woman he is using at the time.
This process is how little Mikel was brought into the world. He was born to a mother in the bible belt of America. He was born in a small farming town in the southwestern part of Kansas. She lived on a run down farm with about two acres of land and a huge barn left to her by her deceased parents. She worked as a nurse at a hospital two towns over. His mother was not as religiously driven as most in that area and loose in her affections. She liked to try different things, and had even began to dabble in witchcraft. That's why his mother was so easily taken by the incubus.
All she wanted was to find that perfect man. She had given up on dating, all the men in the area were either married or too stupid for her to take an interest in. She used what she knew of witchcraft to try and call the perfect man to her. Then she met Clancy. He had an unearthly power about him that she just could not resist. Their romance was a thunderous affair lasting for only two months. The day after Mikel was conceived Clancy up and disappeared leaving his mother alone. Nine months, later little Mikel was brought into this world.
When a cambion is born they do not breath, they do not eat, they appear dead. Michelle, Mikel's mother, was so distraught to find the child she has carried for nine months was still-born. She cried for hours with the baby in her arms. She had given birth by herself in her car on the way to the hospital. She finally stopped her crying and when she moved to try and drive herself to the hospital, he moved and then cried. It was a miracle! But he still did not breath, and this frightened Michelle. She thought the doctors would take her baby to study him, so she went home.
For the first seven years, Mikel bundled away. Michelle was paranoid about her non-breathing son. She hid him away from anyone who would come to visit. When he could walk, he was still kept inside until he was about four. About this time, he discovered the barn. He would sit at the hay door of the barn all day, hollow eyes watching the nearby town. He would not move until the sun sank. Then he would begin to pace around the little farm until he was tired and returned to the loft to sleep and start the process all over the next day. He had always been a source of anxiety for Michelle. He did not act or look like a normal toddler. His eyes where dark pools of black, skin cold to the touch, and even in the coldest night he gave off no breath. He would not eat.
Pacing the property endlessly, or the morbid and evil noises that resonated from the barn, and the endless staring with those dark eyes. She came to realize her miracle baby was not a blessing, but a damnation. She grew more frightened of him as the years passed. She could not sleep. She had found him standing by her bed several times, even after she had locked the door. She wrote all her fears and thoughts down in a journal that he would find later. Sometimes, she would wish he would just wither and die.
She would pray to any god she could think of to take the evil from him, but still the child persisted and would not die. She blamed herself for what he was. She tried different religions to try and purge the evil from him. She prayed to the Hindu gods, created elaborate alters to Buddha, worshiped Muhammad. Nothing seemed to work. Not even her brief brush with witchcraft a second time. She had moved to Catholicism when something changed in him.
It was during a thunder storm, Michelle was reading the bible, a rosary in her hands. She had collected information about Catholicism and it seemed promising. Thunder raged and she thought she heard a voice. The front door opened and Mikel rushed to her, crying for his mother. She was shocked, never hearing him speak to her in such a fashion. Since that night, she had become a devout Catholic. Slowly life started to seep into him. Color began to appear in his skin. His eyes grew lighter and the child began to eat. She felt as though her prayers had been answered. He finally became the child that Michelle always wanted. The child actually had life in him. Michelle never noticed that these changes happened after he had turned seven years old.
For months after his change, he would still stay to the barn, no matter how Michelle would try and keep him in the house. Finally, she let it go and helped move his furniture to the barn. For some reason the boy felt attached to the barn. He wanted to stay there and his mother was all to happy to let him. Slowly the child took to the barn, turning it into a home. It was at this time he started his education. She taught him reading and writing, starting with his name. She taught him to spell Michael, but he could not (or would not). He spelled it Mikel and she left it as it was.
She did not worry about hiding the boy because he would rarely leave the barn as it is. She also did not want to explain where the child came form. She worked hard to keep her pregnancy hidden, a single mother in that area was a pariah. During the first years of his life, Michelle did not work. They lived off the small inheritance she was left by her parents. As he grew older and his thirst for learning and books had almost drained her bank account, she went back to work as a night shift nurse at the hospital she had worked at years before.
During the day, she taught him what she knew, or drove to different towns to used book stores to build up his library. She would also bring him old magazines from the waiting rooms at the hospital. He learned everything he knows from books and the magazines. Sewing, cooking, agriculture, language, art, even history. Books were everything to him. He rarely left the barn. All he did was read, eat, sleep and read some more.
As Mikel finally became a normal child, or the best he could be, she began to teach him about God and Catholicism. He took to religion like a fish to water. He would spend his entire day studying the bible. By the time he was ten, he had memorized the entire bible in English and almost half in Latin. This frenzy of learning for God made Michelle proud and relieved. Maybe the evil would not return because the light of God killed the darkness. For his 11th birthday, she bought him a bible blessed by the Pope. She had saved for it since she saw his love of the church. With it came several magazines dedicated to the church life. The magazines interested him. The thing that saddened him was that they were in Italian. He spent the next four months translating them with the use of an English-Italian dictionary and an ‘Introduction to Italian’ course book. Once he learned the basic structure of the language he continued to teach himself the language through translating Italian novels. Michelle brought him ‘How to Speak Italian’ records to further his education.
He discovered his gift for suggestion one day when he asked his mother for a particular book. He was probably 12 at the time. When his mother brought him his lunch, he had a list of books that he wanted. She told him that his book allowance for the month had been used up. He tried to widdle down the list to the book her really wanted, but she still said no. He asked again, and as he did, his voice became distorted and slightly malicious. He noticed she paused and was dazed, and he continued asking in the same voice. He slowly stopped and as his voice returned to normal, she seemed returned to normal, unaware that anything had happened. But, the next day, he awoke to a brand new copy of the book resting next to his bed. He never received new books. They had always been used. The thought of this new gift scared him and he did not use it again for a long period of time.
Aside from the bible Mikel loved Shakespeare. His collection of books numbers in the hundreds. He would burn through books daily. He only slowed his reading down when a copy of Shakespeare's The Tempest fell across his lap. No person has ever shaken his faith so much as the character of Caliban. Mikel read The Tempest and became intrigued with the character. Caliban had the strange ability to influence people with his words and often leaned towards evil deeds. Mikel too had a strange gift of influence over people as well as evil thoughts. He found that he and Caliban where in ways similar. He never met his father, so who knows what he was. That is when Mikel began to worry that he is not a normal child but in fact something more sinister.
When he was 16, he noticed his mother had stopped going to work. She had spent the last few months of her life at home. He studied her illness and found that she suffered from a debilitation hereditary mental illness known as Huntington's Disease, it was slowly shutting down her system. His belief in God started to waver as he prayed for her. As she grew sicker, he felt his belief cracking. How could God do this to her when He has saved Mikel?
Upon her death bed she told him: "You are different Mikel, and not in a good way. Do not let the darkness consume you…”
This destroyed him, he had finally got the conformation that he was not human. He quickly buried her behind the barn. He then started to pack. He planed to leave this place that he felt was no longer his home. He started with the house, packing the kitchen and living room, and as he finished his mother’s room, he found his mother's old journal. He as he read it, anger swelled within him and he vowed to throw it into the fireplace, until he read the last entry.
April 17, 1990.
It would seem that that God forsaken monster continues to run rampant around the barn. Oh God, take him away. I have tried everything short of taking a rock to his skull. I have run through every thing I could think of to try and make him a normal child. I have prayed and sacrificed to every god I could think of. The only thing left is Catholics. I bought a Catholic Bible and rosary. It’s raining tonight, really storming…
There was a break in the writing, a pen mark like she was startled in her writing and then:
Oh thank you, God. He called me mother today. I guess You work in mysterious ways after all. I have decided to raise him Catholic. Hopefully, through God and prayer, he will be alleviated from what he is.
His rage slowly faded to guilt. He became raked with guilt at what he was. He began to feel he is the reason why his mother died. He internalized much of his emotions. This period of time was when his dark side grew from thoughts into feelings. This was the low point in his life.
A few weeks after she died, a man came to check on his mother. It was a doctor from where she had worked. Mikel didn‘t know this man that snooped around his home. As the man came through the barn, Mikel jumped on him and, with a rusty trowel, stabbed the man to death. Mikel dragged the man out, a task that took him almost all day and half the night, and dumped his body in a neighboring field. A day later the police came to investigate after the body was discovered, but they found nothing. Mikel had cleaned up the blood on the barn’s dirt floor then hid in the loft. They left the property, thinking that Michelle had left, but since it was still in her name, they could not sell it or even touch it until they contacted her.
Mikel was distraught as he came out of hiding and continued to live on his own. He was haunted with thoughts of the man he killed, unsure of why he had done it. Maybe he just wanted to see if he was capable of it. He tried to distract himself. He started to live in the house, unable to be in the barn for very long now. He used his knowledge of agriculture to get part of the farm going so he would have food to eat.
He began to study other religions, feeling God had turned his face from Mikel. He first studied other sects of Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Islam, Voodoo, and ultimately Paganism. He was unsurprised to find the books he learned these subjects from in his mothers room after reading her journal. When he finally took up the book of Paganism, he found it just as worn as the book about Catholicism. It seemed, as he went back to her journals before he was born, she had dabbled in what could be called witchcraft. She had tried spells and rituals. One was to call a supernatural creature called an incubus. His mother wrote about Clancy in the same period of time. The journal was very detailed about Clancy and Mikel was intrigued and a little frightened as he began to realize what his mother had done.
With that Mikel set out and began to research Incubi and their offspring. Around 17, he had learned all he could about the cambion, and what he was. It frightened him. Was he human? Was he a monster? He stopped looking to other religions and returned to Catholicism. He hoped that by returning to a familiar lifestyle he could suppress the evil. Over these years he returned to studying the bible and other religious works so that he could turn into a priest and hopefully gain atonement.
By 18, he decided he had studied and learned all he could and now was time to teach. So he set to work refurnishing the barn into a proper church, scavenging materials from the depilated farm house. He even found enough cloth to sew a proper cassock for him to wear, based of the ones he saw in the old magazines from Rome. Knowing what he was, he found it hard to be faithful. He thought, becoming the most faithful, a priest, he could hold onto what little humanity he thought he had left. But there was a problem as he got ready to open his new church.
He had been reclusive all his life. He spoke to only his mother for the first 17 years of his life. He had spoken to a few officials since his mother passed. They had come out to the farm when they noticed him in the fields. He told them he was a cousin, staying on the farm while Michelle was away. They believed him readily enough, he found, not asking any deeper questions. They seemed to hang on his every word. That aside, the towns folk didn’t know him. No one really knew him. He was a nothing. No birth certificate, social security card, ID, or passport. Nothing. He was a nobody. Until he created himself an identity. He picked the name Blackstone as a surname. Now he was Mikel Blackstone, preacher of God.
He spent the next two years slowly integrating into society. At first taking walks around the rim of the near-by city, and slowly spending more time deeper in the city. His good looks and natural affinity for speaking helped him fit in well. Many locals asked him where he preached, but he would tell them he was new in town and has yet to find a place of his own. But he did have a place of his own. The barn he grew up in.
He did not want a congregation of humans. On his walks and in his books, he found them weak willed. He knew the temptation would be too great to lead them astray. He settled on the next best thing. Mannequins. They where silent and attentive, but best of all they lacked any ability to judge. So over the years he would sneak out to the city at night and steal a mannequin or two from a warehouse full of them, dressing them up and bringing them to his barn, where he gave nightly sermons. His collection now stands at 68 devoted members.
In the recent year, he had become restless with his flock. They had become too attentive and too pious. While at the same time the dark thoughts have began to fester and grow stronger. He stood at his podium, and as he looked out over the plastic faces of his congregation, began to wish they were real. Then he could have fun. His resolve has began to weaken. His pillar of faith crumbling as he began to hone his power of suggestion. His walks through the city have allowed him to practice his power. With his growing power, he had started ventured further from home. His faith guiding him, leading him to preach to the homeless and well-to-do alike. He has adventured into all manners of establishments. Surprisingly the only place he avoids are churches. The ringing of chapel bells have never sat well with him. He feels that their ringing is God condemning him at every turn.
Recently, he began to grow tired of middle America. He felt he had done all the good he could do in his small city. The darkness within him nagging at him, his other-worldliness will always set him apart. He started looking for those like himself.
?
. Anyway, approved on my end and Abe will come by when he can to give his opinion.