Description
Name: Valentine Gilmore
Age: 254 (born 1761, turned 1783)
Monster: Vampire
Strengths / Weaknesses:
+ telekinesis / + fast healing / + shapeshifts into a bat
- requires blood regularly or he'll fall into a comatose state / - sunlight / - can't cross running water by himself
Heritage: Deliberately turned through a vampire’s bite.
Diet: Human blood
Gender: Male
Height: 1.79 m | 5’10
Weight: 70 kg
Personality:
Positive: Fair | Disciplined | Gallant | Liberal | Romantic
Negative: Stiff | Reserved | Demanding |Melancholic | Self-centred
Harmony and order is what Valentine seeks most in life. While he has a clear and often somewhat old-fashioned view on things, he thinks that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and should live life as they see fit – as long as nobody else is hurt. He is polite and treats people with respect, but in turn expects a similar treatment. Loud and informal personalities he finds exhausting and puts great emphasis on keeping his personal space – an attribute that mixed with his formality and his wish to appear sophisticated at all times can make him appear rather cold and unapproachable. He does enjoy spending time among others, however and seeks familiar social environments where he can let his hair down among those dear to him.
Valentine had always been fascinated with music and art and loves dabbling in either in one way or another. He is easily captivated by ‘beautiful’ things, be it scenery, man-made objects or people and is – despite his stoic exterior – capable of intense emotions. Finding the idea of public displays of those quite frightening, he is likely to bottle them up and, if no other outlet can be found, grow frustrated and depressed. During such seldom periods, he loses his drive and neglects things and people he usually cares about in favour of picking himself up again.
Despite such melancholy, he is diligent about tasks he is assigned and always tries to perform according to his own, rather high, expectations. While he is tolerant of different opinions, he finds it hard to work with people whose work ethic doesn’t match up with his own and will - albeit grudgingly - pull through with a procrastinating team member’s load of work to fulfil their cause.
Background: Valentine was born as the son of a musician at the French court and spend a comfortable childhood marked by a thorough musical education so he could one day follow into his father’s footsteps or – as his parents hoped – even become the crown’s next maître de chapelle. He indeed showed profound talent and passion for playing several instruments and composing his own scores and joined the court orchestra as soon as he was of appropriate age. He met his demise during a soirée when he was approached by a guest who has had an eye on him for quite some while, as she proclaimed and, quite surprisingly, lunged herself at him the very next moment to suck his blood. Instead of letting her victim die, however, she turned him into a vampire companion for herself. What followed for Valentine was an (involuntary) introduction to the supernatural realm and endless traveling across Europe as to never leave behind a trace of his or his mistress’s victims. They eventually settled over to Britain following the restlessness of the Napoleonic Wars and the differences that had been present in their relationship from the start grew more and more apparent. While his mistress was a capricious, violent and thrill seeking character, Valentine was quiet and traditional and with the progress of time couldn’t live up to her ever changing expectations. Eventually growing bored, she abandoned him sometime in the 1820s. For twenty years or so, Valentine led a rather solitary and quiet life with little contact to humans and vampires alike. As the human population fled out of the country into large, industrial cities, he relocated to London for better chances at hunting, but soon realized that he wasn’t alone: A larger vampire conclave resided there and in soon time he became part of it.
While the conclave largely retreated to the supernatural realm when not hunting following the two World Wars, Valentine enjoyed prolonged stays in the human world during the 1970s especially when he returned to commercial music making and came to unexpected fame as the leader of a rock band. Facing the invention of the synthesizer and its introduction to mainstream music, he saw himself so disgusted with the vile tunes of the instrument that he declared music dead and retreated into the supernatural realm as well. Despite over 30 year having passed since that day, he is still considered most up to date with modern human behaviour in the conclave and was therefore chosen as their inquisitor.
Additional Information:
Frenemies with Alfred Roy for many years;
Mainly hunts in scene night clubs which rarely changed since his presence in the human world, but he has only a vague idea of what’s going on here besides that;
Quite dislikes killing people by draining them dry and usually prefers to collect the amount of blood he needs from several victims, but the thirst is difficult to control;
Dislikes dogs. A lot.