Osan'gar

“It has been said by some that vengeance is a dish best served cold. Others have said that when you pursue vengeance, you had best dig two graves for the errand will cost you your own life as well as the intended target of vengeance. I have found neither of these to be true. What I have found instead suggests that vengeance is an appetite that is seldom sated, and the more it is fed, the more ravenous it becomes. It is a hateful cycle of misdeed and recompense, where every slight must be corrected or bought off: money or blood. Every hurt is due just recompense.

This is the way of the world. But three-quarters of a millennium ago, what did I know of vengeance? I was nothing but a farm-lad in a large family, one of eight children and our family farm was pushed up against the Black Forest in Germany. It was a large piece of land as such things went and we were prosperous and industrious. It was here I learned the value of hard labor, planning, and how to hedge one’s bets. My father was a simple man, salt of the earth, but with a store of wisdom that would rival kings and cardinal’s alike – his lore about herbs, planting and growing, beasts and the woods had given rise to a well balanced man who thought much, worked hard, and expected everyone around him to do the same.

I was in my twentieth year when the disappearances began. Always at night, and the bodies were never found. I learned what was taking people though. One night I was out of a hunt and the creature found me. I felt it coming as a deep sense of dread gripped me, I felt like it was squeezing my heart and I knew some monster of the devil was at hand. Imagine my surprise when the woman emerged from the darkness. She was naked wearing scant clothing that revealed the pale beauty of her skin, the rondure of hip and breast. God, but she was beautiful. And terrifying.

We spoke, but I cannot remember what I said, nor what she said. I went home and told my family about the apparition in the woods that I had seen. The disappearances continued unabated until one night a council was held. The village decided that some monstrous beast was preying on the village and that the only way to appease it was to sacrifice to it in the old way like that which the pagan’s used to do. The question of who was to be sacrificed came up, and the argument began then. It raged for another hour before my elder brother stood up, and told the village about my encounter. For some reason, they decided that I was a fit sacrifice and since the monster woman had left me alive it must be because she wanted me to be offered properly.

I can remember the taste of my anger. Betrayed by my own brother. My father, bless him, protested but to no avail, led by the priest of the priest, I was stripped and bound to a stake. Watchers spread out through the clearing in which I was bound, weapons ready in order to slay the beast. They say that there is no such thing as an anger or a hatred which can kill, but as I shivered in the cold, I felt that hatred awake in my heart. I hurled profanities at those who were once my neighbors, and I raged against the bonds that held me.

Then She came. It started with the screaming. Men taken one by one, red blood splashed against virgin snow. She came, and one by one she killed them all. Then she came to stand before him, hot blood steaming against the ivory of her skin. Her voice in my head asked if I wished to share in this power, if I wanted the power to take vengeance into my own hands, and I did. I begged her for whatever power moved her, enabled her to kill so wantonly. She cut me free, and carried me away, and in the depths of a cave for a month, she fed from me. Fed from me, and changed me.

It took another year before I was ‘trained’ to her satisfaction. But after a long year of struggle, oh, how sweet were the screams of my former village. I killed them all, excepting my mother and my father. One by one, I piled their corpses in the center of town. When my parents had gone and my siblings were all slain, I burned everything.

The lesson I learned that day remains the same today: Revenge is a dish best served. Hot, Cold, it doesn’t matter so long as it is served up all the same

The Past

Osan'gar is vague about his past though he occasionally hints at the story of how he was created. He has been known on occasion to quote the bible and the Qu'ran, usually in the pursuit of one sin or another. The fact is that Osan'garis several steps divorced from humanity and is rather single-minded in the pursuit of his goals. Those goals change from century to century, but regardless of how they change they all seem to feed into a sort of overarching scheme that the vampire is enacting, or perhaps they each serve as components for something he is building. The only obvious pattern is that Osan'gar collects power and money. He attacks criminal organizations, dismantles them on occasion and then absorbs their pieces and redirects their efforts.

The question no one has ever been able to answer is why. Perhaps he simply enjoys the challenge of taking on criminals, or perhaps there are other factors at work and his efforts at building criminal enterprise are just one piece of it. Regardless, he has a reputation in the criminal underowlrd, world-wide, as being a man that can arrange anything for anyone, for a price. Sometimes called the concierge of crime, he makes deals with drug dealers, terrorists, arm's dealers, and other unsavory types, furnishing their needs no matter how exotic and collecting more money, power, and favors for his efforts.

The Present

Osan'gar was ensnared in Chicago by a wiley Necromancer, who took him as her servant without so much as a 'by-your-leave'. Because of the ties that bind him he could not lash out at the necromancer without risking more harm to himself and the servant's he'd bound. He acquiesced with what good grave remained to him, and sent for his protege and lover, Mesaana in ordeer to help quench the pain of being ensnared against his will. To make matters worse, his bear, the lycanthrope Ashrom Khan, began sleeping with the Necromancer and his fellow servant the necromancer's sister. When the bear lycanthrope impregnated both sisters, the vampire was tempted to try and sever those marks that bound him regardless of the consequences, to drag them all into Death out of pure spite.

Osan'gar's business in Chicago was soon wrapped up with a neighborhood destroyed, and a local criminal enterprise severely damaged. That was when the dreams started. Something, someone, was calling him to Denver. Unable to refuse the call, he brought himself and his enoutrage to Chicago, and was able to smile with satisfaction when the necromancer herself was bound as a servant to a power greater than herself.

Coaxed to live outside of Denver properly, he stews in his abode, drawn into the affairs of this 'demon' Aelianus and the Cauldron of Storms agaisnt his will, but there are opportunities for further power within its bounds, and so despite himself, Osan'gar is intrigued.

Personality

Osan'gar is an oddity. He uses his wealth and power in order to finance a subtle campaign of retribution - using the techniques, devices, and power of the wicked against the wicked in order to build himself up. Osan'gar considers himself to be an agent of fate, and a punisher of wicked deeds. He takes great satisfaction is destroying people, organizations, companies and governments that do evil things for evil reasons. In this sense, he is more monstrous than those he destroys, because he must be more monstrous in order to prevail. In this regard he is assissted by his emotional distance from humanity. His few remaining human drives are tied to his servants who keep him more human, and his enduring love affair with the vampire Mesaana.

Osan'gar is a cold person, and most of the time any warmth he demonstrates is feigned - part of his charm and his efforts to build. He is a conniver and a plotter, and every thing he does has been measured out, and consequences anticipated - seldom does he do anything that does not accomplish multiple goals or open up multiple options for him. He is intelligent, ruthless, and absolutely dedicated to the concept of mutual destruction.

His one other point of oddness, is his general view of vampires. Despite his own existence as a vampire he considers most of them little more than parasites since vampires became legal in the United States and believes that this will weaken his race, robbing the vampire of what gave them their edge, which helped them survive. He works, subtly, to create conflict between humans and vampires in order to break down the court ruling Addison v. Clarke. To that end, Osan'gar has ties with the Friends of Humanity and Human's First, as well as the Illuminati.

Avatars

Powers

• Blood Magic
• Sources: Blood, Necrotic Energies
• Techniques: Relocation, Destruction, Protection, Animation