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Entry tags:
The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb
Canon: Classic World of Darkness // Vampire: The Masquerade // Ghoul: Fatal Addiction
Name: Ragnar Solvér Eriksson (Rasmus Jansson // Ryan Butler // Mago - he's used various names over the years. Solvér is an earned byname, Erik was his father's name)
World: Just like our world, only shittier, with supernatural stuff that most humans don't know about.
Timeframe/Location: From a few years BC to about 1870 AD and then again throughout most of the 20th century he's based in (central-ish) Sweden, though he can reasonably have been anywhere where a Scandinavian/Viking/Sweden may have gone and perhaps a bit further. In the decades around 1900 he can be found in London and then North America, and at the end of the 20th century he is at the North American West Coast
Age: Looks like he's in his early twenties
Race: Ghoul, a kind of enhanced human. Specifically he's enhanced by/addicted to drinking vampire blood, which grants him immortality, a few superhuman abilities including healing, and superhuman strength. It also gives him dangerous fits of uncontrollable rage and vampire blood makes you be madly in love with the donor.
Occupation: Various, though he'll always consider himself Odin's priest first no matter what he's doing for a day job.
Other notes of interest:
- [after the end of the Viking Age:] He owns a ghouled (= immortal) dog, Emil (Swedish Vallhund, m), whom he tries to keep around when he can because he is a source of stability.
- History.
- People in his life.
Information for the canon familiar
Status: Independent from ~1800 onwards and during the height of the Inquisition
Original domitor: Odin (Gangrel Methuselah)
Abstract: He considered the vampire who ghouled him a god long before being ghouled, and after said vampire went into torpor never stopped believing that. His understanding of the world/Kindred society is warped to adjust to this. High level fanatic Norse pagan priest who can act like a reasonable person quite well.
Disciplines: Potence (3), Protean (5 [down to 3 sometime after 1800]), Animalism (1), Fortitude (2), Presence (2), Celerity (1), Auspex (2)
> Nature: Fanatic
> Demeanour: Survivor
> Knows a very solid amount about Kindred society, but in his mind it has a weird overlap that makes him also see Kindred as gods (or demigods, opponent deities, etc). The first informs the survivor side of his interactions with Kindred, the second informs the fanatic side of it. In a roundabout way he thinks of himself as some kind of paladin.
> Has considered it his job ever since the All-High vanished to be prepared for his return by gathering information on the developments among humans and among Kindred, being able to use useful new developments like cars and mobile phones and trying to stay connected in the Norse pagan scene in Scandinavia and abroad.
> Pretty emotional, obviously.
Name: Ragnar Solvér Eriksson (Rasmus Jansson // Ryan Butler // Mago - he's used various names over the years. Solvér is an earned byname, Erik was his father's name)
World: Just like our world, only shittier, with supernatural stuff that most humans don't know about.
Timeframe/Location: From a few years BC to about 1870 AD and then again throughout most of the 20th century he's based in (central-ish) Sweden, though he can reasonably have been anywhere where a Scandinavian/Viking/Sweden may have gone and perhaps a bit further. In the decades around 1900 he can be found in London and then North America, and at the end of the 20th century he is at the North American West Coast
Age: Looks like he's in his early twenties
Race: Ghoul, a kind of enhanced human. Specifically he's enhanced by/addicted to drinking vampire blood, which grants him immortality, a few superhuman abilities including healing, and superhuman strength. It also gives him dangerous fits of uncontrollable rage and vampire blood makes you be madly in love with the donor.
Occupation: Various, though he'll always consider himself Odin's priest first no matter what he's doing for a day job.
Other notes of interest:
- [after the end of the Viking Age:] He owns a ghouled (= immortal) dog, Emil (Swedish Vallhund, m), whom he tries to keep around when he can because he is a source of stability.
- History.
- People in his life.
Information for the canon familiar
Status: Independent from ~1800 onwards and during the height of the Inquisition
Original domitor: Odin (Gangrel Methuselah)
Abstract: He considered the vampire who ghouled him a god long before being ghouled, and after said vampire went into torpor never stopped believing that. His understanding of the world/Kindred society is warped to adjust to this. High level fanatic Norse pagan priest who can act like a reasonable person quite well.
Disciplines: Potence (3), Protean (5 [down to 3 sometime after 1800]), Animalism (1), Fortitude (2), Presence (2), Celerity (1), Auspex (2)
> Nature: Fanatic
> Demeanour: Survivor
> Knows a very solid amount about Kindred society, but in his mind it has a weird overlap that makes him also see Kindred as gods (or demigods, opponent deities, etc). The first informs the survivor side of his interactions with Kindred, the second informs the fanatic side of it. In a roundabout way he thinks of himself as some kind of paladin.
> Has considered it his job ever since the All-High vanished to be prepared for his return by gathering information on the developments among humans and among Kindred, being able to use useful new developments like cars and mobile phones and trying to stay connected in the Norse pagan scene in Scandinavia and abroad.
> Pretty emotional, obviously.
History
And then imagine that god leaving. Being defeated and orphaning you, and then in quick succession his whole host of demigods leaving along with them, and your land falling into the hands of the evil spawn that caused their downfall. You keep fighting, somehow, preying upon the fringes of their host, careful because you might be a powerful human, but in the end that is what you are, and you are only one person now, your family and your gods gone and six feet under...
And you can feel the love slipping, feel the fervour dull. But faithless are those that say farewell when the road darkens, aren't they? You keep preying at the fringes of the enemy, keep trying to support what you can keep of the Old Way, and the love turns into something else no less fanatic. You can't bring your gods back, but you can wait for them and try to keep the path for their return as even as possible.
They will wake, one day.
You just have to wait.
You gather intelligence, support what you can of humans who keep to the Old Way. You serve a foreign goddess for a while, who was exiled by the same powers who tore apart your own gods, one worthy of your devotion while he who truly deserves it isn't around.
You only notice that you almost lost yourself and your purpose to her when she has to lay herself to rest as well. You swear to yourself to never again fall for this temptation and set out with your friend to wait in freedom.
It's a dangerous gamble, dancing between the whims of the gods, but you survive. And then you hear rumours. Your god's emissaries have returned. You tread carefully once more, offer them your spoils - intelligence, networks, your services - in return for being accepted back as their priest, the one performing what actions they cannot. A guard, an informant, a servant - really, it's no different from other priests.
They accept you back, and they might not trust you as they did once, but you don't mind; it is not them that you are waiting for, after all.
[This is how Ragnar would tell his story, anyway. Did I mention that he has issues with keeping religious fervour and what he actually knows about the world apart?
More neutrally narrated, his story goes roughly like this:
He was born a long time ago, only a few years before the Methuselah Odin arrived in Scandinavia. About fifteen years later, he was ghouled, which to him appeared as an initiation into priesthood. He never really deviated from that view after, no matter how much he eventually learned about Kindred society.
For a long time, he served Odin, gaining somewhat like respect from the vampires around him and becoming very close to indispensable in his position, with the specific abilities that a ghoul brings along, so he was neither used as cannon fodder nor embraced. He married, twice, and had a number of children (and grandchildren, etc), some of whom were turned into ghouls themselves eventually.
He lost all of his blood family and all of his gods, and his purpose and source of vitae besides, when the Christians invaded Scandinavia - in the Kindred world it was an invasion, fought bitterly between the pagan Gangrel affiliated with Odin on the one and mostly Ventrue and some Toreador on the other side. During the end of the war, he was pulled into the actual fighting, and for a good long while after the Gangrel who didn't convert had died or gone into torpor, he just kind of continued, preying on the edges of the new "gods" to get vitae, considering himself something of a lone guerilla priest fighting the good fight.
During the Inquisition, he met Hanno, ghoul to a Brujah Methuselah, and as the Inquisition drew to a close, he came into the service of said Brujah, a woman names Zyabqot. He served her for a few centuries until she was injured gravely and sank into torpor at the end of the 18th century.
After this, he became truly independent, but stuck together with Hanno. He supported what pagan belief he could find, established a network in these circles, became a lot less picky about whom he preyed on and used his knowledge of them to still mingle with Kindred and keep himself up to date in their dealings. And did his best to keep up with the world.
So when the Valkyries returned, he had quite a number of things to offer them, and they knew him - they didn't necessarily trust him but acknowledged that his loyalty still lay with the All-High (and really, their fanaticism aligned) and their goals aligned. And having a ghoul as capable as him was useful.
When they sent four of theirs to America to pick up followers there, he was the ghoul who made sure that the journey didn't meet any bumps on the way and who followed along with them after, too. His relationship with the new recruits is... ambiguous, because yes, they have ascended to demi-godhood on the right side of the pantheon, the first in many centuries, but they are also weak little fledgelings. What do you do with a god that you could, in theory, fairly easily have for dinner?]