Larten Crepsley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eightlegsofdestiny) wrote2012-03-27 12:13 pm
eightlegsofdestiny) wrote2012-03-27 12:13 pm
Entry tags:
abax application
player information.
name: Nekky
are you over 18?: Yes, 22.
personal dw:nekky
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc:
AIM: xnecronomical
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nekky
characters in abax: N/A
in character information.
series: The Saga of Darren Shan (also the prequel series focusing on Larten's past, The Saga of Larten Crepsley).
name: Larten Crepsley, alias Vur Horston
age: 221 (Actual, exact age unknown.)
sex: Male
race: Vampire
weight: 156 lbs
height: 6'2"
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: Impalement and immolation. Place of death: Cavern of Retribution.
canon point: His death at the end of book 9, Killers of the Dawn.
previous cr: N/A
history:
Larten Crepsley was born somewhere undisclosed in Europe, to a poor couple some time in the early 1800s. Larten was one of seven children, though two died young and his fourteen year old sister was married off, something his parents were grateful for because "she wasn't an especially hard worker and never brought in much money". Also living with the family was Larten's cousin, more like a brother to him for how close they were, a scrap of a child named Vur Horston. Larten was highly protective of Vur; they were nearly attached at the hip, and they worked at a silk factory together to bring money into the family despite their young ages. At the silk factory, the workers were color-coded by job via dying their heads different shades; because of this, Larten's hair was permanently stained a deep orange color, down to the roots, to the point where he doesn't remember what his original hair color was.
In a tragic incident at the factory, a fight broke out between the cruel foreman Traz and little Vur Horston - enraged, the man murdered Larten's cousin. Larten, angered and hurting at the loss of his closest friend, lashed out at Traz in retaliation and killed him; it's the first sign of the underlying hint of viciousness in the scrappy boy. Fearing punishment, he fled from the factory and from the city, leaving behind everything he knew in a desperate bid for survival. He hid out in a crypt the first night, and, hungry and alone, resorted to eating cobwebs to try and sate his hunger.
In the crypt, he came face to face with a five hundred year old vampire, the man who would end up shaping Larten's entire life - the ancient Seba Nile. Seba offered to take the destitute boy on as his assistant, and, having no other alternatives, Larten agreed. They set out on their journey together, vampire and human assistant.
Larten traveled with Seba for five years before meeting another vampire - the elderly Paris Skyle, Vampire Prince. He impressed the older vampire by hearing his footsteps and correctly guessing his intentions, all without panicking at any potential attack. Seba and Paris both started to see the true potential in Larten. It was also during this meeting that Larten Crepsley learned, arguably, the most important lesson of his life - that power can corrupt, and a vampire should not seek power - when his mentor turned down the older vampire's offer of helping Seba become a Vampire Prince.
Seba decided not long after to go to Council on Vampire Mountain, an event held once every twelve years for vampires to gather in their ancestral home for festivities and business. Larten was unable to make the trip, however, as he was still an unblooded teenager, so Seba found a temporary home for his assistant in the Cirque du Freak, a freak show full of magical and strange performers, run by his old friend Hibernius Tall. He traveled with the freak show, doing odd jobs for the cirque and making friends, and it was here that he was taught stage magic and escapology by one of the performers, Merletta the Magician. He found himself to be a natural at picking locks and slipping out of any bindings, and his quick hands lent themselves well to card tricks. He also developed a love for the stage, and for performing, that never quite left him - the Cirque du Freak became a home away from home of sorts, and he would eventually go on to pass his love for the Cirque to his future assistant.
After a show one evening, Larten set out into the town, only to find everyone gathering fearfully in a church. Inside were a boy about his age and the boy's dead family - all drained of blood. He went with the boy to track down and kill the monster who did it; this was his first run-in with the purple-skinned cousins of the vampires, the vampaneze, who always kill and drain their prey when they feed. The boy, Wester Flack, and Larten were sorely beaten by the vampaneze, Murlough, but Murlough spared them both and escaped because Larten refused to back down or break the oath he'd made to Wester to help him. The orphaned Wester went back with Larten to the Cirque, and later, when Seba returned, the elderly vampire took Wester on as a second assistant. Larten and Wester became like brothers.
They traveled together with Seba and eventually when they turned 18, they were both blooded as half-vampires. Later, Larten was fully blooded at 25 and Wester at 28. Two years after Wester's blooding they attended their first Council in Vampire Mountain. It was there that Larten learned an important lesson - humility. Seba thought highly of him and drove his hopes up into thinking he'd take the vampire clan by storm, impressing with his prowess, but Larten was sorely defeated in most of his matches against other, more experienced vampires. Seba told him the story of Perta Vin Grahl and how his overconfidence led to the deaths of five vampires, how he wished later on that he had experienced defeat early on. Seba tried to teach the young, hot-tempered Larten to recognize and learn to live with his weaknesses. It was a lesson Larten wouldn't fully grasp until later, but the early humiliations were ultimately good for him.
From there, over the years, Seba began to train Larten and Wester to eventually be Vampire Generals by setting them impossible tasks and purposely frustrating them with failures in an attempt to teach Larten patience and making Larten take a second look at the path he took (by taking them back to Larten's home city and letting him look around). He purposely drove Larten to rebel against him and join the Cubs, young vampires working out their wildness in the human world by drinking, meeting women, gambling, and fighting; Larten needed to get it out of his system, Seba thought, so he could return and continue his General training without wondering what he was missing. He also wanted Larten to learn to stop hiding his true feelings and figure out that it was okay to express things in the company of loved ones. Seba's training methods seemed harsh, being brusque and hard on his assistants despite how much he loved them like sons and how proud he was of them, but they worked for Larten, ultimately, and he would go on to use the same techniques with Darren more often than not.
It was about this time that a man named Desmond Tiny took an interest in Larten. Tiny was a highly mysterious and magical being that anyone with half a brain was afraid of - he could travel in time and see the future and all manner of things, and his favorite hobby was messing with fate for the sake of causing chaos in the world. Larten, however, had no idea that Des Tiny had set his sights on him, or even who he was beyond the occasional tale.
Larten and Wester traveled around for years getting their fill of drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Other things, as well - they often ran with the war packs, groups of young vampire Cubs who viewed humans at war as a sort of spectator sport and often drank from the fallen at night in feeding frenzies. The brutal sport was to Larten's liking for a while, as was the gambling (which he was quite good at) and the women (he soon found his way with the ladies and was a natural charmer). They often met up with another vampire named Tanish Eul, who was exceptionally fond of human comforts and not very much like other vampires. Eventually, after watching a particularly bloody battle, a vampaneze came upon the group of Cubs - Larten, Wester, Tanish, and two others, Yebba and Zula. He challenged the group's leader (Tanish) to a fight to the death; a true vampire would have looked death in the eyes and accepted his fate whether it be win or lose, but Tanish was cowardly, and Zula stepped up instead, only to be slaughtered. Larten was disturbed, and Tanish left the Cubs (and the entire clan) in shame to 'walk amongst humans' for the rest of his days. Larten had lost his taste for running with the Cubs, and he and Wester returned to their master, Seba.
Larten, Wester, and Seba met up with Vancha March some time later, and they all traveled together to go visit the witch, Lady Evanna. Evanna was a mysterious woman, legendary within the vampire clan. She was neither human nor vampire, but made by Desmond Tiny, who mixed the blood of a vampire with that of a wolf and created her and Hibernius Tall. Evanna was the only person ever capable of getting pregnant with a vampire's child, and so all the male vampires of the clan (and vampaneze, at different times) often tried their luck at wooing her, but she would refuse every time. Seba presented his assistants in the far-off hope that she would like one of them enough to mate with, but she refuses them too, though she was amused and impressed by Larten's charm, and gave him permission to visit her whenever he wanted. It was also here that Larten met his future mate, a (then) young human girl who worked for Evanna, wanted to know more about vampires, and seemed immune to Larten's charms.
Later, they returned to Vampire Mountain for Council. Larten did much better at his duels and eventually caught the eyes of some of the Princes and Generals as a vampire with potential. Seba was made Quartermaster of the mountain, a great honor, and Larten and Wester began their training again to become Generals. Wester fell in with a group of vampaneze-haters, to Larten's dismay, but life continued on as usual until, a few months away from becoming a General, he fell out with the clan again. Larten wasn't done with the human world, and set off again - with Seba's silent blessing. The old vampire thought it would be good for Larten to continue to explore his own path instead of become a General simply because it was expected of him.
Larten went to visit Lady Evanna, but in an incident that embarrasses him to this day, he got quite drunk with her and tried to kiss her after goading her to transform into her beautiful form (she was normally quite ugly) - which earned him a good slap, and her long nail cut his face deeply from the corner of his mouth up the side of his face. (It's probably his most visible scar, and he never tells anyone where he got it.) He was horrified and embarrassed, and a bit hurt from being rejected, and ran off in a hurry, hoping she wouldn't pursue him and kill him. One of her attendants, a girl named Malora, packed up and left with him, though, wanting to get away from the cranky Evanna. Malora goaded Larten into taking her safely to civilization, but they traveled together for long after that; Malora fell in love with the vampire, and essentially functioned as his assistant, though she refused to be his assistant for real, as she didn't want to become a vampire herself. The girl took care of him quite a bit. He came down with a horrible, drawn-out case of the vampire flu, one of the few diseases vampires can get, and it drove him to fits of madness and delirium. In one such fit, he insisted they take a ship to go explore Greenland and search for the palace of Perta Vin Grahl. She couldn't dissuade him, so onto a ship they went. Tragedy struck on the ship. Larten's illness got worse, and she couldn't always feed him herself, but a cabin boy followed her around and saw her bottling blood from sailors whenever they docked. The ship's crew and few passengers turned against Malora because she refused to give Larten up to them for a dose of mob justice, and they hung her. When Larten woke and saw her body swaying from a rope, he slipped into an enraged fit and slaughtered most of the crew and passengers - he left someone to steer the ship, the cabin boy, and two others alive to feed from. He also left a baby alive, the baby that would grow up to become Gavner Purl.
Larten wanted to leave the baby with the few people he left alive on the ship and find an icy place to perish (they were near Greenland), but he walked in on the cabin boy slaughtering and consuming his fellow prisoners, telling Larten that he couldn't hurt him now, he was a vampire now. He ended up taking the baby to keep him from being eaten by the deranged cabin boy and rowed to shore in a small boat. He resigned himself and the boy to cold deaths. Destiny (or Des Tiny if we want to get specific) intervened with his plans, though; through the snow and ice, he kept glimpsing spots of green - Desmond Tiny's boots. The meddler led him right to the legendary ice palace of Perta Vin Grahl, a famous vampire legend that many had tried before to find and failed. Larten decided to die there, leaving the baby upon a tomb to die where predators couldn't find him and nearly threw himself into a massive chasm. Desmond Tiny saved his life and named the child Gavner.
He decided to do right by the boy, and from there, Larten ended up in Paris with little Gavner. He met a woman named Alicia who became Gavner's mother and Larten's lover, though Larten distanced himself from Gavner cruelly because he didn't want the boy to feel betrayed when he grew up and found out that Larten had killed his parents. It was the dawn of the 20th century, and Larten, going by his alias Vur Horston, was engaged to marry Alicia, whom he had fallen in love with. He also met up with Tanish Eul in Paris, who had grown fat on his profits and was running a bunch of shady businesses, including a gambling facility. Larten entered into a partnership with him to provide for his fiancee and Gavner. Things turned sour when Tanish's female workers started to disappear, and Larten found one of them marked for death by a vampaneze - with three small scratches on her cheek. When he took the matter up with Tanish, the man brushed it off as unimportant - a vampaneze he had refused a challenge by once returned every once in a while to kill people around him. Larten stormed out of Tanish's office in disgust with the cowardly vampire and went to hunt down the vampaneze. He nearly killed the creature when Tanish betrayed him and knocked him out, giving him over to said vampaneze. The vampaneze saw honor in Larten and respected that; he refused to kill him simply to spite Tanish. The cowardly vampire couldn't bring himself to kill his old friend and instead killed the prostitute Larten had tried to save, covering Larten with her blood, and framed Larten for her murder.
He was forced to flee, but didn't go far, not until he got to speak with Alicia one last time. She called off their engagement and begged him not to pursue and kill Tanish, because he was the closest thing to a father Gavner had. Larten promised to hold off, but only until Gavner had grown up. Heartbroken at the loss of his love forever, Larten put his indecision behind him and returned to Vampire Mountain. He was welcomed back by his mentor, and Vancha March, newly made a prince, pardoned him for his killings aboard the ship. Over several years, Larten completed his training and was made a General.
Back on Vampire Mountain, Larten crossed paths with Arra Sails again, now a vampire, and tried to woo her, but she scoffed at his charms and claimed she'd accept his advances when she wouldn't be sidetracked from her goal of becoming a General. They would eventually mate for a brief period. Later he went on his first mission as a General, to try and convince a vampire who had strayed from the clan to return. Arrow had fallen in love with a human but his wife had been killed by vampaneze. Wester talked him into coming back to join with other vampaneze-haters. From there, they detoured to visit Evanna, and she and Larten both apologized to each other for the past - she admitted she overreacted when he drunkenly kissed her. From there, Wester and Larten went to Paris.
In Paris they found that Alicia had remarried, but Gavner was nowhere to be found. Larten stayed with Alicia for a few months but eventually returned to Vampire Mountain, where he met up with Vancha again and asked him to accompany him to find Gavner. They found him with Tanish Eul in Russia, serving as his assistant. Gavner was misinformed by Tanish and Larten instigated a confrontation. He revealed the truth and sent Tanish to his death at Vancha's hands, then gave the enraged Gavner a knife to kill Larten if he so desired. He told him the truth about everything, but Gavner couldn't bear to kill him.
NOTE: The fourth book in the prequel series about Larten's life up until The Saga of Darren Shan isn't out until May, but from the summary and title it can be easily assumed that Wester attempted to drag Larten into the group of vampires wanting war with the vampaneze, Larten refused, and somehow Wester died. Larten then ran off from the clan again before he could be invested as a Prince, gave up his position as a General, and returned to the Cirque (all things mentioned in The Saga of Darren Shan), which gets him where he's supposed to be for the first book of TSoDS. It'll be easy for me to gloss over anything that might happen in Brothers Til the Death until I've read it, as Larten rarely talks about his past to anyone, and never in much detail.
After giving up becoming a Prince, Larten withdrew from the vampire clan for a bit. Somewhere along his travels, he acquired a pet spider - Madam Octa, a highly poisonous and highly intelligent spider of an extremely rare and undiscovered-by-humans species - and rejoined the Cirque du Freak as a performer. He used his sleight of hand skills and Madam Octa, whom he could control telepathically, to wow the crowds with frightening tricks, such as the point in his act where he let Madam Octa crawl onto his face and spin a web over his open mouth. It harkened back to his time as a child when Seba Nile, who also has an interest in spiders, found him eating cobwebs to survive in a crypt. It was during one such performance with the Cirque that he turned onto the path of destiny and his life took a turn for the strange.
After the show, he was approached by a boy named Steve Leonard, who knew the alias he used in Paris in the early 1900s and knew what he was. Steve desperately wanted to be a vampire and leave his human life behind. On a whim, Larten tested his blood and found it to be coursing with pure evil. Disgusted, he turned the boy away. He didn't know that another boy, Steve's friend Darren Shan, was watching. That night, Darren, who had been enthralled by Madam Octa during the show, stole the spider, leaving a note not to come after him or he'd expose Larten as a vampire. With his spider gone, he stuck around town for a couple of weeks - he didn't pursue immediately.
Madam Octa bit Steve Leonard and pumped his veins full of poison, putting him in a coma. That same night, Larten stole back his spider, but didn't flee the town. Darren came to him not long after, demanding a way to save Steve's life. Larten doesn't know why, but he offered the antidote to Darren in exchange for something - Darren himself, as his assistant. It was the meddling hands of fate (or Desmond Tiny, the meddler), using Larten as a chess piece, or it's likely he wouldn't have blooded the boy that night; the vampire clan has laws against blooding children - Larten himself wasn't blooded until he turned eighteen. But he did, and so Darren Shan became a half-vampire. They went to the hospital to give Steve Leonard the antidote as agreed upon, but Darren hit the nurse call button in Steve's hospital room and Larten was forced to flee.
After a couple of weeks and several incidents of Darren's new strength, senses, and bloodlust startling and disturbing him, Larten returned to the boy in the night to talk him into coming with him. They faked Darren's death, Larten dug him up from his grave, and they left town together to travel.
Larten set out on his travels with Darren the way Seba Nile set out with him so many decades ago, and he acted like his mentor in a lot of ways. He gave Darren jobs to do like guarding him during the day and taking care of Madam Octa, he taught him to hunt and the like. He was hard on Darren at first but eventually he figured out that his assistant was miserable, separated from his home and family and friends and stuck with Larten all day and night. In a subtle moment of compassion for the boy in his care (who still hated him rather vehemently and still vowed out loud to kill him when he got the chance), Larten packed them up and took them back to the Cirque du Freak so Darren could make friends and be around other people who wouldn't find his half-vampire nature strange or disturbing. It was the closest thing he could do to taking the boy back to humanity, and Darren was indeed happier at the Cirque.
Larten and Darren went about life as usual. Darren had chores and friends, Larten went back to performing and teaching his young assistant what it means to be a vampire. Darren was the source of endless frustration for a while because he refused to drink human blood, fearing it would steal away the last of his humanity. Larten tried everything he could to get the weakening boy to feed, once even trying to force blood into his mouth as he slept, but nothing worked, not until an incident when a hippie let out the Cirque's wolf man (who was actually half man, half wolf, and all vicious), thinking him mistreated. The wolf man went after Darren and one of his friends, Sam Grest, in a rage. Darren couldn't fight the wolf man off because he was weak from not feeding, and the wolf man fatally wounded Sam. Larten and the others showed up to wrestle the wolf man back into his cage, saving Darren, but there was no hope for Sam; Larten convinced his assistant to drink deep from the dying boy. When a vampire or vampaneze drains a human, they keep part of their soul, their memories, their feelings. Darren drained Sam as he lay dying to keep a part of him alive. From there, he let Larten teach him how to feed from humans like a true vampire, having gotten past his fear of drinking blood.
They stayed with the Cirque until Larten got news that a mad vampaneze was terrorizing humans in the city Larten was born in. He saw the residents of the city as spiritual family of sorts, and a vampaneze murdering humans blatantly there was an affront. Larten packed up his assistant and the Cirque's snake boy, Evra Von (Darren's good friend who wanted to go with them - it was an extra burden but he didn't want the boys to be lonely) and left for his birth city without telling them why, just that he had business there. While there, they holed up in a hotel room with Larten pretending to be the boys' father; he mostly left Darren and Evra to themselves, spending his nights tracking down the vampaneze. Darren and Evra grew suspicious of Larten, who was being very secretive with them about his mission, when they saw a news report saying that bodies were found completely drained of blood, and they started to shadow the vampire every night to see what he was doing. Darren accidentally interrupted Larten's attempt at killing the vampaneze, revealed to be Murlough (the same vampaneze that killed Wester's family) in the slaughterhouse that used to be a silk factory (where Larten worked as a child). Murlough escaped and kidnapped Evra. Later, Murlough demanded Darren trade his vampire mentor for Evra's life, but Darren refused, which touched Larten, as the boy used to hate him passionately. The two set up a trap and ventured into the sewers. Murlough bought right into their ruse and Larten killed him, then they left the city with Evra, the problem taken care of.
Six years later, it was time again for the Vampire Council. Larten headed out with Darren to make the trek to Vampire Mountain, needing to present him to the Princes and confess his crime of blooding the child in the first place. They were accompanied on the way to the mountain by two of Desmond Tiny's creatures, the Little People, at his demand (he sent one to deliver a message to the Vampire Princes about the vampaneze), and they met up with Gavner Purl, Larten's old friend, whom Darren had met once before they left for Larten's birth city, on the way. They found vampaneze blood in a cave on the way there and were perplexed by its presence. When they made it to Vampire Mountain, Larten introduced Darren to many other vampires, including his own mentor / father-figure Seba Nile, and his former mate Arra Sails. They attended a Council session and went before the Princes, the vampire clan's leaders, and Larten was prepared to take whatever punishment they doled out to him for blooding a child for no obvious or logical reason, showing his sense of responsibility. Darren spoke up for him, though, and eventually they decided that Darren would have to prove himself in the Trials of Initiation - deadly, randomly chosen tasks meant to prove a vampire's worth. Darren agreed to this despite the danger because he had grown to care for Larten the way Larten cared for him, and he didn't want his mentor to be shamed. Larten, however, while he agreed with the decision, wasn't happy with it - because Darren would be killed if he failed.
Larten used his connections to get Darren the best trainers for the Trials that he could find, including the mountain's Games Master and the nearly-undefeated Arra Sails. Larten took a backseat to Darren during his trials, being there to support the boy and celebrating his successes with him. The first trial was the water maze, where Darren had to navigate a labyrinth filling with water with a large stone strapped to him. He barely makes it out alive, and Larten was clearly relieved. The next was the Path of Needles, which was much simpler, though no less deadly - Larten was there to cheer his assistant on and celebrate his escape afterward too. The next trial was much more frightening, Darren had to traverse a room filled with jets of flame for a certain amount of time. He very, very narrowly escaped that time, and was traumatized by the fiery experience; Larten was there to help him, standing loyally at his side as he recovered from severe burns. He and Seba did everything they could, finding every loophole in the book, to delay Darren's next trial, which ended up being The Blooded Boars (a task where he had to kill two vampire-blood maddened boars in a gladiator-style fight), so he could recover, but the few days they managed wasn't enough. Darren would have died in the Blooded Boars trial if Darren's friend, the Little Person Harkat Mulds, hadn't interfered at the last moment. However, Larten's assistant was far from safe.
The punishment for failing the Trials was execution. Larten was enraged, however, and he and the others argued fiercely for Darren's life as the Princes deliberated on the boy's fate. Larten tried everything he could, but eventually it was decided that Darren was to be executed in the Hall of Death in a pit of stakes. Larten didn't have the pull required to change the decision, though he fought it every step of the way. In the end, he couldn't go against the clan, though; he wanted to preserve his assistant's dignity. A soon-to-be Prince named Kurda Smahlt, another friend of Darren's, stole away out of the mountain with Darren though, intending to let him escape. Darren did, though not before finding out that Kurda was housing vampaneze in the mountain in a plot to take over the vampire clan by force - after a fight and chase that culminated in Kurda killing the vampire who'd met up with them along the way, Gavner Purl, Darren fell into the river, washing out of the mountain on a perilous ride. Larten was unaware of all of this and assumed Darren had simply gotten scared and run away; Kurda confirmed it when he returned to the vampires, no one knowing he was a traitor, and informed them that Darren had fallen into the river and been swept away.
Larten's assistant was presumed dead. It was thought no one could survive being swept down the river like that. He led the search party anyway, though, wanting, at the very least, to find Darren's body and bury him properly. Darren was actually alive, though, recovering from grievous injuries with the pack of wolves he'd met on the way to the mountain. Eventually he returned, being led into the mountain in secret by a small group of wolves. He was willing to face his own death to warn the vampires of the vampaneze lurking in the mountain. Darren went to Seba first for help and together they hatched a plan for Darren to call Kurda out at his investiture into the Hall of Princes. Larten was overjoyed to see his assistant alive; it was clear the worry and despair had been eating at him. Kurda was seized for being a traitor and questioned, then put to trial and eventually execution. Darren's own execution was stayed as he helped the vampires concoct a scheme to take the vampaneze by surprise. Due to their position they had the advantage, and would hear the vampires coming, so Darren suggested they use Seba Nile's horde of spiders to take them by surprise. Darren, Seba, and Larten, all having an affinity for spiders, led the arachnid charge. After a long, bloody battle, the vampires killed or captured all the vampaneze hiding in the mountain.
During the battle, Larten lost his former mate, Arra Sails, and wept bitterly at her death. With her dying breath, she told Larten to protect Darren at all costs, believing he had proven himself a fine vampire and not deserving of execution in the Hall of Death; Larten promised he would. Later, when the Princes discussed Darren's fate, Larten stood up for his assistant fiercely. He would have fought every vampire in the mountain to save Darren, would have given up everything to fulfill his promise and to protect the boy who was like a son to him. Eventually, the Princes decided Darren had proven himself a credit to the clan, and did the only thing they could to save him under the current laws - they made him a Prince himself, since Princes can't be executed for failing their Trials. Larten's relationship with Darren didn't change despite the change in power; Darren outranked him greatly after that, as Larten wasn't even a General anymore, but they kept their close master-assistant bond.
From there, time passed. Darren continued his studies with Larten and the other vampires, and took on his Princely duties as a leader of the clan (with his master's and Seba Nile's help, of course). Then one day Desmond Tiny visited Vampire Mountain again to give them news of the Vampaneze Lord. He informed them that they'd have four chances to find and kill him to prevent the vampaneze from wiping out the vampires - the first was Kurda's plan, and it had failed. They were down to three chances. Tiny claimed only three vampires could hunt for and kill the Vampaneze Lord - Larten Crepsley, Darren Shan, and later they find out that Vancha March, another prince and a good friend of Larten's, is the third. Harkat Mulds, not being a vampire, was allowed to go with them. They go to seek the witch, Evanna, who gave Larten his scar, for help. Eventually they made their way to the Cirque again. While there, they came across a group of vampaneze - including Vancha's brother, Gannen Harst. They attacked, thinking they could kill the Lord, but two escape, Gannen and a cloaked servant, the Vampaneze Lord in disguise. Another chance was wasted, and Larten blamed himself for letting them escape - if he had gone after them himself instead of sending Vancha, Vancha wouldn't have frozen, unable to kill his blood brother.
They set off on their quest again. This time, it took them to Larten's birth city again, the place where they killed Murlough once upon a time. Vampaneze were terrorizing the city again. Larten checked them into a hotel, but as soon as they got there, a school inspector came, thinking "Darren Horston" had enrolled in school and not showed up. The group was disturbed by this, and to keep the humans off their backs, Darren was forced to attend school. Larten spent his nights searching the tunnels under the city for the vampaneze again, joined by Darren and Harkat. When Paris Skyle, the Prince, died, though, Larten had to go back to Vampire Mountain to attend the funeral, leaving Darren and Harkat on their own. During that period of time, they managed to get into trouble with a vampaneze with hooks for hands (later revealed to be the hippie that had once set the Wolf Man at the Cirque loose) and Darren was saved by Steve Leonard. Larten, upon his return, refused to trust Steve, and for good reason. After being joined by Vancha, they take Steve with them and chase the vampaneze, only to be led into a trap set by Steve himself, who is revealed to be half-vampaneze. After a skirmish, the hunters were forced to flee to save a hostage's life, and they took Steve Leonard and a hostage of their own. Their plan to regroup was thwarted by clever planning on Steve's part and they were all arrested by the police, but eventually they all escaped. Including Steve, who took the lives of several nurses on his way out.
They came back for more, though, pursuing the Lord of the Vampaneze again right to the demonic Cavern of Retribution in the tunnels under the city. A pit of stakes surrounded a raised platform accessible only by a rope, and the whole shebang was set on fire below. It was a dramatic place for a final confrontation. The vampires and vampaneze paused their fighting so Larten could face the Vampaneze Lord alone in one-on-one combat - he wins, but Steve, who hated Larten for rejecting him all that time ago, leapt on him and caused him to fall from the platform. He grabbed onto Steve, though, and Gannen grabbed Steve's hand to keep him from falling. Larten would have gladly ended both their lives, but Gannen frantically bargains, giving his companions rest if he'll spare Steve. Larten thought he'd killed the Vampaneze Lord, and so he fell to his death in the fiery pit of stakes, smiling at Darren.
He died, never knowing that Steve Leonard was the real Vampaneze Lord. Darren's story continued, but this was the end for Larten Crepsley.
alternate history: N/A
personality:
Larten Crepsley is, as most beings as old as he, a person with many layers. There are subtle changes to his behavior when it comes to those close to him, or when he's dealing with potential foes, or when he's dealing with his fellow vampires. Very little of it, however, is a farce - he's a man who's searched long and hard over the years to find himself, and find himself he has. He knows who he is, and while he's different with Darren or Seba than he is with, say, the Vampire Princes, he's not the manipulative sort who pretends to be something he's not.
On the surface, you might call Larten a stuffy old coot. The first impression he tends to make is that of a tall, regal creature of the night, all dressed in billowing crimson. His tone is measured and even, his words carefully chosen and sparse. He does not babble, nor does he use contractions in his speech ever. He doesn't talk about things like human pop culture, and he doesn't use any modern slang - in fact most references go right over his head. He's not one for technology beyond the basic comforts of the modern day like running water and electricity (when he isn't residing at Vampire Mountain; he's not so old-fashioned that he won't sleep in hotel rooms, though he doesn't have a cell phone or drive cars, and he refuses point-blank to set foot on a plane). He seems very much like a proper Victorian gentleman, like someone born into the aristocracy long ago and who has been slow to take to the modern world. He's fairly secretive - information is given out on a need-to-know basis, even to those he's close to, such as his assistant Darren. He doesn't trust easily, either. Larten constantly questions the motives of others if he doesn't know them well. People have called him cranky before, especially in the early evenings ('morning' to the vampire internal clock), even to people he cares for deeply, which leads one to believe that his affections are nearly nonexistent, though that isn't true by any means. In general, he seems very calm and cool-headed, very sharp and intelligent, very observant of his surroundings and the people around him. He's also very clearly fearless, relishing danger and the thrill of an honorable fight.
However, this is just scratching the surface.
Larten is a good man and a loyal friend beneath the outer layer of the stoic vampire. He prioritizes loyalty to his loved ones above everything else, even so far as arguing with the Vampire Princes to spare his dear assistant's life. Darren became like a son to him and he was willing to forsake even the clan he holds dear to protect him. He would be more than willing to lay down his life for him, or Gavner Purl, or Seba Nile, or Arra Sails, and he'd do it with a smile on his face. At the end of book 9, only one of the three hunters could face the Lord of the Vampaneze, Gannen Harst, and Steve Leonard over a pit of flaming stakes, and Larten volunteered instantly. At the end, he was willing to give his own life just to take Steve's. His death came about because he would rather put himself in danger than Darren. He was often callous with Darren over the years they traveled together, and distant with Gavner ever since Gavner was a baby, but he loves them both deep down - he just expresses it very subtly on most occasions, in the way he tries to protect them and do what's best for them (and for the greater good), even if it hurts him. That isn't to say he doesn't have his softer moments, though. At emotional moments, he'll hug Darren, and he cried at the death of the woman he loved. During the trials, he was intensely concerned for Darren's life and would whoop with joy when he came out alive. When Darren's life was threatened by the princes for failing his trials, Larten stood up for him fiercely, throwing all sense of duty aside, and would have done anything to protect the boy. It's rare that he makes jokes, but he does have his light-hearted moments. He also used to be short-tempered when he was young and snapped at Seba a few times; his temper rarely gets the best of him now, though.
Larten is also a shrewd man, very cunning and intelligent. He spent years of his life trying to figure out who he was and who he wanted to be, and it shows - he's comfortable in his own skin, he's worked the youthful wildness out of his system, he's settled on his own identity. More than that, he's figured out his flaws and learned to compensate for them. When Seba Nile blooded him, he said Larten had 'mixed blood', good blood with a hint of underlying evil - the potential to do wrong, but also the potential to recognize and avoid it. Larten's done some terrible things throughout his life, like massacre human beings on a ship or kill the foreman who murdered his cousin Vur as a child, but he recognizes that he has that underlying viciousness and takes steps to be better than that. Larten was a Vampire General once, and could have been a Prince, but a lesson his mentor taught him stuck with him: power corrupts. Larten was strong enough to refuse a position as a Prince and even step down from his position as General because it didn't seem right at the time.
He was a chess piece of destiny for much of the book. Certain people are guided through their lives by the hands of fate for the final confrontation between Darren and Steve, and Larten is one of them - he likely wouldn't have gone against the clan's laws and blooded Darren if destiny hadn't made him (though it came off more as an impulse action). However, he's always tried hard to follow his own path. Desmond Tiny, the future-seeing meddler of fate, once said that Larten expressed an annoying amount of free will. He doesn't like to be manipulated or controlled; he's a very independant person who knows how important it is to believe you're in complete control of your life, another lesson Seba Nile taught. He also seems very confident in himself, though he does question his own actions and the path he walks often. He's willing to look at himself and point out where he went wrong and what he did right.
On that note, he's a very remorseful man. He knows when he's made mistakes and he does his best to make up for them and make things right somehow. When he slaughtered Gavner's family on the ship in an illness-induced rage, he took the baby Gavner with him, to give him a decent death if he couldn't find a family to take the infant. He took care of him and eventually handed him over to his lover Alicia to care for. Larten distanced himself from Gavner for one reason - he didn't want the boy to feel betrayed by someone close when he eventually found out that Larten killed his parents. Even though it was hurtful, Larten thought it was the best way to try and make up for what he'd done. With Darren, he felt bad for taking the boy away from his life, and even though Darren hated him and he was cool toward him, Larten would do whatever he could to try and make his new life a little better, such as taking him to the Cirque when Darren was lonely and miserable.
Though he's a good man who tries to make the most moral decisions and preserve life, he isn't afraid of combat or death. Fighting is the vampire way - they would rather die young on their feet in battle than drift away of old age. He won't hesitate to kill if that's what the situation deems necessary, such as killing Murlough to prevent him from terrorizing Larten's birth city. If faced in a challenge, he'll his opponent as cleanly as possible. He can be ruthless in a fight, but he isn't the type to resort to torture unless absolutely necessary, and he doesn't take pleasure from it. His temper has evened out over the decades, but he isn't an excessively violent person despite his potential viciousness.
All in all, he's a good man and a fine vampire who sacrificed his life for the good of those he loved and the clan. Despite his proper and slightly stuffy first impression, he's a kind-hearted but dutiful person. He's made mistakes in his life, but he's conscious of them and always thinking about his actions to make sure he's learned from his mistakes. He loves those close to him fiercely and is a protective man by nature. He idolizes his mentor and has tried to be like the people who set a good example for him over the years, including setting a good example for his own assistant.
abilities/powers:
Larten Crepsley is a vampire, and his powers are all typical of vampires in his canon. He might excel in some fields, but all in all, he has no real powers that other vampires don't have. More information can be found here under "Darren Shan's vampires"
Powers and Physical Traits:
Weaknesses:
Learned skills:
first person sample:
[A pale hand switches the video feed on. As his hand pulls back from the propped-up device, viewers might catch a glimpse of small scars tipping each of his fingers as if they were put there on purpose. The man sitting back in a dusty red velvet chair is middle aged, not particularly attractive (actually one might even call him downright ugly), and sporting a crop of unnatural orange hair. He's still wearing a set of scavenged maroon scrubs from the hospital, but there's a pile of slightly faded crimson fabric in his lap, which he is dilligently and neatly running a needle through.
The lighting in the room is dim, but the place looks rather like a parlor - though it has a very funereal vibe to it. After a few moments of quiet sewing, he glances up to the camera again, briefly, and the long scar running from mouth to hairline twitches - it could almost be a smile, though not a pleasant one.]
A cell phone. Curious. I never had need of one of these newfangled devices before. I did not know they could project video. [Truth be told, it took a while to figure out - he can't even read the menus on the phone screen, and he's had to rely on experimentation and pictures.] Now I am beginning to wish I had let my assistant teach me a few things about all this fashionable technology. [He glances up at the dim lights that don't turn off.] Fat lot of good technology did in this place, though, hm?
You know, it is quite strange. I have not seen a single spider since I first woke up. I always thought insects would be able to survive the end of the world; I have to say, I quite miss them. At least then intelligent company would not be so difficult to find.
[He glances away for a moment, distant and thoughtful; his next words come out as a mumble as he reaches over to cut the feed.] Charna's guts, this is certainly no Paradise. What sort of hell is this where a fine death does not bring peace?
third person sample:
The Cirque rarely seemed to sleep. Performers and crew were always going somewhere, doing something that needed to be done - there were always things that needed to be done in an operation of this size. Hibernius ran a tight ship, but they were all often happy to pitch in. It was the same as ever when Larten rose in the early evening, after the sun had sunk most of the way below the horizon outside. He could hear the hustle and bustle of the Cirque outside the window of his van when he slid the lid off his coffin and drew in a breath of nighttime air.
It had been a few weeks since they'd arrived at the Cirque's campsite and joined the group as they moved on to the next show. Larten couldn't help but reflect as he climbed out of his bed for the day and dressed meticulously in pressed crimson trousers, a stiff red shirt, and his favorite blood red cloak - not the set his beloved mentor had given him so many years ago, but close enough to count; he always favored red nowadays, just like Seba. But his thoughts weren't with Seba that night, they were with the young boy he spotted from the window of the van when he pulled back the dark curtains. He watched Darren Shan, new half-vampire, dart across the grass with his arms loaded up with folding chairs. He was likely helping the crew set up the tent for the Cirque's latest show. Darren seemed relaxed tonight, but Larten still had to fight back a pang of regret as he wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, why he gave in to impulse and blooded the boy.
Darren was unhappy. He wasn't like Larten, who took to the life of an assistant immediately all those decades ago. He still had a family who would have protected him, who grieved his loss, he still had friends who would miss him. After that night, after Darren finally admitted that he had no choice but to go with Larten, they had traveled alone, just the two of them. It was the way Seba had taught him to function in the world, and so he tried to teach Darren, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the child hated Larten for dragging him into this life. He had been surly and miserable in their travels, and though Larten felt the need to wander or to return to Vampire Mountain, he let his feet take him and the boy to the Cirque instead. Darren at least seemed happier here, around people, with a friend his age to play with.
It was a small good he'd done for the child, but Larten knew nothing would ever make up for the pain he had caused him.
You couldn't change your past, though, Seba had taught him that. There was no point in brooding on his misdeeds. In due time, he would face the Princes at Council and give himself over to their judgement to atone for his sins, but in the meantime, he had his charge to focus on. Lord knew he needed it. Darren stubbornly refused to drink human blood even now, with his body growing weaker by the day; Larten felt a horrible pang of worry every time he thought about it. He was supposed to care for the child, watching him waste away willingly was maddening. But the orange-headed vampire held out hope still. Maybe tonight would be the night. Sweeping from the van, cape billowing in the cool evening breeze, Larten called out to his ward, "Darren! How would you like to go on stage with me tonight?"
The boy gaped at him for a moment, dropping the armful of tent pegs he was carrying. "You'd really let me? But I couldn't-"
Larten felt himself smile, and the scar on the left side of his face twitched with the motion. "Nonsense, young Master Shan. I am certain you will put on a fine performance." A turn, and he headed off toward one of the tents. "Come along, Octa's fangs must be milked and you and I must hunt before the show commences." Darren's protests fell on deaf ears.
Larten would not let him die.
case no: No preference.
name: Nekky
are you over 18?: Yes, 22.
personal dw:
nekkyemail/msn/aim/plurk/etc:
AIM: xnecronomical
PLURK:
characters in abax: N/A
in character information.
series: The Saga of Darren Shan (also the prequel series focusing on Larten's past, The Saga of Larten Crepsley).
name: Larten Crepsley, alias Vur Horston
age: 221 (Actual, exact age unknown.)
sex: Male
race: Vampire
weight: 156 lbs
height: 6'2"
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: Impalement and immolation. Place of death: Cavern of Retribution.
canon point: His death at the end of book 9, Killers of the Dawn.
previous cr: N/A
history:
Larten Crepsley was born somewhere undisclosed in Europe, to a poor couple some time in the early 1800s. Larten was one of seven children, though two died young and his fourteen year old sister was married off, something his parents were grateful for because "she wasn't an especially hard worker and never brought in much money". Also living with the family was Larten's cousin, more like a brother to him for how close they were, a scrap of a child named Vur Horston. Larten was highly protective of Vur; they were nearly attached at the hip, and they worked at a silk factory together to bring money into the family despite their young ages. At the silk factory, the workers were color-coded by job via dying their heads different shades; because of this, Larten's hair was permanently stained a deep orange color, down to the roots, to the point where he doesn't remember what his original hair color was.
In a tragic incident at the factory, a fight broke out between the cruel foreman Traz and little Vur Horston - enraged, the man murdered Larten's cousin. Larten, angered and hurting at the loss of his closest friend, lashed out at Traz in retaliation and killed him; it's the first sign of the underlying hint of viciousness in the scrappy boy. Fearing punishment, he fled from the factory and from the city, leaving behind everything he knew in a desperate bid for survival. He hid out in a crypt the first night, and, hungry and alone, resorted to eating cobwebs to try and sate his hunger.
In the crypt, he came face to face with a five hundred year old vampire, the man who would end up shaping Larten's entire life - the ancient Seba Nile. Seba offered to take the destitute boy on as his assistant, and, having no other alternatives, Larten agreed. They set out on their journey together, vampire and human assistant.
Larten traveled with Seba for five years before meeting another vampire - the elderly Paris Skyle, Vampire Prince. He impressed the older vampire by hearing his footsteps and correctly guessing his intentions, all without panicking at any potential attack. Seba and Paris both started to see the true potential in Larten. It was also during this meeting that Larten Crepsley learned, arguably, the most important lesson of his life - that power can corrupt, and a vampire should not seek power - when his mentor turned down the older vampire's offer of helping Seba become a Vampire Prince.
Seba decided not long after to go to Council on Vampire Mountain, an event held once every twelve years for vampires to gather in their ancestral home for festivities and business. Larten was unable to make the trip, however, as he was still an unblooded teenager, so Seba found a temporary home for his assistant in the Cirque du Freak, a freak show full of magical and strange performers, run by his old friend Hibernius Tall. He traveled with the freak show, doing odd jobs for the cirque and making friends, and it was here that he was taught stage magic and escapology by one of the performers, Merletta the Magician. He found himself to be a natural at picking locks and slipping out of any bindings, and his quick hands lent themselves well to card tricks. He also developed a love for the stage, and for performing, that never quite left him - the Cirque du Freak became a home away from home of sorts, and he would eventually go on to pass his love for the Cirque to his future assistant.
After a show one evening, Larten set out into the town, only to find everyone gathering fearfully in a church. Inside were a boy about his age and the boy's dead family - all drained of blood. He went with the boy to track down and kill the monster who did it; this was his first run-in with the purple-skinned cousins of the vampires, the vampaneze, who always kill and drain their prey when they feed. The boy, Wester Flack, and Larten were sorely beaten by the vampaneze, Murlough, but Murlough spared them both and escaped because Larten refused to back down or break the oath he'd made to Wester to help him. The orphaned Wester went back with Larten to the Cirque, and later, when Seba returned, the elderly vampire took Wester on as a second assistant. Larten and Wester became like brothers.
They traveled together with Seba and eventually when they turned 18, they were both blooded as half-vampires. Later, Larten was fully blooded at 25 and Wester at 28. Two years after Wester's blooding they attended their first Council in Vampire Mountain. It was there that Larten learned an important lesson - humility. Seba thought highly of him and drove his hopes up into thinking he'd take the vampire clan by storm, impressing with his prowess, but Larten was sorely defeated in most of his matches against other, more experienced vampires. Seba told him the story of Perta Vin Grahl and how his overconfidence led to the deaths of five vampires, how he wished later on that he had experienced defeat early on. Seba tried to teach the young, hot-tempered Larten to recognize and learn to live with his weaknesses. It was a lesson Larten wouldn't fully grasp until later, but the early humiliations were ultimately good for him.
From there, over the years, Seba began to train Larten and Wester to eventually be Vampire Generals by setting them impossible tasks and purposely frustrating them with failures in an attempt to teach Larten patience and making Larten take a second look at the path he took (by taking them back to Larten's home city and letting him look around). He purposely drove Larten to rebel against him and join the Cubs, young vampires working out their wildness in the human world by drinking, meeting women, gambling, and fighting; Larten needed to get it out of his system, Seba thought, so he could return and continue his General training without wondering what he was missing. He also wanted Larten to learn to stop hiding his true feelings and figure out that it was okay to express things in the company of loved ones. Seba's training methods seemed harsh, being brusque and hard on his assistants despite how much he loved them like sons and how proud he was of them, but they worked for Larten, ultimately, and he would go on to use the same techniques with Darren more often than not.
It was about this time that a man named Desmond Tiny took an interest in Larten. Tiny was a highly mysterious and magical being that anyone with half a brain was afraid of - he could travel in time and see the future and all manner of things, and his favorite hobby was messing with fate for the sake of causing chaos in the world. Larten, however, had no idea that Des Tiny had set his sights on him, or even who he was beyond the occasional tale.
Larten and Wester traveled around for years getting their fill of drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Other things, as well - they often ran with the war packs, groups of young vampire Cubs who viewed humans at war as a sort of spectator sport and often drank from the fallen at night in feeding frenzies. The brutal sport was to Larten's liking for a while, as was the gambling (which he was quite good at) and the women (he soon found his way with the ladies and was a natural charmer). They often met up with another vampire named Tanish Eul, who was exceptionally fond of human comforts and not very much like other vampires. Eventually, after watching a particularly bloody battle, a vampaneze came upon the group of Cubs - Larten, Wester, Tanish, and two others, Yebba and Zula. He challenged the group's leader (Tanish) to a fight to the death; a true vampire would have looked death in the eyes and accepted his fate whether it be win or lose, but Tanish was cowardly, and Zula stepped up instead, only to be slaughtered. Larten was disturbed, and Tanish left the Cubs (and the entire clan) in shame to 'walk amongst humans' for the rest of his days. Larten had lost his taste for running with the Cubs, and he and Wester returned to their master, Seba.
Larten, Wester, and Seba met up with Vancha March some time later, and they all traveled together to go visit the witch, Lady Evanna. Evanna was a mysterious woman, legendary within the vampire clan. She was neither human nor vampire, but made by Desmond Tiny, who mixed the blood of a vampire with that of a wolf and created her and Hibernius Tall. Evanna was the only person ever capable of getting pregnant with a vampire's child, and so all the male vampires of the clan (and vampaneze, at different times) often tried their luck at wooing her, but she would refuse every time. Seba presented his assistants in the far-off hope that she would like one of them enough to mate with, but she refuses them too, though she was amused and impressed by Larten's charm, and gave him permission to visit her whenever he wanted. It was also here that Larten met his future mate, a (then) young human girl who worked for Evanna, wanted to know more about vampires, and seemed immune to Larten's charms.
Later, they returned to Vampire Mountain for Council. Larten did much better at his duels and eventually caught the eyes of some of the Princes and Generals as a vampire with potential. Seba was made Quartermaster of the mountain, a great honor, and Larten and Wester began their training again to become Generals. Wester fell in with a group of vampaneze-haters, to Larten's dismay, but life continued on as usual until, a few months away from becoming a General, he fell out with the clan again. Larten wasn't done with the human world, and set off again - with Seba's silent blessing. The old vampire thought it would be good for Larten to continue to explore his own path instead of become a General simply because it was expected of him.
Larten went to visit Lady Evanna, but in an incident that embarrasses him to this day, he got quite drunk with her and tried to kiss her after goading her to transform into her beautiful form (she was normally quite ugly) - which earned him a good slap, and her long nail cut his face deeply from the corner of his mouth up the side of his face. (It's probably his most visible scar, and he never tells anyone where he got it.) He was horrified and embarrassed, and a bit hurt from being rejected, and ran off in a hurry, hoping she wouldn't pursue him and kill him. One of her attendants, a girl named Malora, packed up and left with him, though, wanting to get away from the cranky Evanna. Malora goaded Larten into taking her safely to civilization, but they traveled together for long after that; Malora fell in love with the vampire, and essentially functioned as his assistant, though she refused to be his assistant for real, as she didn't want to become a vampire herself. The girl took care of him quite a bit. He came down with a horrible, drawn-out case of the vampire flu, one of the few diseases vampires can get, and it drove him to fits of madness and delirium. In one such fit, he insisted they take a ship to go explore Greenland and search for the palace of Perta Vin Grahl. She couldn't dissuade him, so onto a ship they went. Tragedy struck on the ship. Larten's illness got worse, and she couldn't always feed him herself, but a cabin boy followed her around and saw her bottling blood from sailors whenever they docked. The ship's crew and few passengers turned against Malora because she refused to give Larten up to them for a dose of mob justice, and they hung her. When Larten woke and saw her body swaying from a rope, he slipped into an enraged fit and slaughtered most of the crew and passengers - he left someone to steer the ship, the cabin boy, and two others alive to feed from. He also left a baby alive, the baby that would grow up to become Gavner Purl.
Larten wanted to leave the baby with the few people he left alive on the ship and find an icy place to perish (they were near Greenland), but he walked in on the cabin boy slaughtering and consuming his fellow prisoners, telling Larten that he couldn't hurt him now, he was a vampire now. He ended up taking the baby to keep him from being eaten by the deranged cabin boy and rowed to shore in a small boat. He resigned himself and the boy to cold deaths. Destiny (or Des Tiny if we want to get specific) intervened with his plans, though; through the snow and ice, he kept glimpsing spots of green - Desmond Tiny's boots. The meddler led him right to the legendary ice palace of Perta Vin Grahl, a famous vampire legend that many had tried before to find and failed. Larten decided to die there, leaving the baby upon a tomb to die where predators couldn't find him and nearly threw himself into a massive chasm. Desmond Tiny saved his life and named the child Gavner.
He decided to do right by the boy, and from there, Larten ended up in Paris with little Gavner. He met a woman named Alicia who became Gavner's mother and Larten's lover, though Larten distanced himself from Gavner cruelly because he didn't want the boy to feel betrayed when he grew up and found out that Larten had killed his parents. It was the dawn of the 20th century, and Larten, going by his alias Vur Horston, was engaged to marry Alicia, whom he had fallen in love with. He also met up with Tanish Eul in Paris, who had grown fat on his profits and was running a bunch of shady businesses, including a gambling facility. Larten entered into a partnership with him to provide for his fiancee and Gavner. Things turned sour when Tanish's female workers started to disappear, and Larten found one of them marked for death by a vampaneze - with three small scratches on her cheek. When he took the matter up with Tanish, the man brushed it off as unimportant - a vampaneze he had refused a challenge by once returned every once in a while to kill people around him. Larten stormed out of Tanish's office in disgust with the cowardly vampire and went to hunt down the vampaneze. He nearly killed the creature when Tanish betrayed him and knocked him out, giving him over to said vampaneze. The vampaneze saw honor in Larten and respected that; he refused to kill him simply to spite Tanish. The cowardly vampire couldn't bring himself to kill his old friend and instead killed the prostitute Larten had tried to save, covering Larten with her blood, and framed Larten for her murder.
He was forced to flee, but didn't go far, not until he got to speak with Alicia one last time. She called off their engagement and begged him not to pursue and kill Tanish, because he was the closest thing to a father Gavner had. Larten promised to hold off, but only until Gavner had grown up. Heartbroken at the loss of his love forever, Larten put his indecision behind him and returned to Vampire Mountain. He was welcomed back by his mentor, and Vancha March, newly made a prince, pardoned him for his killings aboard the ship. Over several years, Larten completed his training and was made a General.
Back on Vampire Mountain, Larten crossed paths with Arra Sails again, now a vampire, and tried to woo her, but she scoffed at his charms and claimed she'd accept his advances when she wouldn't be sidetracked from her goal of becoming a General. They would eventually mate for a brief period. Later he went on his first mission as a General, to try and convince a vampire who had strayed from the clan to return. Arrow had fallen in love with a human but his wife had been killed by vampaneze. Wester talked him into coming back to join with other vampaneze-haters. From there, they detoured to visit Evanna, and she and Larten both apologized to each other for the past - she admitted she overreacted when he drunkenly kissed her. From there, Wester and Larten went to Paris.
In Paris they found that Alicia had remarried, but Gavner was nowhere to be found. Larten stayed with Alicia for a few months but eventually returned to Vampire Mountain, where he met up with Vancha again and asked him to accompany him to find Gavner. They found him with Tanish Eul in Russia, serving as his assistant. Gavner was misinformed by Tanish and Larten instigated a confrontation. He revealed the truth and sent Tanish to his death at Vancha's hands, then gave the enraged Gavner a knife to kill Larten if he so desired. He told him the truth about everything, but Gavner couldn't bear to kill him.
NOTE: The fourth book in the prequel series about Larten's life up until The Saga of Darren Shan isn't out until May, but from the summary and title it can be easily assumed that Wester attempted to drag Larten into the group of vampires wanting war with the vampaneze, Larten refused, and somehow Wester died. Larten then ran off from the clan again before he could be invested as a Prince, gave up his position as a General, and returned to the Cirque (all things mentioned in The Saga of Darren Shan), which gets him where he's supposed to be for the first book of TSoDS. It'll be easy for me to gloss over anything that might happen in Brothers Til the Death until I've read it, as Larten rarely talks about his past to anyone, and never in much detail.
After giving up becoming a Prince, Larten withdrew from the vampire clan for a bit. Somewhere along his travels, he acquired a pet spider - Madam Octa, a highly poisonous and highly intelligent spider of an extremely rare and undiscovered-by-humans species - and rejoined the Cirque du Freak as a performer. He used his sleight of hand skills and Madam Octa, whom he could control telepathically, to wow the crowds with frightening tricks, such as the point in his act where he let Madam Octa crawl onto his face and spin a web over his open mouth. It harkened back to his time as a child when Seba Nile, who also has an interest in spiders, found him eating cobwebs to survive in a crypt. It was during one such performance with the Cirque that he turned onto the path of destiny and his life took a turn for the strange.
After the show, he was approached by a boy named Steve Leonard, who knew the alias he used in Paris in the early 1900s and knew what he was. Steve desperately wanted to be a vampire and leave his human life behind. On a whim, Larten tested his blood and found it to be coursing with pure evil. Disgusted, he turned the boy away. He didn't know that another boy, Steve's friend Darren Shan, was watching. That night, Darren, who had been enthralled by Madam Octa during the show, stole the spider, leaving a note not to come after him or he'd expose Larten as a vampire. With his spider gone, he stuck around town for a couple of weeks - he didn't pursue immediately.
Madam Octa bit Steve Leonard and pumped his veins full of poison, putting him in a coma. That same night, Larten stole back his spider, but didn't flee the town. Darren came to him not long after, demanding a way to save Steve's life. Larten doesn't know why, but he offered the antidote to Darren in exchange for something - Darren himself, as his assistant. It was the meddling hands of fate (or Desmond Tiny, the meddler), using Larten as a chess piece, or it's likely he wouldn't have blooded the boy that night; the vampire clan has laws against blooding children - Larten himself wasn't blooded until he turned eighteen. But he did, and so Darren Shan became a half-vampire. They went to the hospital to give Steve Leonard the antidote as agreed upon, but Darren hit the nurse call button in Steve's hospital room and Larten was forced to flee.
After a couple of weeks and several incidents of Darren's new strength, senses, and bloodlust startling and disturbing him, Larten returned to the boy in the night to talk him into coming with him. They faked Darren's death, Larten dug him up from his grave, and they left town together to travel.
Larten set out on his travels with Darren the way Seba Nile set out with him so many decades ago, and he acted like his mentor in a lot of ways. He gave Darren jobs to do like guarding him during the day and taking care of Madam Octa, he taught him to hunt and the like. He was hard on Darren at first but eventually he figured out that his assistant was miserable, separated from his home and family and friends and stuck with Larten all day and night. In a subtle moment of compassion for the boy in his care (who still hated him rather vehemently and still vowed out loud to kill him when he got the chance), Larten packed them up and took them back to the Cirque du Freak so Darren could make friends and be around other people who wouldn't find his half-vampire nature strange or disturbing. It was the closest thing he could do to taking the boy back to humanity, and Darren was indeed happier at the Cirque.
Larten and Darren went about life as usual. Darren had chores and friends, Larten went back to performing and teaching his young assistant what it means to be a vampire. Darren was the source of endless frustration for a while because he refused to drink human blood, fearing it would steal away the last of his humanity. Larten tried everything he could to get the weakening boy to feed, once even trying to force blood into his mouth as he slept, but nothing worked, not until an incident when a hippie let out the Cirque's wolf man (who was actually half man, half wolf, and all vicious), thinking him mistreated. The wolf man went after Darren and one of his friends, Sam Grest, in a rage. Darren couldn't fight the wolf man off because he was weak from not feeding, and the wolf man fatally wounded Sam. Larten and the others showed up to wrestle the wolf man back into his cage, saving Darren, but there was no hope for Sam; Larten convinced his assistant to drink deep from the dying boy. When a vampire or vampaneze drains a human, they keep part of their soul, their memories, their feelings. Darren drained Sam as he lay dying to keep a part of him alive. From there, he let Larten teach him how to feed from humans like a true vampire, having gotten past his fear of drinking blood.
They stayed with the Cirque until Larten got news that a mad vampaneze was terrorizing humans in the city Larten was born in. He saw the residents of the city as spiritual family of sorts, and a vampaneze murdering humans blatantly there was an affront. Larten packed up his assistant and the Cirque's snake boy, Evra Von (Darren's good friend who wanted to go with them - it was an extra burden but he didn't want the boys to be lonely) and left for his birth city without telling them why, just that he had business there. While there, they holed up in a hotel room with Larten pretending to be the boys' father; he mostly left Darren and Evra to themselves, spending his nights tracking down the vampaneze. Darren and Evra grew suspicious of Larten, who was being very secretive with them about his mission, when they saw a news report saying that bodies were found completely drained of blood, and they started to shadow the vampire every night to see what he was doing. Darren accidentally interrupted Larten's attempt at killing the vampaneze, revealed to be Murlough (the same vampaneze that killed Wester's family) in the slaughterhouse that used to be a silk factory (where Larten worked as a child). Murlough escaped and kidnapped Evra. Later, Murlough demanded Darren trade his vampire mentor for Evra's life, but Darren refused, which touched Larten, as the boy used to hate him passionately. The two set up a trap and ventured into the sewers. Murlough bought right into their ruse and Larten killed him, then they left the city with Evra, the problem taken care of.
Six years later, it was time again for the Vampire Council. Larten headed out with Darren to make the trek to Vampire Mountain, needing to present him to the Princes and confess his crime of blooding the child in the first place. They were accompanied on the way to the mountain by two of Desmond Tiny's creatures, the Little People, at his demand (he sent one to deliver a message to the Vampire Princes about the vampaneze), and they met up with Gavner Purl, Larten's old friend, whom Darren had met once before they left for Larten's birth city, on the way. They found vampaneze blood in a cave on the way there and were perplexed by its presence. When they made it to Vampire Mountain, Larten introduced Darren to many other vampires, including his own mentor / father-figure Seba Nile, and his former mate Arra Sails. They attended a Council session and went before the Princes, the vampire clan's leaders, and Larten was prepared to take whatever punishment they doled out to him for blooding a child for no obvious or logical reason, showing his sense of responsibility. Darren spoke up for him, though, and eventually they decided that Darren would have to prove himself in the Trials of Initiation - deadly, randomly chosen tasks meant to prove a vampire's worth. Darren agreed to this despite the danger because he had grown to care for Larten the way Larten cared for him, and he didn't want his mentor to be shamed. Larten, however, while he agreed with the decision, wasn't happy with it - because Darren would be killed if he failed.
Larten used his connections to get Darren the best trainers for the Trials that he could find, including the mountain's Games Master and the nearly-undefeated Arra Sails. Larten took a backseat to Darren during his trials, being there to support the boy and celebrating his successes with him. The first trial was the water maze, where Darren had to navigate a labyrinth filling with water with a large stone strapped to him. He barely makes it out alive, and Larten was clearly relieved. The next was the Path of Needles, which was much simpler, though no less deadly - Larten was there to cheer his assistant on and celebrate his escape afterward too. The next trial was much more frightening, Darren had to traverse a room filled with jets of flame for a certain amount of time. He very, very narrowly escaped that time, and was traumatized by the fiery experience; Larten was there to help him, standing loyally at his side as he recovered from severe burns. He and Seba did everything they could, finding every loophole in the book, to delay Darren's next trial, which ended up being The Blooded Boars (a task where he had to kill two vampire-blood maddened boars in a gladiator-style fight), so he could recover, but the few days they managed wasn't enough. Darren would have died in the Blooded Boars trial if Darren's friend, the Little Person Harkat Mulds, hadn't interfered at the last moment. However, Larten's assistant was far from safe.
The punishment for failing the Trials was execution. Larten was enraged, however, and he and the others argued fiercely for Darren's life as the Princes deliberated on the boy's fate. Larten tried everything he could, but eventually it was decided that Darren was to be executed in the Hall of Death in a pit of stakes. Larten didn't have the pull required to change the decision, though he fought it every step of the way. In the end, he couldn't go against the clan, though; he wanted to preserve his assistant's dignity. A soon-to-be Prince named Kurda Smahlt, another friend of Darren's, stole away out of the mountain with Darren though, intending to let him escape. Darren did, though not before finding out that Kurda was housing vampaneze in the mountain in a plot to take over the vampire clan by force - after a fight and chase that culminated in Kurda killing the vampire who'd met up with them along the way, Gavner Purl, Darren fell into the river, washing out of the mountain on a perilous ride. Larten was unaware of all of this and assumed Darren had simply gotten scared and run away; Kurda confirmed it when he returned to the vampires, no one knowing he was a traitor, and informed them that Darren had fallen into the river and been swept away.
Larten's assistant was presumed dead. It was thought no one could survive being swept down the river like that. He led the search party anyway, though, wanting, at the very least, to find Darren's body and bury him properly. Darren was actually alive, though, recovering from grievous injuries with the pack of wolves he'd met on the way to the mountain. Eventually he returned, being led into the mountain in secret by a small group of wolves. He was willing to face his own death to warn the vampires of the vampaneze lurking in the mountain. Darren went to Seba first for help and together they hatched a plan for Darren to call Kurda out at his investiture into the Hall of Princes. Larten was overjoyed to see his assistant alive; it was clear the worry and despair had been eating at him. Kurda was seized for being a traitor and questioned, then put to trial and eventually execution. Darren's own execution was stayed as he helped the vampires concoct a scheme to take the vampaneze by surprise. Due to their position they had the advantage, and would hear the vampires coming, so Darren suggested they use Seba Nile's horde of spiders to take them by surprise. Darren, Seba, and Larten, all having an affinity for spiders, led the arachnid charge. After a long, bloody battle, the vampires killed or captured all the vampaneze hiding in the mountain.
During the battle, Larten lost his former mate, Arra Sails, and wept bitterly at her death. With her dying breath, she told Larten to protect Darren at all costs, believing he had proven himself a fine vampire and not deserving of execution in the Hall of Death; Larten promised he would. Later, when the Princes discussed Darren's fate, Larten stood up for his assistant fiercely. He would have fought every vampire in the mountain to save Darren, would have given up everything to fulfill his promise and to protect the boy who was like a son to him. Eventually, the Princes decided Darren had proven himself a credit to the clan, and did the only thing they could to save him under the current laws - they made him a Prince himself, since Princes can't be executed for failing their Trials. Larten's relationship with Darren didn't change despite the change in power; Darren outranked him greatly after that, as Larten wasn't even a General anymore, but they kept their close master-assistant bond.
From there, time passed. Darren continued his studies with Larten and the other vampires, and took on his Princely duties as a leader of the clan (with his master's and Seba Nile's help, of course). Then one day Desmond Tiny visited Vampire Mountain again to give them news of the Vampaneze Lord. He informed them that they'd have four chances to find and kill him to prevent the vampaneze from wiping out the vampires - the first was Kurda's plan, and it had failed. They were down to three chances. Tiny claimed only three vampires could hunt for and kill the Vampaneze Lord - Larten Crepsley, Darren Shan, and later they find out that Vancha March, another prince and a good friend of Larten's, is the third. Harkat Mulds, not being a vampire, was allowed to go with them. They go to seek the witch, Evanna, who gave Larten his scar, for help. Eventually they made their way to the Cirque again. While there, they came across a group of vampaneze - including Vancha's brother, Gannen Harst. They attacked, thinking they could kill the Lord, but two escape, Gannen and a cloaked servant, the Vampaneze Lord in disguise. Another chance was wasted, and Larten blamed himself for letting them escape - if he had gone after them himself instead of sending Vancha, Vancha wouldn't have frozen, unable to kill his blood brother.
They set off on their quest again. This time, it took them to Larten's birth city again, the place where they killed Murlough once upon a time. Vampaneze were terrorizing the city again. Larten checked them into a hotel, but as soon as they got there, a school inspector came, thinking "Darren Horston" had enrolled in school and not showed up. The group was disturbed by this, and to keep the humans off their backs, Darren was forced to attend school. Larten spent his nights searching the tunnels under the city for the vampaneze again, joined by Darren and Harkat. When Paris Skyle, the Prince, died, though, Larten had to go back to Vampire Mountain to attend the funeral, leaving Darren and Harkat on their own. During that period of time, they managed to get into trouble with a vampaneze with hooks for hands (later revealed to be the hippie that had once set the Wolf Man at the Cirque loose) and Darren was saved by Steve Leonard. Larten, upon his return, refused to trust Steve, and for good reason. After being joined by Vancha, they take Steve with them and chase the vampaneze, only to be led into a trap set by Steve himself, who is revealed to be half-vampaneze. After a skirmish, the hunters were forced to flee to save a hostage's life, and they took Steve Leonard and a hostage of their own. Their plan to regroup was thwarted by clever planning on Steve's part and they were all arrested by the police, but eventually they all escaped. Including Steve, who took the lives of several nurses on his way out.
They came back for more, though, pursuing the Lord of the Vampaneze again right to the demonic Cavern of Retribution in the tunnels under the city. A pit of stakes surrounded a raised platform accessible only by a rope, and the whole shebang was set on fire below. It was a dramatic place for a final confrontation. The vampires and vampaneze paused their fighting so Larten could face the Vampaneze Lord alone in one-on-one combat - he wins, but Steve, who hated Larten for rejecting him all that time ago, leapt on him and caused him to fall from the platform. He grabbed onto Steve, though, and Gannen grabbed Steve's hand to keep him from falling. Larten would have gladly ended both their lives, but Gannen frantically bargains, giving his companions rest if he'll spare Steve. Larten thought he'd killed the Vampaneze Lord, and so he fell to his death in the fiery pit of stakes, smiling at Darren.
He died, never knowing that Steve Leonard was the real Vampaneze Lord. Darren's story continued, but this was the end for Larten Crepsley.
alternate history: N/A
personality:
Larten Crepsley is, as most beings as old as he, a person with many layers. There are subtle changes to his behavior when it comes to those close to him, or when he's dealing with potential foes, or when he's dealing with his fellow vampires. Very little of it, however, is a farce - he's a man who's searched long and hard over the years to find himself, and find himself he has. He knows who he is, and while he's different with Darren or Seba than he is with, say, the Vampire Princes, he's not the manipulative sort who pretends to be something he's not.
On the surface, you might call Larten a stuffy old coot. The first impression he tends to make is that of a tall, regal creature of the night, all dressed in billowing crimson. His tone is measured and even, his words carefully chosen and sparse. He does not babble, nor does he use contractions in his speech ever. He doesn't talk about things like human pop culture, and he doesn't use any modern slang - in fact most references go right over his head. He's not one for technology beyond the basic comforts of the modern day like running water and electricity (when he isn't residing at Vampire Mountain; he's not so old-fashioned that he won't sleep in hotel rooms, though he doesn't have a cell phone or drive cars, and he refuses point-blank to set foot on a plane). He seems very much like a proper Victorian gentleman, like someone born into the aristocracy long ago and who has been slow to take to the modern world. He's fairly secretive - information is given out on a need-to-know basis, even to those he's close to, such as his assistant Darren. He doesn't trust easily, either. Larten constantly questions the motives of others if he doesn't know them well. People have called him cranky before, especially in the early evenings ('morning' to the vampire internal clock), even to people he cares for deeply, which leads one to believe that his affections are nearly nonexistent, though that isn't true by any means. In general, he seems very calm and cool-headed, very sharp and intelligent, very observant of his surroundings and the people around him. He's also very clearly fearless, relishing danger and the thrill of an honorable fight.
However, this is just scratching the surface.
Larten is a good man and a loyal friend beneath the outer layer of the stoic vampire. He prioritizes loyalty to his loved ones above everything else, even so far as arguing with the Vampire Princes to spare his dear assistant's life. Darren became like a son to him and he was willing to forsake even the clan he holds dear to protect him. He would be more than willing to lay down his life for him, or Gavner Purl, or Seba Nile, or Arra Sails, and he'd do it with a smile on his face. At the end of book 9, only one of the three hunters could face the Lord of the Vampaneze, Gannen Harst, and Steve Leonard over a pit of flaming stakes, and Larten volunteered instantly. At the end, he was willing to give his own life just to take Steve's. His death came about because he would rather put himself in danger than Darren. He was often callous with Darren over the years they traveled together, and distant with Gavner ever since Gavner was a baby, but he loves them both deep down - he just expresses it very subtly on most occasions, in the way he tries to protect them and do what's best for them (and for the greater good), even if it hurts him. That isn't to say he doesn't have his softer moments, though. At emotional moments, he'll hug Darren, and he cried at the death of the woman he loved. During the trials, he was intensely concerned for Darren's life and would whoop with joy when he came out alive. When Darren's life was threatened by the princes for failing his trials, Larten stood up for him fiercely, throwing all sense of duty aside, and would have done anything to protect the boy. It's rare that he makes jokes, but he does have his light-hearted moments. He also used to be short-tempered when he was young and snapped at Seba a few times; his temper rarely gets the best of him now, though.
Larten is also a shrewd man, very cunning and intelligent. He spent years of his life trying to figure out who he was and who he wanted to be, and it shows - he's comfortable in his own skin, he's worked the youthful wildness out of his system, he's settled on his own identity. More than that, he's figured out his flaws and learned to compensate for them. When Seba Nile blooded him, he said Larten had 'mixed blood', good blood with a hint of underlying evil - the potential to do wrong, but also the potential to recognize and avoid it. Larten's done some terrible things throughout his life, like massacre human beings on a ship or kill the foreman who murdered his cousin Vur as a child, but he recognizes that he has that underlying viciousness and takes steps to be better than that. Larten was a Vampire General once, and could have been a Prince, but a lesson his mentor taught him stuck with him: power corrupts. Larten was strong enough to refuse a position as a Prince and even step down from his position as General because it didn't seem right at the time.
He was a chess piece of destiny for much of the book. Certain people are guided through their lives by the hands of fate for the final confrontation between Darren and Steve, and Larten is one of them - he likely wouldn't have gone against the clan's laws and blooded Darren if destiny hadn't made him (though it came off more as an impulse action). However, he's always tried hard to follow his own path. Desmond Tiny, the future-seeing meddler of fate, once said that Larten expressed an annoying amount of free will. He doesn't like to be manipulated or controlled; he's a very independant person who knows how important it is to believe you're in complete control of your life, another lesson Seba Nile taught. He also seems very confident in himself, though he does question his own actions and the path he walks often. He's willing to look at himself and point out where he went wrong and what he did right.
On that note, he's a very remorseful man. He knows when he's made mistakes and he does his best to make up for them and make things right somehow. When he slaughtered Gavner's family on the ship in an illness-induced rage, he took the baby Gavner with him, to give him a decent death if he couldn't find a family to take the infant. He took care of him and eventually handed him over to his lover Alicia to care for. Larten distanced himself from Gavner for one reason - he didn't want the boy to feel betrayed by someone close when he eventually found out that Larten killed his parents. Even though it was hurtful, Larten thought it was the best way to try and make up for what he'd done. With Darren, he felt bad for taking the boy away from his life, and even though Darren hated him and he was cool toward him, Larten would do whatever he could to try and make his new life a little better, such as taking him to the Cirque when Darren was lonely and miserable.
Though he's a good man who tries to make the most moral decisions and preserve life, he isn't afraid of combat or death. Fighting is the vampire way - they would rather die young on their feet in battle than drift away of old age. He won't hesitate to kill if that's what the situation deems necessary, such as killing Murlough to prevent him from terrorizing Larten's birth city. If faced in a challenge, he'll his opponent as cleanly as possible. He can be ruthless in a fight, but he isn't the type to resort to torture unless absolutely necessary, and he doesn't take pleasure from it. His temper has evened out over the decades, but he isn't an excessively violent person despite his potential viciousness.
All in all, he's a good man and a fine vampire who sacrificed his life for the good of those he loved and the clan. Despite his proper and slightly stuffy first impression, he's a kind-hearted but dutiful person. He's made mistakes in his life, but he's conscious of them and always thinking about his actions to make sure he's learned from his mistakes. He loves those close to him fiercely and is a protective man by nature. He idolizes his mentor and has tried to be like the people who set a good example for him over the years, including setting a good example for his own assistant.
abilities/powers:
Larten Crepsley is a vampire, and his powers are all typical of vampires in his canon. He might excel in some fields, but all in all, he has no real powers that other vampires don't have. More information can be found here under "Darren Shan's vampires"
Powers and Physical Traits:
- Superhuman strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, and senses. Vampires are much more difficult to kill than normal human beings. They can move quicker than the human eye can detect, and Larten is considered the quickest of all the vampires. Their strength is enhanced by quite a bit, though they still can't pick up trucks or whatever. Vampire senses of smell, hearing, and sight are all above the human norm, more on the level of animals.
- Knock-out gas. Full vampires like Larten can breathe out a gas that knocks out humans for about twenty or so minutes at a time. It doesn't harm them, just renders them unconscious. This is primarily used for feeding.
- Flitting. Vampires can run extra-fast, crossing long distances in short periods of time. Flitting takes a lot out of a vampire, though, and they cannot keep it up indefinitely without stopping to rest. They need to build up speed to do this.
- Blooding others / taking assistants. A vampire generally bloods an assistant as a half-vampire first (half-vampires are just that, they have approximately half a vampire's power level, and can't flit or breathe out knock-out gas, but aren't weak to the sun) by making incisions in all ten fingertips on both parties, then sharing blood through pressing all ten fingers to the other person's fingers. The vampire then teaches his assistant over the course of years how to survive as a vampire and bloods them fully with the same process later on.
- Healing saliva. Vampire spit makes wounds heal faster. It mostly works on small wounds but it can slow bleeding in large ones.
- Judge of character. Vampires can taste pure evil in a human's blood, and refuse to blood any evil beings.
- Affinity to spiders. Not all vampires have this, but Larten can communicate mentally, of a sort, with spiders - he can give them commands and often have them understand him. It takes a lot of concentration and sometimes a flute to get the spider's attention.
- Small degree of telepathy. Vampires who have learned the brain patterns of another (usually a very close friend) can sense where the other is. Actual communication is extremely limited.
- Extra-tough nails, teeth, and hair. Vampires have nails and hair that can only be cut by the sharpest of scissors. Their nails, toes and fingers both, are usually sharpened to points. A common trick is straightening one's fingers and using the hand as a dagger. Vampires can also climb brick walls by sinking their nails into the brick.
- Vampires are completely sterile.
- He does not have fangs.
Weaknesses:
- The sun. Vampires are not instantly incinerated by the sun, they can stay out in it for a maximum of four or five hours, but it hurts their eyes greatly and gives them horrible sunburns after just minutes. Most avoid it completely.
- Reliance on human blood. Eventually if a vampire does not consume human blood, he'll die. Vampires drink small amounts more frequently instead of draining a person dry; they don't harm their victims when they feed, just knock them out gently with their breath, make a small incision on an arm or leg with their nails, drink, then close up the cut with their saliva. The victim only wakes up with a headache and a small scar. They can feed on animal blood, but only certain animals - others are poisonous. They can also survive on preserved human blood, and most keep bottles of blood on them.
- Vampires are not immortal or invincible. They live about ten years to a human's one, half-vampires about five to one, and they do age, just slowly. Bullets and stakes and all that can kill them the same as any human.
- Larten is completely illiterate. He cannot read or write. The most he can manage is writing his own name and alias.
Learned skills:
- Combat. Larten is extensively trained in armed and unarmed combat, and can fight with a variety of weapons, but he prefers knives.
- Magic tricks and illusions. His vampire quickness is especially beneficial to performing simple sleight of hand.
- Lock picking and escapology. He's a natural at picking locks and escaping from any types of bindings, skills supplanted with training from a stage magician named Merletta.
- Spider-charming. He's trained a highly poisonous spider with the use of a tin whistle to do tricks.
- Performing. He's a natural showman and performed in a freak show for years.
- Basic first-aid, cooking skills, hunting skills, botanical knowledge, general survival skills, the sort of things you pick up over decades of living on the road and fending for yourself in the wild. He isn't an expert at anything but hunting. He can basically stitch himself up, roast meat over a fire, figure out what plants are safe to eat, and etc. He's an excellent hunter, small and large game both.
first person sample:
[A pale hand switches the video feed on. As his hand pulls back from the propped-up device, viewers might catch a glimpse of small scars tipping each of his fingers as if they were put there on purpose. The man sitting back in a dusty red velvet chair is middle aged, not particularly attractive (actually one might even call him downright ugly), and sporting a crop of unnatural orange hair. He's still wearing a set of scavenged maroon scrubs from the hospital, but there's a pile of slightly faded crimson fabric in his lap, which he is dilligently and neatly running a needle through.
The lighting in the room is dim, but the place looks rather like a parlor - though it has a very funereal vibe to it. After a few moments of quiet sewing, he glances up to the camera again, briefly, and the long scar running from mouth to hairline twitches - it could almost be a smile, though not a pleasant one.]
A cell phone. Curious. I never had need of one of these newfangled devices before. I did not know they could project video. [Truth be told, it took a while to figure out - he can't even read the menus on the phone screen, and he's had to rely on experimentation and pictures.] Now I am beginning to wish I had let my assistant teach me a few things about all this fashionable technology. [He glances up at the dim lights that don't turn off.] Fat lot of good technology did in this place, though, hm?
You know, it is quite strange. I have not seen a single spider since I first woke up. I always thought insects would be able to survive the end of the world; I have to say, I quite miss them. At least then intelligent company would not be so difficult to find.
[He glances away for a moment, distant and thoughtful; his next words come out as a mumble as he reaches over to cut the feed.] Charna's guts, this is certainly no Paradise. What sort of hell is this where a fine death does not bring peace?
third person sample:
The Cirque rarely seemed to sleep. Performers and crew were always going somewhere, doing something that needed to be done - there were always things that needed to be done in an operation of this size. Hibernius ran a tight ship, but they were all often happy to pitch in. It was the same as ever when Larten rose in the early evening, after the sun had sunk most of the way below the horizon outside. He could hear the hustle and bustle of the Cirque outside the window of his van when he slid the lid off his coffin and drew in a breath of nighttime air.
It had been a few weeks since they'd arrived at the Cirque's campsite and joined the group as they moved on to the next show. Larten couldn't help but reflect as he climbed out of his bed for the day and dressed meticulously in pressed crimson trousers, a stiff red shirt, and his favorite blood red cloak - not the set his beloved mentor had given him so many years ago, but close enough to count; he always favored red nowadays, just like Seba. But his thoughts weren't with Seba that night, they were with the young boy he spotted from the window of the van when he pulled back the dark curtains. He watched Darren Shan, new half-vampire, dart across the grass with his arms loaded up with folding chairs. He was likely helping the crew set up the tent for the Cirque's latest show. Darren seemed relaxed tonight, but Larten still had to fight back a pang of regret as he wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, why he gave in to impulse and blooded the boy.
Darren was unhappy. He wasn't like Larten, who took to the life of an assistant immediately all those decades ago. He still had a family who would have protected him, who grieved his loss, he still had friends who would miss him. After that night, after Darren finally admitted that he had no choice but to go with Larten, they had traveled alone, just the two of them. It was the way Seba had taught him to function in the world, and so he tried to teach Darren, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the child hated Larten for dragging him into this life. He had been surly and miserable in their travels, and though Larten felt the need to wander or to return to Vampire Mountain, he let his feet take him and the boy to the Cirque instead. Darren at least seemed happier here, around people, with a friend his age to play with.
It was a small good he'd done for the child, but Larten knew nothing would ever make up for the pain he had caused him.
You couldn't change your past, though, Seba had taught him that. There was no point in brooding on his misdeeds. In due time, he would face the Princes at Council and give himself over to their judgement to atone for his sins, but in the meantime, he had his charge to focus on. Lord knew he needed it. Darren stubbornly refused to drink human blood even now, with his body growing weaker by the day; Larten felt a horrible pang of worry every time he thought about it. He was supposed to care for the child, watching him waste away willingly was maddening. But the orange-headed vampire held out hope still. Maybe tonight would be the night. Sweeping from the van, cape billowing in the cool evening breeze, Larten called out to his ward, "Darren! How would you like to go on stage with me tonight?"
The boy gaped at him for a moment, dropping the armful of tent pegs he was carrying. "You'd really let me? But I couldn't-"
Larten felt himself smile, and the scar on the left side of his face twitched with the motion. "Nonsense, young Master Shan. I am certain you will put on a fine performance." A turn, and he headed off toward one of the tents. "Come along, Octa's fangs must be milked and you and I must hunt before the show commences." Darren's protests fell on deaf ears.
Larten would not let him die.
case no: No preference.