[hider=The Red Worm]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Ah3lIra.png[/img][/center]

[b][color=ed1c24]Name:[/color][/b] Ashur Kupala


[b][color=ed1c24]Gender:[/color][/b] Male


[b][color=ed1c24]Appearance:[/color][/b] While his appearance is mutable thanks to his skills in transformative blood sorcery, Ashur's most commonly-used guise is that of a slight, gentle-featured young man with white hair and pale eyes. His usual garb is finery that allows him to walk amongst the educated and privileged without notice.

[b][color=ed1c24]Abilities:[/color][/b] Ashur's longest pursuit through his unlife has been the study of blood magic, and his attempts to refine it into new and terrifying forms of sorcery. As a living man he was a proficient wizard and alchemist, but in Ichor's era his powers over flesh and blood were truly terrifying. He has dabbled in a wide array of magical disciplines, including those unique to Ichor's children, but blood magic and alchemy that he has derived from it are his true forte.

[b][color=ed1c24]Personality:[/color][/b] To most, Ashur has a charming, if somewhat servile demeanor; this is a fascade, long cultivated over centuries of politicking and deception. In truth, Ashur is vicious, ruthless, and utterly brutal in pusuit of his goals. However, this is all kept carefully concealed, and his efforts toward his secretive agenda are subtle enough to go unnoticed by most. Regarding Ichor, at first Ashur saw her as a means to an end, but now considers her to be his jailer, and knows that he can never truly be free as long as his life is linked to her power. He gives every appearance of pursuing the mission she passed down to him, but truly seeks to rid himself of her yoke. While Ashur views himself as superior to every human, he thinks much the same of most vampires. In his mind, he is an evolved, advanced being, better than any human or vampire, which are beings that exist only to serve his needs and goals.


[b][color=ed1c24]Bio:[/color][/b] Ashur was born in a distant land, a far-removed prince of a royal house. The early years of his mortal life were fraught with danger, as court politics in his homeland were fierce and deadly. He honed his skills in deception (and in poisoncraft) simply to survive his youth, and once he was of age he left his homeland to study the mysteries of magic. Far along his travels he heard tell of the undead goddess Ichor, and sought her power in order to achieve eternal life. Without the threat of age and death hanging over his head, he believed he would be able to achieve mastery of sorcery outside the reach of mortals. His investigations led him to an opium den that was truly the den of something far worse. Beset by vampiric thralls, he used his magical skills to dispatch the undead fiends, and their master was impressed by his prowess. Under Ichor's auspice, Ashur was made a vampire, and his first act as one of the living dead was to slay his progenitor, to ensure none could claim to be his superior.

Spending his unlife in pursuit of secret magics and forbidden alchemy, Ashur spent most of his time far removed from the societies of both humans and vampires. His eventual goal was to surpass the vampiric condition, and evolve into an entire new form of being, free of Ichor's control. Even so, the Hundred Paladins sought to put him down all the same, and there was little that he could do. Their divine power was enough to nullify his unholy magic, and he was eventually slain by his own alchemically-mutated minions after his control over them was broken by the paladins' magic.[/hider]