So, there I was naked, covered in blood, screaming my head off in a room filled with my closest kin and a number of well wishers. Do any of them help me? No. All they do is stare and whisper about a little birthmark. Sure, it kinda seemed to glow ominously but I blame that more on the fact that I was covered in blood with the moonlight spilling in through at just the right angle to make it weird. Also, how creepy could it have been what with me being only being a baby. Did I forget that part? Right. Well, I was just born and the blood was my mother’s. Mostly, I think.
I guess what I’m say is that it didn’t quite go to plan.
Complications. That’s what they told me. Which is a very political way of saying shit happened that nobody was prepared for. I don’t know the exact details of it all but it was properly fucked. Especially, when you realize that it my dad who was doing the doctoring. People talked. They always do. It wasn’t enough for him to have been stuck with a child of the brand but fate had tossed in a dead wife to sweeten the deal. He got through it though. Dad’s good like that.
Family was the talk of the town for a while though not a lot of people bothered to show up for the funeral. It was a closed casket affair which my uncle assures me was for the best. Again, I don’t the specifics of the complications but Mortimer at least was an open book about the embalming. I could go into detail here about what he told me but some have pointed out that I can be a tad macabre. Guess that runs in the family.
It’s a good family though. I know that my uhh...start? Was a bit rocky but they were good by me when they didn’t need to be. Ditching marked babies after birth wasn’t abnormal or that frowned upon. They were good to me though. Well, at least the ones I knew which I guess was only a few.
My dad, Hendrick, was a doctor. I mentioned that already but it’s kinda important so it’s worth repeating. Doctors come across as kinda callous and cold but that’s how it is. They care, of course, but they also have to keep a certain distance. They grow a thick skin. I think that’s what allowed him to ignore the talk. He didn’t move or close his clinic either. It was just business as usual. You’d think with the talk people wouldn’t come around but they did. Can’t just not go and see the doctor because of rumors, right? I mean, some didn’t but they dumb and deserved whatever disease they got.
Hendrick kept me close for a long time. I think he was worried someone would just up and take me away if they found me alone. That sort of did happen but I don’t think it was in the way he was guarding against. Not that he could of even if he had tried but I’m getting ahead of myself here. What I’m trying to say is that I spent a lot of time around him when I was younger. He made me his little assistant. I didn’t really do much at first beyond run around doing chores and handing him things when he asked. Spend enough time in a clinic though and you will start to pick up a thing or two. It helps when they start to train you. He wasn’t trying to make me into a doctor though. Don’t think Dad ever really wanted that for me. The men in the family are simple thinkers and if teaching me some skills let me help him then it was a positive.
Mortimer was a lot of the same. He’s my uncle and a mortician as I’ve mentioned. Yeah, I know. Morty the Mortician. You can laugh. It’s funny. He knows it. Told me that his path was set the day they named him. Who is he to deny such a fate? Personally, I think he liked playing with dolls a bit too much as a kid and sees the dead as just bigger dolls. I don’t say that though. That’d be rude and he doesn’t deserve to be talked about like that. Not that I think he’d mind. Nothing much seems to bother him. See, after a while with my dad he eventually started to loosen the reins and let me go out on my own….under the stipulation that it was just to my uncle’s. You know, the Mortician? See where I’m going?
I’ve touched a lot of dead people in places you can’t mention in polite company. Well, any company really. Very few people consider it dinner conversation. Which is silly. You ever played around with a corpse? I’m talking inside and out here. Clean em out and get them all dolled up. You do that all day and you are going to want to talk about it. Trust me, you want them to talk. Morticians have some of the best stories. No question. The things my uncle has seen deserve to be in a novel. Where they’d be taken for fiction because some things people just aren’t prepared to believe.
See what I did there? Catch the double meaning? Yeah, I’m sure you did.
So I did that for a while until my next and last close kin needed a steady pair of hands. Derrick is my brother and he hurts people. Purposefully. We all tried to talk him out of his chosen profession but he was dead set on it. I don’t know what happened to make him this way as a boy but somehow he came to enjoy strapping people into chairs and working them over with his tools. Honestly, I didn’t think he’d be able to make a living at it but the people just keep coming.
Derricks a dentist.
He’s older than me. I mean a lot older. Derrick was almost an adult by the time I was born. Dad says mom was one of those women that just had a hard time conceiving. The fact that she ever got pregnant again after Derrick was a surprise to both of them. With the age gap between us and the happenings around my birth I can’t say I would have blamed him for being completely distant. He wasn’t though. We weren’t really close for a lot of years but that’s more to do with him throwing himself into an apprenticeship under a dentist and dad not letting me leave home. Once he set up his own shop and I was helping him we hit it off pretty quick. Turned out he was just as odd as the rest of the family. See, he actually enjoyed the work. I don’t see the fun in it but he could just scrape and pull all day long. Some days I’d have to literally pull him away.
Derrick was an odd one. Not as bad as me though.
It started when I was working with my brother. I didn’t enjoy the work but something about seeing all those teeth really...fascinated me. I couldn’t of told you why. There was just something about them that drew me. When nobody was around I’d just play with them. Run my hands through piles of the things. One day, I took it further. It was just a whim. A stupid idea that came into my head from somewhere dark. Didn’t even question it though. I just ran with it. Picked up an old molar and tossed it in my mouth and bit down.
Yeah. I know. That’s weird, right? People just don’t do that. I did though. I bit down and I savored the feeling as it shattered. The crunching sound though was the best part. It’s as loud as you’d expect but inside your head it echoes around in a very intoxicating way. You wouldn’t understand. For me though, it just took the once to get hooked.
Guess you could say things went downhill from there. Everything changes from that moment on. I changed. Something inside of me was different now. I knew that. Could feel it. I’m being literal here. I physically could feel something changing inside me. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I did know what caused it. That tooth set it in motion and the more I ate the greater the change became.
It wasn’t just the teeth though. I mean, at first, yeah that was all but then I taste for something more. I just so happened to have relatively easy access to it too. Let’s not beat about the bush here. I wanted bones. Know who has bodies around? Morticians. Now, let’s be clear. I’m not a cannibal. I’ve no interest in fleshy bits. Just the bones. See, Mort also did cremations. If you timed it just right you could take the body out a bit early. Sure, the goods are a bit on the charred side but I’m guessing by now you realize that wouldn’t bother me. The problem is that my appetite increased while my uncle didn’t always have bodies on hand to steal. Sometimes I had to find my own.
You might have heard about the recent the grave robbings from a year or so ago. That uh...well that was me. I dug them up and got their bodies to my uncles and then you know what happened. It sounds like a lot of work sure but you underestimate how much I wanted the bones. Also, I’m surprisingly strong. You wouldn’t think it from looking at me but yeah. I am. Not particularly sneaky though.
See, guess the hunters thought it was a ghoul or something that was doing it. They camped out the graveyard and didn’t find a monster. They found me. Which led to a very frightened series of lies from me which were followed by a very concise version of the truth. Which they understood and one of them asked me to follow them.
When someone armed to the teeth who catches you eating bones asks you to follow them, you do.
Which is how I got here.
Aspect of the Hunter: "Bonesetter" which gives you the ability to reshape your bone structure as well as heal the bones of yourself and others. You can can also sense bone and by consuming bones of creatures aligned with the dark you may permanently reinforce your own skeletal structure.
Stats: Strength – C Vitality – B Skill – A Knowledge – C Bloodlust – D Darkness – B
Skills: Medical Knowledge - Spend enough time playing nurse to a doctor, dentist, and mortician and you are bound to pick up some things.
Sewing - Just one of those things you learn to do when you find yourself with a lot of time to kill. Also doesn’t hurt to be good with a needle when someone needs to get stitched up.
Cooking - It was either learn to cook or put her faith in her father’s cooking. Suffice to say, he hasn’t been allowed near a kitchen in years.
Pitch - Lorelei can carry a tune. Sadly, most times the only ears that get to enjoy her melodies happen to belong to corpses.
So, there I was naked, covered in blood, screaming my head off in a room filled with my closest kin and a number of well wishers. Do any of them help me? No. All they do is stare and whisper about a little birthmark. Sure, it kinda seemed to glow ominously but I blame that more on the fact that I was covered in blood with the moonlight spilling in through at just the right angle to make it weird. Also, how creepy could it have been what with me being only being a baby. Did I forget that part? Right. Well, I was just born and the blood was my mother’s. Mostly, I think.
I guess what I’m say is that it didn’t quite go to plan.
Complications. That’s what they told me. Which is a very political way of saying shit happened that nobody was prepared for. I don’t know the exact details of it all but it was properly fucked. Especially, when you realize that it my dad who was doing the doctoring. People talked. They always do. It wasn’t enough for him to have been stuck with a child of the brand but fate had tossed in a dead wife to sweeten the deal. He got through it though. Dad’s good like that.
Family was the talk of the town for a while though not a lot of people bothered to show up for the funeral. It was a closed casket affair which my uncle assures me was for the best. Again, I don’t the specifics of the complications but Mortimer at least was an open book about the embalming. I could go into detail here about what he told me but some have pointed out that I can be a tad macabre. Guess that runs in the family.
It’s a good family though. I know that my uhh...start? Was a bit rocky but they were good by me when they didn’t need to be. Ditching marked babies after birth wasn’t abnormal or that frowned upon. They were good to me though. Well, at least the ones I knew which I guess was only a few.
My dad, Hendrick, was a doctor. I mentioned that already but it’s kinda important so it’s worth repeating. Doctors come across as kinda callous and cold but that’s how it is. They care, of course, but they also have to keep a certain distance. They grow a thick skin. I think that’s what allowed him to ignore the talk. He didn’t move or close his clinic either. It was just business as usual. You’d think with the talk people wouldn’t come around but they did. Can’t just not go and see the doctor because of rumors, right? I mean, some didn’t but they dumb and deserved whatever disease they got.
Hendrick kept me close for a long time. I think he was worried someone would just up and take me away if they found me alone. That sort of did happen but I don’t think it was in the way he was guarding against. Not that he could of even if he had tried but I’m getting ahead of myself here. What I’m trying to say is that I spent a lot of time around him when I was younger. He made me his little assistant. I didn’t really do much at first beyond run around doing chores and handing him things when he asked. Spend enough time in a clinic though and you will start to pick up a thing or two. It helps when they start to train you. He wasn’t trying to make me into a doctor though. Don’t think Dad ever really wanted that for me. The men in the family are simple thinkers and if teaching me some skills let me help him then it was a positive.
Mortimer was a lot of the same. He’s my uncle and a mortician as I’ve mentioned. Yeah, I know. Morty the Mortician. You can laugh. It’s funny. He knows it. Told me that his path was set the day they named him. Who is he to deny such a fate? Personally, I think he liked playing with dolls a bit too much as a kid and sees the dead as just bigger dolls. I don’t say that though. That’d be rude and he doesn’t deserve to be talked about like that. Not that I think he’d mind. Nothing much seems to bother him. See, after a while with my dad he eventually started to loosen the reins and let me go out on my own….under the stipulation that it was just to my uncle’s. You know, the Mortician? See where I’m going?
I’ve touched a lot of dead people in places you can’t mention in polite company. Well, any company really. Very few people consider it dinner conversation. Which is silly. You ever played around with a corpse? I’m talking inside and out here. Clean em out and get them all dolled up. You do that all day and you are going to want to talk about it. Trust me, you want them to talk. Morticians have some of the best stories. No question. The things my uncle has seen deserve to be in a novel. Where they’d be taken for fiction because some things people just aren’t prepared to believe.
See what I did there? Catch the double meaning? Yeah, I’m sure you did.
So I did that for a while until my next and last close kin needed a steady pair of hands. Derrick is my brother and he hurts people. Purposefully. We all tried to talk him out of his chosen profession but he was dead set on it. I don’t know what happened to make him this way as a boy but somehow he came to enjoy strapping people into chairs and working them over with his tools. Honestly, I didn’t think he’d be able to make a living at it but the people just keep coming.
Derricks a dentist.
He’s older than me. I mean a lot older. Derrick was almost an adult by the time I was born. Dad says mom was one of those women that just had a hard time conceiving. The fact that she ever got pregnant again after Derrick was a surprise to both of them. With the age gap between us and the happenings around my birth I can’t say I would have blamed him for being completely distant. He wasn’t though. We weren’t really close for a lot of years but that’s more to do with him throwing himself into an apprenticeship under a dentist and dad not letting me leave home. Once he set up his own shop and I was helping him we hit it off pretty quick. Turned out he was just as odd as the rest of the family. See, he actually enjoyed the work. I don’t see the fun in it but he could just scrape and pull all day long. Some days I’d have to literally pull him away.
Derrick was an odd one. Not as bad as me though.
It started when I was working with my brother. I didn’t enjoy the work but something about seeing all those teeth really...fascinated me. I couldn’t of told you why. There was just something about them that drew me. When nobody was around I’d just play with them. Run my hands through piles of the things. One day, I took it further. It was just a whim. A stupid idea that came into my head from somewhere dark. Didn’t even question it though. I just ran with it. Picked up an old molar and tossed it in my mouth and bit down.
Yeah. I know. That’s weird, right? People just don’t do that. I did though. I bit down and I savored the feeling as it shattered. The crunching sound though was the best part. It’s as loud as you’d expect but inside your head it echoes around in a very intoxicating way. You wouldn’t understand. For me though, it just took the once to get hooked.
Guess you could say things went downhill from there. Everything changes from that moment on. I changed. Something inside of me was different now. I knew that. Could feel it. I’m being literal here. I physically could feel something changing inside me. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I did know what caused it. That tooth set it in motion and the more I ate the greater the change became.
It wasn’t just the teeth though. I mean, at first, yeah that was all but then I taste for something more. I just so happened to have relatively easy access to it too. Let’s not beat about the bush here. I wanted bones. Know who has bodies around? Morticians. Now, let’s be clear. I’m not a cannibal. I’ve no interest in fleshy bits. Just the bones. See, Mort also did cremations. If you timed it just right you could take the body out a bit early. Sure, the goods are a bit on the charred side but I’m guessing by now you realize that wouldn’t bother me. The problem is that my appetite increased while my uncle didn’t always have bodies on hand to steal. Sometimes I had to find my own.
You might have heard about the recent the grave robbings from a year or so ago. That uh...well that was me. I dug them up and got their bodies to my uncles and then you know what happened. It sounds like a lot of work sure but you underestimate how much I wanted the bones. Also, I’m surprisingly strong. You wouldn’t think it from looking at me but yeah. I am. Not particularly sneaky though.
See, guess the hunters thought it was a ghoul or something that was doing it. They camped out the graveyard and didn’t find a monster. They found me. Which led to a very frightened series of lies from me which were followed by a very concise version of the truth. Which they understood and one of them asked me to follow them.
When someone armed to the teeth who catches you eating bones asks you to follow them, you do.
Which is how I got here.
Aspect of the Hunter: "Bonesetter" which gives you the ability to reshape your bone structure as well as heal the bones of yourself and others. You can can also sense bone and by consuming bones of creatures aligned with the dark you may permanently reinforce your own skeletal structure.
Stats: Strength – C Vitality – B Skill – A Knowledge – C Bloodlust – D Darkness – B
Skills: Medical Knowledge - Spend enough time playing nurse to a doctor, dentist, and mortician and you are bound to pick up some things.
Sewing - Just one of those things you learn to do when you find yourself with a lot of time to kill. Also doesn’t hurt to be good with a needle when someone needs to get stitched up.
Cooking - It was either learn to cook or put her faith in her father’s cooking. Suffice to say, he hasn’t been allowed near a kitchen in years.
Pitch - Lorelei can carry a tune. Sadly, most times the only ears that get to enjoy her melodies happen to belong to corpses.
