Bone has principles. Stone has pride. Wood remembers the direction it grew and complains bitterly when persuaded otherwise. Flesh, on the other hand, is astonishingly cooperative. It stretches. Softens. Hardens. Learns. Forgets. It accepts new arrangements with the quiet dignity of a river accepting another bend. Most objections come from the mind, which is an organ prone to sentimentality.
People speak of the body as though it arrives complete, as though the version reflected in the mirror is somehow the intended draft. Every scar is an edit. Every healed break a revision. Teeth wander. Faces lengthen. Hair abandons old loyalties. Cells spend their entire lives replacing themselves while somehow convincing their owner that continuity exists.
I have often wondered whether identity resides in persistence or merely in the speed at which one changes.
The eye is only flesh persuaded to become a window.
The tongue is only a muscle that learned to make promises.
Nearly all anatomy is renegotiable.
It seems terribly exhausting to spend one's life believing the body is sacred when it is so obviously eager to become something else.
They recently woke from a very long torpor into the 21st century and are learning how to exist again. They primarily use They/Them pronouns but won't flinch to be called He/Him. They were embraced in the early 1100s, went into torpor around the 1500s, but have adapted decently well to modern day accessibility tech and find the way they live now monumentally more comfortable than the Middle Ages.
OOC I caved... I made them a blog... oeuugh
this is a Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying blog for Owyn, my (mostly) blind Tzimisce. I have no idea what I'm going to even do with their story yet, but I love them. I will likely be posting bits of their backstory before waking in the modern day.
asks and DMs are both open for interactions and/or plotting! I would love to interact with everyone as Owyn!
likes and follows will come from my main blog @peachesncremate
I also run @1-800-leo for the Malkavian radio emcee and his sire Marcus!
3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 13 for Just Mundane Kindred Things™️!
3, What's an everyday thing you use your powers for?
I am forever adjusting things, on myself or others. A crooked shoulder made straight, an aching knee made to ache less, a scar softened because the person carrying it seemed tired of remembering. Flesh is endlessly obliging if one asks correctly. It takes me only a moment, and it is difficult to resist improving what is already in my hands.
5, What's their usual mode of transit?
Walking. I know the routes I frequent by memory, by the sound of traffic, by the way certain buildings throw echoes back at me. My people insist on offering me rides, which is kind, but I dislike the sensation of being in a moving vehicle.
6, Any mortal habits or quirks you've held on to?
Though it was not something I did solely while I was mortal, I still make the sign of the cross when something startles me. I suppose I find it comforting. Not the prayer itself, perhaps. The memory of having once believed I could be protected.
7, What food or drink do you miss the most?
Salted herring. Smoked herring, if someone had been especially generous.
People expect me to pine for feasts, but feasts belonged to other people. I was a beggar. Bread, if I was lucky. Thin pottage, if someone was charitable. Fish that had been salted hard enough to survive the winter was one of the few things a person like me could sometimes come by, and when it was smoked... well. That was almost luxurious.
I suspect if I could taste again, I would be disappointed.
9, Favorite book/show? Why?
I hesitate to choose a favorite of anything. All stories have their places, and I have enjoyed and not enjoyed many. I have had a lot of time to do so. Frankenstein, perhaps. The Peregrine. The Buried Giant. Many others.
13, What's a small thing about being Kindred that you dislike?
Everything dries out after so many centuries. Lips, skin, hair. One spends eternity chasing the sensation of being properly alive with moisturizers and lip balm. No one tells fledglings this. They fill your head with ancient curses and blood oaths, but neglect to mention that immortality is, in part, an endless battle against becoming the texture of old parchment.
I always find it's fun to think about what my kindred does in their downtime, so I made a collection of asks about the "boring" parts of being a kindred. ^^ Have fun, y'all!
How neat/messy is your kindred's home? Why?
If they're old: what's a modern convenience they enjoy? If they're young: what's something from the past they wish they got to do?
What's an everyday thing your kindred uses powers for?
What's an everyday thing your kindred COULD use powers for but they don't?
What's their usual mode of transit?
Do they have any mortal habits or quirks they haven't dropped?
What food/drink do they miss the most?
What's something modern they just don't get? If they're young, then something old they don't get.
Favorite book/show? Why?
Favorite genre of music? Why?
What kind of (video)games do they like? Are they any good at them?
Do they like vampire media and jokes?
What's a small fact about being a kindred that they dislike?
Do they prefer mortal or kindred company when it comes to everynight existence?
Has your kindred adapted to modern fashion, or stuck with things from their time?
The scent reached Owyn first as he was led into the altar room. Iron and salt and the particular sourness of a man who had been afraid for days. It curled through the darkness that was Owyn’s constant companion, threading through the musty stone like incense through the chapel. His nostrils flared. His stomach, empty for three days now, clenched so hard that his ribs ached beneath the wool of his cassock
The hunger was always present now, a hollow ache that had settled into his bones like winter cold. Vintilă had determined that Owyn required purification before he could be permitted sustenance again.
Owyn had not argued. He never argued. The last time he had tried, he had spent a fortnight with his jaw unhinged and locked open, unable to close his mouth, the tendons of his cheeks carved and reshaped until screaming became impossible. Not because he would not, but because he could not, the mechanics of his flesh no longer permitting such a sound.
“Patience, my dove.”
The bishop's voice drifted from somewhere to Owyn’s left. Smooth as oil on water. Owyn turned his head toward it, tracking the sound, the faint rustle of vestments, the soft whisper of leather-soled shoes on flagstones. Thirty years he had listened to those footsteps. Thirty years he had learned the particular cadence of his sire’s breathing, the way his robes sighed when he lifted his arms in benediction or in cruelty. They were often the same gesture.
“I have been patient,” Owyn said. His own voice surprised him. Raw. The hunger made it crack at the edges, made the words come out less like speech and more like the whine of a dog straining at its leash. He swallowed. Tried again. “I have been patient, Your Grace. Three days I have knelt on these stones and recited the prayers you set for me. Three days without—”
“Without what?”
Vintilă’s hand found his hair. Long fingers, knobbed at the knuckles, threaded through the strands and tightened just enough to tilt Owyn’s head back. The touch was almost tender. Almost. Owyn had learned decades ago not to trust almost.
“Without feeding,” Owyn whispered.
“And yet you remain. The Lord provides for His faithful, does He not?”
Owyn’s jaw tightened. The seams at the corners of his mouth pulled, that strange sensation of skin that was not quite his own anymore, reshaped and re-knit by the Bishop’s art until his mouth could open wider than God had intended.
He was so hungry.
“The Lord provides,” Owyn repeated. The words were automatic. They had been drilled into him through years of repetition, through fasting and feeding and Vintilă’s patient, relentless instruction. He believed them. He had to believe them. What else was there?
Vintilă’s hand released his hair and found his cheek instead. The palm was dry and cool. Owyn leaned into it despite himself, a shudder running through his thin frame. Affection was rare. Affection was conditional. He hoarded these moments like a miser hoarding coins, storing them against the long empty nights when the Bishop’s only given touch was the bone-deep pain of the craft.
“You have done well,” Vintilă said. “Your recitations were flawless last night. Not a single word out of place. Not a single hesitation.”
“I practiced.”
“I know you did. I heard you. Even when I was not here, I heard you.”
Of course he had. The Bishop heard everything. Saw everything. Owyn existed in a world of darkness and sound and scent, but his sire existed in a world of absolute knowledge. It was one of the many ways in which Owyn was lesser. One of the many flaws he was being reshaped to correct.
“I promised you would feed tonight. And you shall.” Vintilă’s hand withdrew. Owyn bit back a sound of loss. “But first, tell me what you sense.”
A test. There was always a test.
Owyn turned his face towards the man chained to the pillar across the room. Inhaled. The foggy darkness behind his eyes seemed to press closer, heavy and expectant. He sorted through the scents the way the Bishop had taught him, separating them.
“Fear,” he said. “Old fear, not new. He has been afraid since before you brought him here. And sweat. He is fevered. Infection, perhaps, from a wound I cannot see.”
“What else?”
“Sin.”
The word hung in the air. The chained man made a sound, a strangled thing halfway between a sob and a protest. Owyn heard the chains rattle again, heard the man’s heart beating faster, that particular rhythm that meant terror was becoming desperation.
“What manner of creature—” the man’s voice broke. “What manner of creature are you?”
Vintilă’s hand settled on Owyn’s shoulder. Proud. Possessive.
“He is an angel of the Lord, sent to deliver judgment upon the wicked. You should be honored. Few sinners are granted such a holy death.”
An angel of the Lord.
Owyn let the words settle over him like a balm. He was an angel. Vintilă had told him so, had shaped him toward that purpose with every lesson, every prayer, every careful rearrangement of his flesh.
“Please,” the sinner whimpered. “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll confess. I’ll make penance. I’ll—”
“Your penance is here,” the Bishop said. “Your penance is to nourish one of God’s holy messengers. Be grateful.”
The hand on Owyn’s shoulder squeezed once, then released.
“Feed, my dove. But remember. Purely. Without savagery. You are not a beast. You are an instrument of the divine.”
Owyn rose.
His legs trembled beneath him. Three days without blood left a body weak. He could feel the beast stirring in his chest, that thing Vintilă warned him about, the remnant of his mortal sin that had not yet been burned away. It wanted to tear. It wanted to rend. It wanted to bury its face in the sinner’s throat and drink and drink until there was nothing left but a husk.
The sinner’s chains guided him. Owyn’s bare feet found the cold stone of the floor, each step careful. He had memorized this chamber years ago, had walked it a thousand times in the darkness. Six steps to the altar. Three steps to the pillar where the sinners were bound. The man’s breathing grew louder as Owyn approached, ragged and hiccupping, punctuated by the click of his teeth as he shuddered.
“Please,” the man whispered. “Please, I don’t— I don’t understand—”
“Hush.”
Owyn’s hand found the man’s face.
His fingers traced the contours. The sweat-slick brow, the trembling jaw, the wetness of tears. The man flinched from his touch, tried to pull away, but the chains held him fast. Owyn mapped his features the way he had learned to map everything, through the patient cataloging of texture and shape. Broad nose. Thick lips, cracked and dry. Stubble that scraped against Owyn’s palm.
“What sins have you committed?” Owyn asked.
The question was not for the sinner. It was for himself. Vintilă required him to know. Required him to understand that the blood he took was tainted, that the death he dealt was just. He needed to hear the confession before he could deliver the judgment.
“I— I stole,” the man gasped. “I stole bread. And— and I lay with a woman who was not my wife. I cheated at dice. I— please, they’re only small sins, they’re not—”
“Sin is sin,” Owyn said.
The words were Vintilă’s. Everything Owyn knew was the Bishop’s. His language, his faith, his very flesh. All of it had been given to him, shaped into him, carved into the raw material of what he had been before.
“Please,” the sinner sobbed. “Please, angel, have mercy—”
Owyn opened his mouth.
The seams at the corners of his jaw parted. The flesh unknit itself, stretching wider, wider, until his mouth was no longer a man’s mouth but something else entirely. Something built for feeding. His tongue, that long and terrible thing Vintilă had gifted him, uncoiled from behind his teeth and tasted the air.
The sinner screamed.
Owyn heard the sound as if from a great distance. He was hungry. He was so hungry that the scream barely registered, that the man’s terror was just another scent layered over the overwhelming perfume of his blood. The beast surged against its restraints, and Owyn’s hands found the sinner’s shoulders and held him still.
“Be at peace,” Owyn murmured. “Your death serves a holy purpose.”
The blood hit his tongue like a revelation.
Like the first time, all those decades ago, when Vintilă had pressed his wrist to Owyn’s mouth and commanded him to drink. Like every time since, when the beast rose up and swallowed him whole and for a few blessed moments he was nothing but hunger and satisfaction, need and fulfillment.
The sinner’s throat gave way beneath his teeth. Owyn knew the exact pressure required to pierce flesh, knew the angle to avoid the gristle of the windpipe, knew how to position his jaw so that the wound would not close too quickly.
Hot blood flooded his mouth. Filled his cheeks. Poured down his throat in pulses that matched the frantic beating of the sinner’s heart. Owyn drank, and drank, and somewhere in the darkness behind his eyelids the world went red, saturated, spreading through the darkness like ink through water, until everything was crimson.
Red was the color of feeding. Red was the color of the beast. Owyn loved the color red.
The sinner’s body jerked against him. The chains rattled. Owyn heard the man trying to scream, but his throat was already torn, and the sound came out as a wet gurgle that only made the blood flow faster. Hands beat against Owyn’s shoulders. Weak hands. Dying hands. They scrabbled at his cassock, found his hair, pulled with the desperate strength of the condemned.
Owyn did not notice.
He was somewhere else now. Somewhere deep, where the hunger lived, where the beast coiled around his spine and whispered to him in a voice that sounded like his own. The blood was life. The blood was warmth. The blood was everything he had been denied for three days of prayer and fasting, and he could not stop drinking, could not stop, the beast would not let him stop—
“Enough.”
The word barely cut through the red haze. Owyn made a sound, something low and guttural, something that rose from his chest without his consent. His jaw tightened. His teeth sank deeper. The sinner’s heartbeat had long since stopped, but there was still blood in the flesh. He could get to it. Owyn ground his jaw down, tearing the flesh for more.
“I said enough.”
A hand closed around the back of his neck.
It was not a gentle hand. It was not the hand that had stroked his hair, that had cupped his cheek, that had called him my dove and promised him he was loved. This was the Bishop’s other hand, the one that Owyn feared more than he feared the sun, more than he feared the beast, more than he feared the God whose judgment he was supposed to be delivering.
The hand lifted him off the sinner’s body. Effortlessly. Owyn dangled from his grip like a kitten dangling from its mother’s scruff, his jaw still unhinged, blood spilling from his lips to stain the front of his cassock.
The beast snarled at the interruption. Owyn heard the sound come out of his own throat, a deep, feral growl that had no place in the mouth of an angel. His hands reached for the sinner’s body, still warm, still bleeding, still there, and the Bishop shook him once, hard, the way a terrier might shake a rat.
“Be silent.”
The growl died in Owyn’s throat. The beast retreated, slinking back to its den somewhere behind his heart, leaving only shame in its wake.
He had done it again.
He had lost himself again.
“I am sorry,” he whispered. “I am sorry, Your Grace. I did not mean— I tried to stop, I tried—”
"You have fed. You have taken enough. The rest is greed, and greed is a sin."
Owyn's chest heaved. The red was fading from his vision now, leaving only the familiar darkness. He could taste blood on his lips, could feel it cooling on his chin and dripping down his throat. The hunger was quieter now, pushed back but not extinguished, a banked fire rather than a blaze.
"I am sorry," he whispered again.
"I am sure that you are. And you shall be sorrier still for the penance you shall receive for such base reactions."
The Bishop set him down. Owyn’s legs buckled. He caught himself on the stone floor, his palms slapping against the cold flagstones, and the impact sent a jolt through his wrists that he barely felt. The feeding-fugue was fading now, leaving clarity in its wake. And with clarity came the shame.
He could smell the sinner’s body. Empty. Drained. The heart had stopped. Owyn had felt it stop, had felt that final pulse of blood against his tongue, and in the moment he had exulted in it.
"Forgive me, Your Grace." Owyn's voice cracked again, pathetic and small.
Vintilă’s silence was worse than any reproach. Owyn bowed his head, his forehead pressing against the cold stone. His cassock was wet with blood. It clung to his chest, to his thighs, sticky and cooling. He could feel the beast’s satisfaction lingering in his limbs, a warmth that was not his own, a contentment that felt like violation.
“I am not an angel,” he croaked.
“Not yet.”
Fingers found his chin. Tilted his face upward. Owyn did not resist. He could never resist. Vintilă’s touch was the only touch he knew, the only affection he received, and he craved it even when it presaged pain.
“But you will be,” the Bishop continued. “I have told you this. I have promised you this. Every lesson, every reshaping, brings you closer to perfection.”
“I am a beast.”
“You contain a beast. There is a difference.” The thumb traced the seam at the corner of Owyn’s mouth, following the line of scar tissue where his jaw had been reconstructed. “The beast is your burden. Your trial. The fire through which you must pass to be made pure. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Do you?”
Owyn swallowed. His throat was still coated with blood. “I understand that I am not yet what you would have me be. I understand that I fail, again and again, that the beast rises up and I cannot contain it.”
“And why can you not contain it?”
The question was gentle. That was the worst part. Vintilă’s cruelty was never loud, never violent in the way that mortal men understood violence. It was patient. It was loving. It was the voice of a father correcting a wayward child, and Owyn did not know how to resist a love that came wrapped in pain.
“Because I am weak,” Owyn said.
“Yes.” The hand withdrew. “But weakness can be overcome. Weakness can be trained out of the spirit just as imperfection can be sculpted out of the flesh. You will learn. And until you learn, you will be corrected.”
Footsteps. The rustle of vestments. Owyn heard Vintilă move toward the sinner’s body, heard the soft grunt as he lifted it, the rattle of chains being unfastened. The body would be disposed of. The room would be cleaned. By the time the sun rose above the English countryside, there would be no trace that a man had died here tonight.
"I am sorry,” he said again, because it was the only thing he knew how to say. “I am sorry. I will do better. I will be better.”
“I know you will, my dove.”
Footsteps retreated across the room, toward the door that led to the upper chambers. Owyn remained on his knees, his head bowed.
“Remain here,” Vintilă said. “Pray. When I return, we will begin the next lesson.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And Owyn?”
He lifted his head. The darkness behind his eyes was absolute. The red had faded. There was only the void now, and the sound of his sire’s breathing, and the distant drip of water somewhere in the depths of the monastery.
“I do this because I love you. You know that, do you not?”
Owyn’s throat tightened. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“You are my greatest work. My most precious creation. When I look upon you, I see not a broken boy left to die in the mud. I see an angel, still taking form, still finding its wings. I will not abandon you. I will not leave you incomplete. Do you believe me?”
“I believe you.”
The words came out steady. That surprised him. He had expected them to shake, to break apart on his tongue the way so many things seemed to break apart. But they held.
The Bishop made a sound of satisfaction. The door opened. The door closed. The bolt slid home, and Owyn was alone.
He could still taste the blood on his lips. The rich, copper warmth of it. The hunger, that banked fire, stirred in its den.
Owyn’s hands found the front of his cassock, still soaked. He pressed the cloth to his mouth. He sucked at the wool, desperate, his jaw working as he sucked cooled blood from the threads. The beast was still desperate, hungry.
I am sorry, Owyn thought, the words hollow and useless. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.
He pressed harder, his teeth scraping against the fabric, grinding it against his gums until the taste faded to nothing.
Only then did he lower his hands.
The cassock was ruined. Vintilă would know. The Bishop always knew.
((There's like three other people's ocs I want Owyn to interact with eventually but literally all of them are Tremere so they'd inevitably be a bitch to these people 😭 this motherfucker was awake during the Omen Wars never ask a 900 year old Tzimisce how they feel about clan Tremere))
There was a crowd. There are always crowds for spectacles. I saw them jeering, and then I saw nothing for three centuries. It was a lot of time to ruminate on such a sight.
For a very long time I could not bear laughter, even when it was not directed at me.
[ G ] What is the best gift you have ever received?
The eyes in my palms.
They were not given freely. One might call them a trophy more than a gift. The acquisition of them does unfortunately ensure that every time I remove my gloves, I am reminded of the person I took them from.
The finest gifts are rarely uncomplicated.
Perhaps those aside, it is my current refreshing Braille display that Annie gave me. Modern technology is a marvel.
[ H ] What is your home like? Has it always been like that?
For most of my existence, "home" meant wherever my sire had decided we would remain until the neighbors grew suspicious.
I currently live in what was once an ordinary apartment building.
These days it serves as an independent living facility for blind adults. There are tactile floor markers, Braille signs beside every door, elevators that announce each floor, kitchens designed so people need not rely upon sight to cook safely.
I arrived here as a resident, after Annie discovered me.
The sighted staff know precisely what I am and have long since accepted it. They are paid well enough in vitae to be obedient and know not to ask inconvenient questions. Applications for new residents are permanently closed.
Most of the residents do not realize they have all, in one way or another, accepted my blood.
A shared cup of tea. A "vitamin tonic" to hasten recovery. A sip mixed discreetly into medicine after an illness. So little that none would ever think to question it.
They are mine now, whether they know the precise nature of that bond or not.
I do not own the building. Annie does. But if one listens to the heartbeat of the place rather than the deed, it has become mine all the same.
[ T ] Do you have any secret talents?
I'm good with computers.
Most expect someone who remembers the Crusades to regard computers as sorcery. Instead, I find them refreshingly simple.
Screen readers have become second nature. I type quickly, troubleshoot my own devices, maintain the home's network, and have on more than one occasion fixed Annie's laptop after she declared it "possessed."
((Ooc: he’s trying to express himself while not making the screen reader explode, that’s why he’s now typing emojis as words 😅))
[ N ] What do you take note of when meeting people?
I notice cadence before words, whether people speak louder towards me than others as if I cannot hear them, whether they speak slowly as if I were unable to process words. I notice the length of their stride. Whether they drag a foot, favor one knee, carry weight unevenly. The sound of their breathing, if they breathe at all, tells me whether they are anxious, ill, exhausted. I listen for the little pauses people do not realize they make when choosing a lie instead of the truth. All of this taken together often tells me that there is something about me that makes people nervous.
[ L ] What kind of music do you listen to?
There are songs I still hum that have been dead for centuries, remembered now by no one but a handful of old monsters with inconveniently long memories. Pilgrims' hymns sung in cold stone churches before sunrise. Monastic chants that lingered beneath vaulted ceilings until it became impossible to tell where the voices ended and the building itself began. Harvest songs with verses added and forgotten every generation. I miss hearing them sung by more voices than my own.
As for modern music...
I enjoy Tool.
Happy face.
((Wahh that's so sweet actually 😭 including them))
ABC HEADCANON PROMPTS featuring a mix of silly and more serious character development questions.
send HEADCANON + send letters or spell something in the poster's inbox.
[ A ] Does your muse give good advice ? On what subjects ?
[ B ] What bores your muse ? What are they like when bored ?
[ C ] What colors does your muse like to wear ?
[ D ] Does your muse drive ? How are they behind the wheel ?
[ E ] What is one of your muse's embarrassing memories ?
[ F ] Does your muse get frightened easily ? Of what ?
[ G ] What is the best gift your muse has ever received ?
[ H ] What is your muse's home like ? Has it always been like that ?
[ I ] What inspires your muse ?
[ J ] Does your muse like to joke ? What is their sense of humor ?
[ K ] What was your muse's first kiss like ?
[ L ] What kind of music does your muse listen to ?
[ M ] What motivates your muse ?
[ N ] What does your muse take note of when meeting people ?
[ O ] Is your muse afraid of getting old ? How do they view aging ?
[ P ] Does your muse like poetry ?
[ Q ] Does your muse like the quiet ? Why or why not ?
[ R ] In what ways does your muse show restraint ?
[ S ] How does your muse take surprises ? Do they like surprising others ?
[ T ] Does you muse have any secret talents ?
[ U ] Who in your muse's life understands them the most ?
[ V ] What is your muse's dream vacation ?
[ W ] Does your muse drink water regularly ?
[ X ] Does your muse have an xbox ? Do they like to game ?
[ Y ] What does your muse yearn for ?
[ Z ] What would your muse be like in a zombie apocalypse ?
She insists it is therapeutic. It has wandered the halls all afternoon startling people by pressing against ankles yet still collecting admirers with stunning ease. I have witnessed other residents stop what they are doing to coo at the sound of its paws against the floorboards, hoping it will brush against them again. They have welcomed its company wituout hesitation.
I have glimpsed it physically but briefly, black as midnight sky, eyes of shocking yellow, smooth as silk or oil, before donning my gloves again and reducing it's presence back to naught but it's breath and it's frantic little heartbeat. My first thought was not my own.
"Thou shouldst not trust the sable cat. They are companions unto witches and merry servants of the Devil. They are fit only for the toppling of inkwells, the fouling of manuscripts, and the interruption of honest labour. If thou hast a desire to perfect thy fleshcraft, childe, take instead the mice. They breed in abundance, complain but little, and no man mourneth their passing."
It is curious how the mind preserves inherited fears long after it has discarded the reasoning behind them.
This evening it climbed into my lap without invitation, circled once, twice, then settled as though it had always belonged there. A moment later it began to purr.
An extraordinary sound.
Not loud. Merely constant. Like a spinning wheel heard through another room, or rain finding the same stone over and over again.
It stayed for nearly an hour. I did not have the heart to disturb it. It was remarkably warm. Perhaps my sire was wrong.
ur intr0 soundz v3ry neat ! :D do y0u happen 2 be a Drag0n, t0o? als0, if u r, whatz ur fav0rite th1ng 2 do with Viciss1tud3? :)
Remarkable work butchering text. My screen reader perhaps made it through, "u r intr-zero sound zee v-three-ry neat exclamation point colon d," before I took mercy on the poor thing and had a ghoul translate.
I assume the effect is considerably more charming to someone who relies upon eyesight.
To answer your question: no, I wouldn't call myself a Dragon. I'm a Tzimisce, certainly, and while some of our clan wear the title with great pride. I've simply never found it necessary. Grand names have always struck me as compensating for something.
As for Vicissitude, despite my own enhancement, I much prefer refinement over spectacle. Anyone can cover themselves in claws or produce a second mouth. It's dramatic, but drama is easy. Precision is difficult.
Most people imagine fleshcraft only in terms of monsters. They forget that if one can make a body dramatic, one can just as readily make it better.
Of course, I do still experiment. One doesn't improve a craft by refusing to test its limits. Animals are obliging subjects, and every so often someone with exceptionally poor manners provides an opportunity for further study. I find discourtesy a surprisingly effective predictor of who will be least missed for an evening.
In any event, thank you for the question. And, if you intend to send another, I would ask only one small kindness. Consider my screen reader first.
Sire: A Tzimisce bishop whose theology centered on fleshcraft. He preached that suffering purified the soul and body, but in truth simply reveled in inflicting pain. Owyn rarely speaks of him; the only proof he ever existed are the eyes resting in Owyn's palms.
Pronouns: They/Them, but won't balk at He/Him.
Gender: Nonbinary (historically, they would simply have described themself as a eunuch.)
Sexuality: Non-specific
Relationship status: Open, but are you sure you're brave enough to try?
Physical Appearance
Owyn is slender, almost delicate, with long dark brown hair that falls to the middle of their back. Their features are naturally androgynous, a consequence of being castrated before adulthood.
Most nights they're dressed like they wandered out of 1994 (because they sort of did...) Oversized flannels. Threadbare sweaters. Faded jeans. Heavy boots. And always with fingerless gloves and dark sunglasses.
Their natural eyes are blind, clouded by dense cataracts and old scarring, leaving them with little more than vague light perception. Instead, they see through eyes seamlessly embedded into the palms of their hands, crafted from their sire's own stolen eyes centuries ago. They almost never uncover them, even though it's nice to have the option when they need sight for something.
Besides the obvious potential public horror of revealing them outside their Haven, seeing out of one's hands has profoundly unnatural depth perception that Owyn finds deeply disorienting, often causing vertigo after only a few moments. They primarily only use their vision when doing fleshcraft, and even then don't always rely on it. Most nights they willingly navigate the world as a blind person, relying on a white cane, hearing, touch, memory, and routine instead. Taking their gloves off is always a very intentional decision, and if it isn't because they're sculpting someone, it's one they only make when necessity demands it.
Other Vicissitude alterations remain equally concealed. Narrow seams hidden along their jaw allow it to unfold unnaturally wide while feeding, with an exceptionally long prehensile tongue. Few Kindred or Kine ever witness either.
Personality
Owyn is difficult to categorize.
They're polite, soft-spoken, patient, almost unfailingly calm. Yet there's something quietly alien beneath every interaction.
Their Humanity has worn thin over centuries, noticeably detached. Owyn no longer believes human morality is particularly universal. People become attached to ideas like "natural" and "sacred." Owyn finds flesh neither. It's tissue. It stretches. It scars. It heals. It can always become something else. They no longer think about people the way humans think about one another. Mortals are resources.
They value a dependable nurse the same way another Kindred might value a trusted accountant. A ghoul who brings groceries, changes linens, and offers blood regularly is precious. Not because Owyn cares for them, but because stability is valuable. A comfortable haven is valuable. Reliable food is valuable.
Outside their haven, Owyn continues to refine Vicissitude through experimentation. Animals are common subjects, and particularly rude or cruel individuals occasionally disappear long enough to become educational opportunities. They consider such experiments research rather than punishment.
They rarely inflict suffering for its own sake. Cruelty is inefficient. Likewise, compassion isn't a guiding principle either. If someone under their care prospers, that's wonderful. If they become something slightly different in the process...
Well. Bodies change.
No big deal.
Early Life & Embrace
Owyn remembers very little warmth from life.
Born into extreme poverty in late eleventh-century Britain, Owyn survived by stealing until they were caught by someone powerful enough to make an example of them. Their sentence was public mutilation: their eyes were destroyed, they were castrated, and they were deliberately left alive to discourage others.
They wandered for years on monastery charity and sheer determination before being found by a Tzimisce bishop. The bishop claimed to admire Owyn's refusal to die, but his true fascination lay in suffering itself. He regarded flesh as sacred scripture to be rewritten through agony, and every lesson became another excuse to indulge his sadism beneath the guise of enlightenment.
Centuries later, after mastering Vicissitude, Owyn repaid him by stealing his eyes. Not as trophies, but as replacements for their own.
Current Life
Following a long torpor, Owyn awoke roughly thirty years ago and found modern accessibility technology astonishingly liberating. Screen readers, refreshable Braille displays, GPS, voice assistants, and smartphones made navigating the world easier than at any other point in their existence. They still prefer Braille over printed text, having learned written language first through touch rather than visual symbols.
Convictions
• Stability is worth preserving.
• Suffering should accomplish something.
• Flesh exists to adapt and improve.
Touchstones
• The assisted living community that has become both home and carefully cultivated ecosystem.
• Their first nurse and oldest ghoul, whose simple kindness anchored Owyn to the modern world.
• Accessibility technology and Braille, reminders that humanity occasionally invents things worth admiring.
• Mint gum, of all things. They're almost never without mint gum. Every stick tastes like damp ash after only a moment, but the cooling burn of menthol is physical chemistry, not flavor, and they find the sensation nice.
Haven
Officially, Owyn lives in an assisted living home for blind adults. Unofficially, they own it in every way that matters.
A nurse found them sleeping rough shortly after their awakening and insisted they come inside. That nurse became their first ghoul. Others followed naturally over the years. All members of staff. Many long-term residents. Some knowingly, but most unknowingly.
To everyone else, Owyn is simply the 'lovely young man' who fixes phones, configures screen readers, remembers birthdays, always has mint gum, and somehow helps chronic injuries disappear.
If one of the nurses occasionally asks Owyn to fix an arthritic shoulder, straighten a crooked spine, or remove chronic pain through methods no medical textbook could explain... Everyone agrees they look much healthier afterward. Questions seem unnecessary.
Predator Type
Consensualist. Owyn feeds almost exclusively from willing ghouls within their community, finding routine safer than hunting strangers. Their herd is healthy, comfortable, and exceptionally loyal.
Ambitions
• Perfect Vicissitude until flesh becomes as intuitive to sculpt as clay.
• Preserve their haven as a stable, self-sustaining sanctuary for centuries to come.
• Discover whether there is any meaningful limit to what a body can become.
