Konstantin was the Priscus of Savages and the Hound to Prince Asa Clarke. He was also a Ranking Member of the Invictus.
Biography
Konstantin was a scout in the armies of Peter the Great when he was Embraced in 1688. His memories of his early Requeim are fuzzy at best due to lengthy torpor. He recalls serving as a soldier for one vampire faction or another, and recalls making enemies among another faction. About 20 years into his Requiem, these enemies ambushed him, staked him, put him in a casket and buried him. He lay staked and forgotten until 1942, when his burial place was uncovered by an artillery shelld during the Nazi invasion of Russia. He spent the next few years defending his homeland against the invaders, during which time he came into conflict with a small group of the Ordo Dracul working within the Nazi SS. After the war, he found himself confused by how much Russian society had changed, and in 1952, he took to the life of a nomad, traveling through much of Europe, Western Asia and the Middle East. In the early 1980s, he was rendered torpid again when he stepped on a Russian land mine in Afghanistan. He subsequently went to Europe, briefly worked as muscle for the Carthians in France and arranged to be transported to the United States, where he's been since 1991. He maintained his nomadic existence and traveled across the US until 2009, when, tiring of the isolation of being a nomad, he found himself in Sacramento. He was almost immediately drafted to assist in the hunt for the mad elder Eric The Ancient, only to be briefly felled by the onset of the Lost Nights. As the senior Gangrel in the Domain following the Lost Nights, he was named Priscus by Prince Asa Clarke, and has subsequently defended that position against two challengers. Although Konstantin had worked with many covenants during his long Requiem, he only joined one - the Invictus - fairly recently. He has been working on establishing a toehold within Sacramento's prostitution trade, which he plans to use to expand his influence into other sectors.
Konstantin has alluded to his suspecting he is cursed to a lonely existence, due to a history of bad things happening to those to whom he gets close. He has Embraced a childe only once, only to have her end her unlife by greeting the morning sun. More recently, the Mekhet Elanah was killed shortly after he'd taken her as his mate.
Description
Konstantin is not tall by modern standards, only 5’8”, but he has a solid, burly build with a thick neck, broad shoulders, barrel chest and limbs tight with ropey muscles. He has a thick, black beard and shoulder-length black hair. His hair is straight (though somewhat tangled), and the beard hair appears rather wiry. He has dark eyes and thick eyebrows. Konstantin has some thin scars visible along the left side of his face, looking like wounds left by claws or fingernails. He has stated that he received these scars fighting a werewolf, having chosen to heal himself with the scars because Russian vampires consider it a sign of strength to have visibly survived a fight with a werewolf. Although he dresses nicely for some occasions (Court, Invictus meetings), he tends to dress in thick, dark, practical clothing, including sturdy hiking boots, denim, leather and (when weather-appropriate) a heavy long coat. His age appears a well-worn late 30s.
Notes
- Konstantin speaks with a pronounced Russian accent, and speaks several languages at a basic level of proficiency. He has limited knowledge of modern technology, though he is becoming more familiar with it over time.
- Konstantin is skilled with grappling and with a variety of weapons, favoring the spear, bow and knife.
- Konstantin is among Sacramento's most skilled practitioners of the Protean Discipline. He also has some proficiency with Resilience, Animalism, Vigor and Auspex, and is able to transform his form into a swarm of scorpions.
- Konstantin is uncomfortable with, and somewhat afraid of, the Circle of the Crone. He attributes this discomfort to that covenant's fearsome deeds in his native Russia.
- Konstantin was created as a player character, reverted to ST character status during DaevaDude's tenure as primary Requiem ST and has subsequently returned to full PC status.
