Name: Dampír Race: Hylian Age: 14 Gender: Boy Place of Origin: Nabooru PWC: 1/5/2 Treasures and Rupees: Magic Proficiency, Sense, Business: Profession: Gravekeeper, Fire, Magic Power (2), 10 Rupees Equipment: Shovel, Backpack, Lantern, Bottle, Book, Shack in the graveyard Pet: N/A Appearance: Pale, thin teenage boy with short, unkempt black hair. He would be handsome if his face weren't so gaunt or those circles under his eyes weren't so dark. A naturally slender frame has been hardened by the physical demands of being a gravekeeper, and he wears the uniform of worn, dark clothing with copious patches. Personality/Background: The result of we-just-survived sex at the end of Ganondorf’s reign of terror, Dampír was the son of one of the newly appointed gravekeepers of Nabooru and a cucco lady. His father was stern and may or may not have been involved in the accidental death of Dampír’s mother. Shortly afterward, the man was pecked to death by cuccos. Don’t laugh, it was pretty scary for the surviving 12-year-old boy. The death of the mother was public knowledge, but Dampír is more or less a hostage of his father’s restless spirit, who insists that Dampír carry on the duties of gravekeeper while telling that villagers that his father is bedridden from illness. And who punishes his son anytime he tries to perform the rites that might send the dead gravekeeper on to whatever afterlife awaits him. Really, the workload isn’t all that terrible but Dampír still finds the whole situation pretty oppressive. However, Dampír has learned self-sufficiency and the courage to roll up his sleeves and just deal with the monsters in the dark. No matter how afraid he might be. Other characters will find him either working in the graveyard or running errands in the village while simultaneously trying to avoid the other villagers. His list of things he needs to do is constantly going through his mind. Tend the graves, get the food, refill the settled plots, lock the doors, wash his face… Also he often thinks about how nice the day might be if he could get to sleep. Sometimes he catches himself daydreaming. Or his dad does, which is much worse. Dampír is unfailingly polite and respectful to the people he meets as he runs his errands. Failure to do so means punishment. In dangerous situations Dampír would prefer to sneak away, and if he can’t do that he will face the threat with sullen resignation. More than once he has wondered if this is the day he will finally die. He likes sleep, but he doesn’t like his nightmares. He likes it when his dad is quiet. He likes sunny days and clear, moonlit nights. He likes the dance of lantern light in the graveyard when the Poes aren’t attacking anyone. He doesn't like his dreams about the shadowy temple. He doesn’t like that he has to do so much work all the time. He likes cooked fish. He likes the boy who helps out in the medicine shop in the village. He doesn’t like it when the village children make fun of him and call him Dirty Damper. He likes it even less when the boy in the medicine shop joins in. He likes the lady who owns the cuccos because she is nice to him. He doesn’t like the cuccos, but they seem to like him. He doesn’t like it when people get his name wrong. Dampír wants to learn magic. In fact, his only possession that he still has from his mother is a mysterious piece of paper detailing a spell for calling upon flame. For some reason it's the only thing he can keep hidden from his father, and one of his few joys in life is the moments he can hide away in the shed by the cucco lady's house and practice this single act of magic. On more than one occasion he has had to call upon its power, the first time shortly after his father's death, when he had slipped and fallen into a freshly dug grave. With no way out, he had resorted to this spell to keep him warm over the course of the three days it had taken people to notice his absence and come find him. The mystery of this one little page pulls at him like nothing else he knows, and he desperately wants to know more about it. He doesn’t say this aloud, of course, because his dad doesn’t like to hear it. He’ll settle for just getting peacefully through the day without something dark and unnatural trying to kill him. He wants his dad to go away, but he doesn’t want to be alone. He wants the boy in the medicine shop to know how much he likes him, but he would never, ever say that to anyone. He believes in ghosts. They are his reality. He is well versed in many burial and funerary rites as well as all of those other little ceremonies meant to appease the dead. He believes in the three goddesses in the same vague way that everyone else does who hasn’t actually witnessed their power firsthand. He believes in the things that crawl in the darkness at the bottom of the well. Dampír experiences horrible nightmares involving a dark temple full of dead shadows, rendering him insomniac. This means his sleep cycle consists of 3-4 days of wakefulness with steadily declining mental and physical ability, followed by collapsing from exhaustion and starting over again. Villagers can see the kid is unhealthy, but Dampír refuses their help at the insistence of his father’s restless, demanding spirit. Upon waking from a collapse, he washes himself and then continues his work routine. Dampír is often extremely frustrated with his lot in life and will sometimes vent this onto passersby. His father will then punish him for this behavior at a later time. This just makes Dampír even more frustrated and he knows he can’t do anything about it. Other kids his age are mean to him, and the adults do little in the way of preventing this. When they aren’t treating the “gravekeeper’s boy” like a piece of furniture. So naturally he is untrusting of others. He wants to run away and learn magic, but some of the villagers – and his dad – keep telling him he isn’t smart enough. His dead father, in particular, presents Dampír with quite the paradox: on the one hand he tries to beat into his son the importance of the gravekeeper to the village’s well-being and that to hold such responsibility is an honor. At the same time, he never fails to tell his living son that he, Dampír, isn’t good enough to be anything other than a gravekeeper. As a result, he is exasperated with his work while at the same time fiercely proud of it AND ALSO resigned to it. He also believes that he isn’t smart enough to learn magic. Accepting that he can be both a mage and a gravekeeper, freeing himself of his dead father’s influence, and learning that people other than the cucco lady can be kind to him, will be the key points in his character development.
In general, this character's concept is good, but there's a few tiny details. You can't be immune to Redeads and handle Poes without bottles, not just like that. What I would suggest is to eventually see if you can create a treasure for that ability, but for now I'm afraid you have to remove that from your profile. If you edit that, respond here and you're good to go! Also, just a small reminder (your profile seems to hint at Dampé, but please correct me if I'm wrong), PCs can have no relations to canon characters, sorry!
Thanks for the reply! Aaaaaaand.... edited! No more mention of Redead immunity or Poe handling. Also, I don't mean to suggest that this character is related to Dampé. I just looked at him as if his job was a time honored calling with all the trappings and traditions that go with something of that magnitude. As such my character, and presumably his father, follow the naming conventions that seem to come with the job. And of course, Dampé managed to stick around after death, so I just treated that as another thing that comes with the job.
