Dorian Graves

Dorian is an average-to-handsome man, just shy of six feet, and a solid 160 lbs. of muscle. He doesn't look any stronger than a normal person which is dangerously misleading. Dorian's strain of the Curse makes him far more powerful in reality and he's capable of frightening displays of that point. He's ripped cars apart or pulled panic room doors off their hinges, all with his bare hands. His grip is powerful enough to bend steel and crush bone. He's trim but athletic, a physical lifestyle before death combined with military service left him with well-defined arm and leg muscles.

His hair was short when he died and it's been short ever since. His face was clean-shaven and has been ever since, as well. Dorian doesn't change over the years, not without effort, and he rather likes the way he looks. Green eyes peer out from his face and an easy smile rests on his features. His complexion is subtle with an ashen pallor. In bright lighting, he looks sickly to the average mortal. He avoids bright lights for exactly this reason.

He dresses well. Dorian almost always wears a suit with a coat or at least a vest with a tucked in button-up. It's a little old-fashioned but he's seen little need to change it, and besides, he spent enough years of his life huddling in a trench, covered with mud. He wants to look nice, he can afford to look nice, so he looks nice. Dorian favors muted, neutral colors but otherwise experiments with his style from time to time. He'll dress casually for trips that require more physical activity or if he's going below ground (ala through the sewers). No need to ruin a perfectly good suit there. Jeans and a hooded sweatshirt will do the job just fine in those cases.

Despite all these, Dorian is what he is and his Clan bears its own Curse of the blood. He embodies fear and all manner of uncomfortable feelings. Something in him stands in the way of normal relationships, even if no one could really say what that something is. Sometimes his social efforts just fall flat. When they do, people take it in the worst possible way rather than the least. It doesn't effect other vampires (or other supernaturals beings), though they may still find him disturbing on their own, or the people he forms deep, meaningful connections with. For everyone else though, Dorian possesses the Lonely Curse and it'll be with him through his Requiem for eternity.

Dorian was there for the Second Industrial Revolution, when the steel mills fired up and the first automobiles began rolling out of Henry Ford's factory. History remembers it as a time of excitement and development, but to Dorian it was largely a novelty. He was a little kid, one of thousands who crawled their way through the tight spaces to work in the different factories. Dorian managed to keep all his limbs intact and to avoid having his head sucked into a thresher but he saw it happen to plenty of other kids. That was life then. He didn't have any parents to watch out for him or feed him if he didn't work. Added to that, Dorian was responsible for his younger sister, and had to see to her well being too. As if often said about such eras, "it was a different time".

He was a young man when the First World War broke out. The Archduke was assassinated and the resulting comedy of errors and alliances plunged the globe into its most vicious cycle of armed violence yet seen. While neighborhoods were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Men who'd lived together in an area were put into the same units, under the belief they'd work better together due to familiarity, but all that really happened was, when it went bad, an entire generation of a town's men would die at once. Through providence or sheer, stupid luck, Dorian survived with relatively minor injuries. The gas in the trenches had damaged his lungs, and the doc's said it would shorten his lifespan, but that was life. It was a different time. Harder than the war, in some respects, was readjusting to peacetime. Dorian had been shaped and molded by conflict and the things he'd seen overseas. He was likely suffering from some form of PTSD, though there was no recognition of it as such. Coming back to a population where most folks didn't understand what had really happened made him feel alone, like an outsider. His sister had served as a nurse during the war herself but it still wasn't the same. He was glad she found her 'out' from factory work, at least. Cue the Roaring Twenties, where society collectively said "fuck it", and threw decorum to the wind. Speakeasies, flappers, gangsters, and bootleg hooch flowed like water.

Dorian tried his hand at a variety of jobs. He was a handyman, a mechanic, a bartender, and a back-alley doctor when he couldn't find gainful employment with a legitimate practice. Just about everyone he met was on the take in some form or being screwed over by the same system that was fucking him. It was around this time he first started reading Communist literature, something he kept to himself because he knew what was good for him. He'd just found a regular job when the Great Depression hit and it evaporated like water on hot pavement. Back to the unemployment lines. Back to begging for work. Back to going to bed hungry.

The world finally broke Dorian down. He became a closet alcoholic before he even knew it. He woke up one day, hungover like usual, and realized he was the joke that he used to step over on his way to the work que. That revelation was oddly freeing. He didn't have to pretend to himself anymore. It was liberating to see himself the way others must have seen him. Dorian finally realized how rigged the whole game was and how it had always been rigged. He decided to get himself a decent cut of whatever he could and get by. He also decided that if he was suffering, it was only fair for someone else to suffer too. So he got drunk one night, went to a local warehouse's office on the docks, and burnt the damn thing to the ground.

That's when he met the vampire.

Turned out the warehouse was owned by one of his future sire's enemies and they'd been looking for a way to pay the bastard back. Dorian did it for them, inadvertently, which gave them all the deniability in the world. Of course, his sire decided that kind of spirit also didn't just come along every day and made him hers. She approached him; long legs, thin waist, and shark-like eyes. They talked about social injustice and the need for revolution until it was nearly dawn. Then she gave him a half-stake in immortality as her ghoul. Vampire blood was better than bathtub whiskey, that was for damn sure.

Working for her took Dorian deep into the underworld of the supernatural which honeycombed the city. He saved her ass one night, when a few rivals had her cornered with Rottweilers and blow torches, and in return she finally gave him the Embrace. They stayed together for a while but death changed the dynamic of their relationship. Eventually, she had to skip town to spread the revolution elsewhere, and left without saying goodbye. Dorian realized they weren't too compatible and it was blood that had always tied them together. He missed her, but after his dying, they'd never quite been able to meet in the same emotional neighborhood. Their parting wasn't on bad terms but it wasn't friendly either. He still wonders how she's doing sometimes. Once in a blue moon, he senses her through their shared blood. He can't tell if that's because she's nearby or just dreaming deeply in torpor but it's an odd comfort to know she's still out there.

Dorian didn't have to worry about his lungs anymore. Being a vampire gave him a new lease on life but it also turned out his Clan wasn't particularly welcome socially. That was fine, he was used to being the can kicked down the street. If his undead peers, who were worse than their mortal counterparts in nearly every way, wanted to play that game, then he'd play that game. More than one of their servants had an "unfortunate accident" over the years. More than one rivals haven had a fiery experience minutes before dawn.

Vampirism is a new lease on life for Dorian. He plays the power games when he needs to, all towards the goal of affecting a more positive change for all vampires, and mortals by contrast. He's a fringe player of the All Night Society for the moment, with a few close allies which he trusts not to stab him in the back. He knows the rest of the world would gladly do just that. Dorian's alright with that. He'll play by the rules of the game until the rules change. And he'll make them change.

Dorian makes a good living as a night doctor using a psuedo-persona. He charges in favors or blood from those who seek his help. He's also got a side gig as a private investigator, to phrase it nicely, which means he's really a leg breaker for the Movement. He was never a very violent person in life but being a vampire can certainly change a man. He's got a Beast with a capital 'B' inside of him now and when it gets hungry, or pissed off, someone's going to bleed.

He's been operating for decades now. Dorian Graves, Union man. Scabby the Rat? They'd better hope it's only Scabby the Union sends. If they send Dorian, it's going to be a far more terrifying experience. He trades in terror like a car salesman. His prices are steep but he gets results. Need a body disposed of where it won't be missed? He can help with that. He's put others there before and he knows where lots of other folks have buried their 'unwanted' treasures. That knowledge alone has given leverage to keep safe by pitting rivals against one another. Eternity trudges on.

Another different time.

Dorian has had a rough life of it and he's not particularly in touch with every social moor that changes. One thing he tends to be on top of is the idea that change is good, often necessary, and violence is an acceptable way to create that change if words falter. He thinks in the big picture more than the small. Dorian could give two fucks who's running the show because the people running the show, at present, are doing a piss poor job of it. He identifies more readily with people who feel repressed or denigrated by "the system". People who feel genuinely put down by 'the man'. That's common ground he can empathize with.

He's casual enough in conversation. For being a firebrand, he's a calm one... to a point. He's soft-spoken with a thoughtful, empathetic demeanor. It's not bullshit either, he's good at sensing others emotions. He's even still shy around women he finds attractive. His sense of humor is a bit macabre for the sensitive but he'll apologize when he realizes he's offended someone. Dorian is a man of simple pleasures; a good book, a well-loved movie, a full-stomach, and he's a happy camper. He loves being around other veterans and the newer climate of respect for servicemembers, and recognizing their struggles, shows him society can move in the right direction.

Where Dorian gets fired up is on the large scale. When he see's homeless veterans on the street, because the system still doesn't have enough in place to rehabilitate or rehouse them, he gets pissed. When he sees an illegal vampire destroyed rather than taught the ropes, he gets pissed. When people use their deities to justify treating other people like shit, he gets pissed. "God says what? How about I send you to meet Him, asshole?" are his thoughts on the matter. Some people can turn the other cheek. Dorian is a monster. He doesn't have to turn the other fucking cheek.

Is he a hypocrite? Sure. Dorian's not perfect but his heart's in the right place (or so he sees it). He's as prone to selfishness as any other monster, he just doesn't bullshit himself about it. If he fucks up, he doesn't try to justify it, he just admits it and moves on. He's one part Fonzie and one part Zealot. Eyyyyy... look up that prosecutor's address for me, would ya? Nah, you don't want to know why I'm asking. Thanks Richie, you're a pal. Dorian has a lot of anger inside, fueled by his Beast, and when it expresses itself, it likes to do so poignantly.

Violence isn't Dorian's first answer. It's not even his second. But it's never off the table, which he feels its important for some folks to know. Martin Luther King Jr. had some good ideas but Dorian's more akin to Malcolm X. After a while, if you can't get the changes you want, the changes everyone needs, then maybe something needs to burn or someone needs to bleed.