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t h e . w a y w a r d - d a r q
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Return to the Main Characters Page. Darquinian Dronsmere (Clan Gangrel) Description: The Beast is clearly
visible in Darquinian.
A veritable giant at the time of his maturity, his stature today is still none too short of imposing. He bears a full mane of shoulder length, auburn hair, lined heavily with darker, almost black-brown streaks around his face. Within the heavy coat, numerous thin braids dangle over his shoulders, extending beneath and well past the cropped length of the rest. His face is weather honed and leathery, its features at least partially veiled by the short, full beard. Darquinian is typically clothed in loose soft fabrics and leathers. His preference for dark leather riding boots, heavy canvas pants, a loose fitting, unbleached cotton shirt, and a buckskin or leather overcoat. Always present in Darquinian's attire will be the pendant of a three-pronged spiral, a celtic representation of the circle of life.
Background:
Darquinian's background is a story of destiny told, destiny sought, destiny lost. Born into a nation in the throws of religious conversion and war, his own Druidic peoples were nearly destroyed by the awesome and violent power of Christianity. His origins paved a path that he would follow for hundreds of years as a religious leader in a dying religion. A path that would take him on a spiritual journey from faithful priest to fateful warrior. Alba in the year 1217 AD was in turmoil. Not only was it rapidly becoming Christian, but it was merging and melding with nations around it, becoming what is known today as the country of Scotland. The way of Darquinian's ancestors, the people whom Caesar had named the Picts or "Painted People", had all but disappeared, leaving him clutching to the withering remnants of his Pagan upbringing. And so he threw himself into early studies with the Fianna - an ancient breed of accomplished warrior-poet-seers, a brethren that he eventually came to lead. But Darquinian's destiny had been set far earlier than this when his parents saw an undaunted faith in him. They called for the Druids to take him at a young age and begin his studies as a priest. And so they did in relinquishing their ties to him, handing him willingly into the safe keeping of Ariellla McCoinnach. She took him under her tutelage, and later also to her bed. It was she that taught him to appreciate the power of the Earth Mother and to harness her power. It was this Druidess that also introduced him to some of the darker secrets of the Mother, to some of her lost children: those hidden races known as Garou and later the vampire clan, Gangrel. And it was she that embraced Darquinian into that clan some many nights after his introduction. Ariella had survived the emergence of Christianity into Celtic culture, but she did not survive the Inquisition. She was burned for heresy in 1324, deeply scarring Darquinian with disbelief in the level of ignorance, intolerance, and power that the Kine can possess. It was with that event that Darquinian became Anarch, shunning the newly forming political structures of the kindred and banishing himself to solitude. He began a journey, a passage into oblivion, scouring the less populated regions of world, trying in desperation to grasp to some firmness of reality and hope. He traveled throughout Bavaria, the Norse countries, northern China, and in the very early 1800's, he settled in America, spending this time honing to razor both his vampiric abilities and his Druidic faith. Little is known about the details of his travels outside the random journal entries made every century or so, but it is known that Darquinian did embrace a childe, Shannon MacKenzie, in the late 16th or early 17th century. After parting some 100 years after her embrace, Darquinian lost all contact with her and today knows nothing of her fate.
In these Final Nights, Darquinian holds no permanent haven and has returned to his wandering lifestyle. Despite his roamings, he continues to maintain several havens, or refuges, throughout the world, though he never sleeps in them. Amongst the known locations are a wine shop cellar in London, a deserted mountain monastery somewhere in northern China, and a primary location in the earthen tunnels carved beneath the University in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Character Perceptions:
Darquinian is not overly handsome, nor overly unattractive, but presents an image that is stereotypical of both woodsman and highlander. Most who meet him are immediately put off by his boorishness and quick temper, seldom connecting to him deeply enough to understand that he is highly educated, highly intelligent, and holds an almost philosophical view on honor, destiny, and the world about him. Those who do get to know him, trust him wholly; his loyalty and honor reaching unfathomable depths. Those who dismiss him, or don't take the time to know him, typically learn to fear the façade of intelligence and pure Beast that he exudes; interpreting him as a calculating, cold-blooded hunter.
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