Rheinhard Volker
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ToFeAhj.jpg[/img]
Name: Rheinhard Volker
Age: 52
Race:Human
Date of Birth:Saun 10, 665
Marks:N/A
Factions Joined:N/A
Languages Spoken: Common (Fluent)
Partners:N/A
Appearance
Volker is a stocky, broad shouldered man. He has a wide barrel chest, and while he has the slightly-sagging physique of an older man he possesses an above-average physical strength. His hands and arms are heavily scarred from a labor-driven life on the culinary line. He is balding, and keeps what little hair he has left shorn closely to the sides of his head to make it look orderly. With heavy features and piercing blue eyes, Volker is not one to be discounted by sight alone. Often, making eye contact with his deep set, unblinking eyes will show how much youth Volker has left in him.
Volker is astoundingly bland in his clothing decisions. He always wears a simple white shirt, trousers, and black shoes with a firm footing. He is not concerned about appearance, though he does ensure his clothing isn’t stained, ripped, or torn. It is, however, hideously out of fashion.
Personality
Volker is a creature of many talents and habits, which could be considered compulsive at best. He is the type of animal that stays still until he knows his move, and evaluates the situation before acting. His wild emotional swings are due to violation of his need for control, and can range from explosively violent to completely withdrawn and immobile. This makes Volker an insanely unpredictable person at best, a nightmare at worst. Being sociopathic, he does not experience empathy for others and cannot put himself in others’ shoes as humans can do. Intimidation is the rule of life for him, which his wide-eyed, dangerous stare is more than willing to accomplish.
Many find Volker’s lack of empathy both disturbing and frustrating. Once a person earns his loyalty and trust, they find they have a capable and reliable (if heavy-handed and emotionally flatlined) bodyguard. This is difficult to achieve, as Volker treats those who neither offend nor endear themselves to him with a lukewarm disregard.
Volker is prone to reacting the “wrong” way to social situations. Oftentimes, overloading him in a sensory fashion (such as excessively dark rooms) will cause him to withdraw into himself and stare off into space. Breaking him of these odd silent spells can be dangerous.
History
To understand Volker, one must understand where he came from. His father was a mercenary, subject to the same Aberration Volker is now. Because of his madness, Volker was sired by sexual assault on his mother. She was a commoner, a weakling his father could exploit temporarily for his own goals. Because of this, Volker's home life was anything but stable. Erme Volker, his mother, saw him becoming exactly the same as the man from her nightmares, killing small neighborhood animals and bullying other children relentlessly. Despite all of her efforts as a mother, dead cats, birds, dogs, and rats would show up in the house with surprising regularity.
Erme ended her life by hanging herself in their small common room. Volker discovered her upon returning home, and it is this experience that he credits his fascination with the dead to. He let her hang for three days, while he spent that time in a state of dissociation. He ate from their store room, and drank from their rain barrel, but did little else. Of course, Erme's body began to swell and rot, turning purple and black. Volker didn't seemed bothered by the odor, and pests seemed to have learned to stay far away from the house. Flies were the only creature brave or stupid enough to attack the corpse.
Volker's father returned to induct him into Aberrant magic. At first, Volker had no idea who he was. A strange man who showed up at his home after most of the food had run out. Volker, at that point, was doing little more than protecting a corpse, too young to understand his situation properly. The moment Klaus stepped through the door things changed. Instead of staring at a frightened stranger like he'd encountered with his own mother, Volker felt a kinship toward his father. They were both predatory, both killers, though one was older and far more experienced than the other. Klaus approached him quietly, and looked from the growling child to the bloated corpse of the mother. He barely remembered what had driven him to force himself upon Erme, and he cared as little now as he had then. He hadn't come because she had died. His son was another matter. He was getting older, and less able to keep up with the demands of his Harvester.
Oor had enjoyed a long and fruitful career with Klaus. They had both gained great power destroying others, but as Klaus' strength flagged Oor's only grew. Klaus had not slept in weeks. Oor was in his ear constantly; demanding food, feeding as much power into him as he could stand to make yet another kill. Klaus, in short, was exhausted. He was finished, and both Harvester and mage knew it. It was either let the Harvester's power consume him, or die peacefully. With that came the problem of what Oor would do with no human to annoy. Crouched on the floor in front of them was a solution to both of their problems.
Klaus intended to induct Volker into Aberration whether the boy wanted it or not. He dragged the screaming, biting child out of the house by the scruff of his neck. In those few critical moments the plan solidified in his mind. He would be free of this. Free of the Harvester. All he needed to do was find a child. It didn't even necessarily have to be Volker; he didn't know or care about his son. He was considered a trial run. Somewhere out there had to be someone strong enough to survive the process, too young to fight him, and too stupid to understand what was going on. Volker was a foundling now with no parents (at least none willing to raise him), with a bad reputation in his neighborhood. He was a nuisance, a pest who killed pets, a festering wound on his mother's soul. If the induction destroyed him, it would be a mercy if not a relief to the greater population. If not, it would buy Klaus time to escape the addiction threatening to blow him apart from the inside. The power balance was tipping in his Harvester's favor, and Klaus refused to die the same way he'd seen so many others.
No matter how many times a verbal warning was given, Volker either tried to bite him or escape. Klaus' own initiation had come to him in a dream. Now he had to force the same dream on his child. He didn't have the time to properly explain it; beating Volker unconscious seemed to be a better solution. After making sure his spawn was still actually alive from the rain of blows, it was easy to draw Volker into his lap. The bond had to be close for Oor to enter the dream and make the deal. The minute Klaus pulled Volker's back up against his chest, and covered the boy's eyes with his mouth, he had no control over the process. He went into a state himself, frozen in time with his jaws firmly clamped on either side of Volker's face. Half-moon scars peppering his cheekbones would be the only mark of the process. They were unique to Oor. Only this particular Harvester liked to sign his work in such a way.
Volker's dream took reality, shattered, and twisted it. It took place in his home, a home that was now upside down and backwards in all respects. Everything leaned leftward or rightward, the floorboards were pulled apart like some great hand had attempted to make the living space bigger by pulling on opposite ends of the house. Chairs were twisted to resemble tables, tables to resemble chairs, the lanterns were spewing gouts of fireless energy that cracked and crumbled the walls. Looking out of the windows, all Volker could see was himself staring back, the mirror image repeated ad infinitum. The house was tilting, ever so slowly, leaning sharply to the right even though every object stayed in place. Sound was muffled here. Tinnitus reigned in Volker's ears, except when Oor approached him.
The deal was so utterly simple a child could understand it. Feed the Harvester, and gain the ability to make your own power. The dream was only a taste of what such power could do. Manipulate reality and objects. Transform something from one thing into another, or destroy it utterly. Accept such a power, or be destroyed by it. Oor could and would consume Volker as easily as he was threatening to do to his father. Volker, not knowing what he was getting into or seeing any other option, accepted. The bond between initiator and initiated was forged. Oor plunged his hand into Volker's chest, and laid a hand upon his heart. This was the brand that marked him apart from all others, and a thick, ugly scar would remain in the middle of Volker's chest for life.
Amazingly, Volker survived the process. He awoke from the dream, and Klaus released him. Through the bond between initiator and initiated, Volker could now see his father's Harvester. He could feel the addiction burning in Klaus' chest, and the exhaustion stemming from maintaining such a balance for so long.
Three days. That was all Harvester and mage asked for, and all they left was enough food and water to last that time.
Volker had no choice but to wait. Klaus made arrangements for what was to be done with his body when he killed himself. Enough gold to make a local blacksmith shut his mouth forever. When Oor finally returned (a day late), Klaus was gone and Volker had felt the bond wither and die. Oor was now his Harvester, his problem and his benefit. In the weeks that followed, Volker was instructed. The agony in his chest had calmed to a dull roar, and he was able to obey Oor well enough to summon his first sphere. Oor explained the balance. Power could be split evenly between them, to prevent one becoming stronger than the other. If Volker took all of it, the addiction would burn him from the inside out. If he gave it all to Oor, the Harvester could destroy him. That had been Klaus' mistake; attempting to stave off the addiction and free himself too late. This sort of thing was for life, not until it got too difficult.
Volker was able to forge a new, and unsteady, relationship with his Harvester. It was Oor who patiently instructed him in the ways of his own magic, and taught him the rudimentary ways to feed and maintain himself. Without Klaus, if Volker died Oor was condemned to return to the ether.
Volker became a ward of the city. Bounced around to several homes who turned him out upon discovering how strange he was. He intimidated step siblings, or attacked them with his teeth, or killed family pets. Animals grew nervous and distasteful of him as he grew. By his late teens he was on his own, wandering the streets of the city and employing his skills in violence to survive. Holding down a steady job was difficult for him, but butchery was a talent he seemed to be born with. He strayed from jobs not relating to it, finding that killing chickens, sheep, pigs and cows complemented the urges.
In his late teens, Oor began annoying him. The Harvester wanted to guide him somewhere, and after about two weeks of Oor relentlessly pestering him Volker caved. Oor led him back to the place of his birth, and from there to his father's resting place. As well as the butchered remains of a body, a knife roll had been carefully placed in a wooden box and buried. Some of the knives had been completed, and the bones were there, dried and prepared. Oor couldn't explain the strange wish. All he did say was that madness didn't just run in Volker's paternal bloodline, it apparently galloped. No more was said of the knives whose hilts had once been his father's corpse, and Volker resolved to respect the tools he had been given.
By his twenties he graduated to a harder type of prey. Transients to the city began disappearing. As guards cared little for the homeless or poorly off, this was unnoticed. Volker could attack, kill, butcher and eat those on the underbelly of society. At worst, he was considered a nuisance. At best, someone cleaning the cockroaches. Since discovering this outlet for his urges, Volker has settled down into the community. He even occasionally distributes his kills to the poor or desperate, as he now considers killing things that cannot fight back 'unsporting'. Several families in the shadows of the city exist off of his contributions. This seems to serve him well, like a well-known street dog.
The urge to wander strikes him occasionally, so he keeps a pack of supplies on hand. He owns a horse, though the animal exists in a constant state of terror and anxiety, and a small wagon suitable for a single man. His rented room in Almund is small, bare, and serve only to store his belongings. He ferrets them away in oilcloth under the floorboards, as he is distrustful of most other people. Small warnings exist in the home; half-cleaned arterial sprays visible to someone with an acute eye for blood. Scratches on the floor, and defensive marks on the walls. Intruding here is a very bad idea.
► Show Spoiler
Housing
A small apartment in Almund with a simple, padded bed. Volker has very little need or attachment for personal items. If you stepped in the door, it would look like someone doesn't live here at all. It might be a very, very poor decision to attempt to move in. The rooms are cheap and cramped, rented out for a total of 75sn for the season of Cylus.
Number of nights 1+ nights 10+ nights 30+ nights
Price per night 1sn/night 3sn/night 5cn/night
Option Modifier # of Rooms +x.5/per room (beyond the first) Poor Quality -x.5 Good Quality +x.5 High Quality +x1
Cost of Volker's Almund Apartment per night: 5cn/night x 30 days (Cylus season: Beginning season) x -0.5 (Poor Quality modifier) = 75sn
Knowledge & Skills
| Skill | Points Acquired | Total Points Spent | Proficiency |
| Blades | 25/100 | (NA: FT) | Novice |
| Aberration | 14/100 | (14/250) | Novice |
| Butchery | 20/100 | (20/250) | Novice |
| Hunting | 10/100 | (10/250) | Novice |
| Unarmed; Brawling | 20/100 | (20/250) | Novice |
| Intimidation | 19/100 | (19/250) | Novice |
Skill Point Ledger
Record all of your Skill Point Expenditure here.
Example:
| Thread or Skill Name | Points Awarded | Points Spent | Running Total |
| Blades (Knives) [RB] | 25[RB] | 25 | 00 |
| Starting Package | 50 | 00 | 50 |
| Butchery (SP) | .. | 10 | 40 |
| Aberration (SP) | .. | 10 | 30 |
| Hunting (SP) | .. | 10 | 20 |
| Unarmed (SP) | .. | 20 | 00 |
| Aberration (BH) | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Intimidation (BH) | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Butchery (PEG) | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Intimidation (PEG) | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Intimidation (ALI) 5 | 5 | 0 | |
| Points Remaining: 15 |
Marks Section
Items
- (BH)Knives - A large set of human-bone handled blades with a leather carrying case. Most often strapped to Volker's upper thigh. Jealously guarded, as it is his only beloved possession.[Note: This is a short-sword type blade, 2 combat knives and 2 daggers]
- (SP) One Set of Clothing (Coat, shirt, trousers, and a pair of boots)
- (SP)Weather Gear (Thick coat, thick pants, undergarments, winter boots)
- (SP)Tent
- (SP)Horse and Wagon
- (SP)100ft of rope
- (SP)One tinderbox
- (SP)Set of six torches
- (SP)Lantern
- (SP)Bedroll
- (SP)Compass
- (SP)Fishing pole with (30) hooks
- (SP)A blanket
- (SP)Four rucksacks
- (SP)Utility Knife
- (SP)Waterskin
- (SP)One toiletry set
- (SP) 2 rags
- (SP)Optional: One set of trapping equipment
- (BH)The corpse of Volker's father, Klaus
- (BH)One large saw (for getting rid of pesky bodies and cutting through pesky bones)
- (PEG) Dog skin and Meat
Ledger
| Item | Debit | Credit |
| Starting Package: Traveler's Pack | ... | 25 |
| Rented Rooms in Almund (Poor Quality) for the season of Cylus | -7 GN 5SN | .... |
Total Currency: 0 ON, 18 GN, 5 SN, 0 CN
Renown Ledger
| ]Item/ Thread | Renown | Total |
| Starting Race | 0 | Total |
| Starting Race in City | 0 | Total |
| Starting Profession (if applicable) | 0 | Total |
| (BH) Past actions during youth | +30 | 30 |
| ... | ... | ... |
| ... | ... | ... |
| ... | ... | ... |
Thread List
A Tiger Comes In 5th of Cylus - Volker arrives in Scalvoris Town
A Roar Under the Moons of Cylus 7th of Cylus - Volker hunts a constellion
Darkness and Daggers11th of Cylus - Volker meets a swordswoman
Did He Who Made the Lamb Make Thee? 12th of Cylus - Volker communes with his Harvester.
Anguished by the End Volker makes friends in the woods.
Rescuing Pigeons from a Cat Volker teaches Amaris anatomy.
The Longest Night of Cylus30th of Cylus - Volker takes an interest in current affairs.