William Rosenblum
Character Bio
Name
William Charles Rosenblum
Player
Aysande
Vampire, Doll or Were-creature
Vampire
Age
A little over 1600, but looks 30
Claimed
No
Orientation
Straight
Hair
Almost black
Eyes
Hazel
Height
6'1
Appearance
Tall and quite athletic, he loves his time at the gym. He has broad shoulders and narrow waist, with just the right muscle tone. He has no tattoo, no piercing, just four long scratches at his side due to an encounter with a rather territorial bear, a real one.
Personality
He's a charmer and a flirt, very self-confident. He doesn't second-guess himself or put his actions under question unless its very very important for him to succeed. He has commitment issues, where he can't really relate to a mortal human. He has never transformed anyone into a vampire and isn't too bothered giving it a try. When he is not around people, interacting with someone actively, William is quiet, see to his things, get engrossed into a book. He speaks several languages and he is well traveled. He has the basics education, but he has never gone to college. Everything he know is mostly self-taught.
Abilities
- Primary (Strong) : Memory Manipulation
- Secondary (Average) : Persuasion
Ons & Offs
[1] Ons & Offs. May come across as a flirt that refuses to commit, but he's in fact a romantic. Having sex is good every so often, but what really turns him on is making sweet slow love to a woman. He can also be testing the limits of his lover, but in a respectful way.
History
Born in Great Britain of an unmarried mother and a roman soldier, he was named Gulielmus. The union of his parents was not meant to be, as the Roman armies were withdrawing from Great Britain. The Soldier obeyed orders and left his secret lover to fend for herself and his son, even though he loved them very much. His childhood was difficult, the war with the Roman Empire had left great scars on the people, and her mother was a disgrace, having given herself to the enemy, and bore his child.
Gulielmus worked hard, very hard, to prove himself. He worked his grandfather's farm with as much devotion as he could. If the old man had shunned his own daughter for the shame she had brought onto her, he could not deny his grandchild. Thus, when the old man passed, the land was handed out to Gulielmus. He housed his mother, no matter the protest, and with a very carefully managed budget, he found himself with a bit of a cushion that would allow him to find himself a wife.
By the time he was thirty years old, quite old for an unmarried man, he had given up. He might have been considered a bit poor, socially awkward because he was so used to be shunned and also had his mother with him. He met a woman, charming and beautiful, who agreed to a marriage with him. She was perfect, except for her inability to stand the sun. She claimed that no man would have her as wife because of it and he readily agreed.
Within the year, his mother fell very ill. The village's medic claimed it was something with her blood, but little was known. She died shortly after the wedding of her son to the beautiful young woman he had for wife. Shortly after it was his turn. He grew weaker and weaker until she offered him a choice. She was a demon, in his eyes, but she was so persuasive that he agreed to be turned. This is when Gulielmus became a vampire.
During the centuries that followed, he sold his family's land. He was the last in the line and he could no longer care for the field during the day or the animals either. He traveled through Great Britain with his wife. She was old, claimed to have been born before the Roman had an empire, before democracy was discovered and philosophy invented. It was hard to believe, but she did have the darker skin of a woman of the south and her English had always had that little something that was off, that twist to her words that made her sound more exotic.
She tried very hard to keep them out of trouble, but between the 5th and the 10th century, the island of Great Britain was going through upheavals, new kings, battles and even Viking raids. He and his wife were often just at the edge of the battlefield, catching an innocent soldier that would come too close, drain him and kill him.
The more time passed, the more Gulielmus noticed his wife becoming colder. Her empathy for the mortals, the respect for life was declining. She seemed to be growing wary of the life they were living and he was not to think that she was. All these battles had worn her down. She was no longer interesting in living and at the end of the 10th century she abandoned him and took her own life.
Alone, but accepting the consequences of the death of his wife - she had a lot of money - Gulielmus moved out of Great Britain for a few years, learning about the world. He traveled a lot, remaining within the borders of what is known today as Europe. He educated himself in the ways of the world, learned different languages, saw the rise and fall of empires and borders being pushed or vanishing. He watched, but he felt disconnected. He could not take a part in the world. He could not, like his dear late wife, take a mortal for bride and turn her into one of him. His conscience led him to avoid human contact.
As humanity evolved under his watchful eyes and he sometimes found one of his kin. He eventually returned where he considered to be his home, in Great Britain. He was not surprised to see the large island was still torn by battle and war. The Scotts wanting their independence, winning some and losing some. His tolerance to the sun getting better around the 14th century, Gulielmus decided to give life a new chance. He could live normally now, even though he depended on blood. He needed to feed a lot less and human contact was heartwarming.
Rumors of a plague, the Black Death, cast a shadow on a budding relationship with a wonderful woman. He couldn't help but to be sympathetic to her. Her husband had passed in an accident, leaving her alone with her two children. She was worried for her children, for herself and made him promise that if she were to catch the Black Death, and he agreed. Fate was cruel, taking the children before the mother. Immune, he volunteered to help carry the bodies of the dead and to help care for the sick. To see the suffering of these people, to witness some of them in their fight for survival made Gulielmus realized how lucky he was, never to be sick, never to die, and how fragile human life was. His wandering through Europe resumed, helping with the plague as if being among so much mortality allowed him to remain somewhat human in heart and mind.
The around the end of the 16th century was a discovery of a whole new world for the man who now shed his roman name for a more anglicized one. William discovered a coven, a group of people like him. He was so ecstatic in finding other vampires that he ignored several red flags. He learned the healing properties of his blood, something he had ignored and wished he had learned before to save a woman and her two sons. He learned about the laws he was glad he never broke. He also learned the way of these people, and stayed with them for a while. Things started to pile up, though. Their lack of consideration for the human whose life they took was grating on him.
It took the abduction of a pair of gorgeous red head twins for him to snap out of it. Things that were done to these girls before they were not killed, but turned, disgusted him. He left the coven, bringing one of the red heads with him. She did not trust him, however and they parted soon after. He lost touch with her, and his interest in the new world was becoming more and more important. The idea of an unknown civilization was somehow romantic to him. He waited a few more years to board a ship and cross the ocean, however. The uncertainty of reaching the new world, coupled with his need of blood that would make at least two of the crew go missing was not without consequences. There was also a lot of conflicts and wars over the newly discovered territory and William believed he had seen more than his share.
He spent the eighteenth century in North America. The instability of the colony turned out not to be the biggest issue for him, however. Where the greatest disappointment came from was how Great Britain was treating the colony like a second class world. The struggle for power was of little importance to him, but the life was hard and the English rules were not making it any easier. In spite of it all, William returned to the old continent after living the better part of the 18th century there.
The return to Europe was not to England. His stay overseas had soured his view of his mother country and thus he lived in France for a bit. But he had arrived there just in time for the revolution, which meant that he moved on rather quickly. At something close to 1400 years old, William was starting to feel that the human race was not happy unless it was into a battle of some kind. It was either that or he had some horrible sense of timing and he just kept on picking the wrong places at the wrong time. Through the years he had made friends, but very few that really mattered. Those that did were like him, immortal and wandering.
He was growing tired of traveling. The more things changed, the more they were the same and he tried to put down some roots. He took the name William Rosenblum because it was the name of his neighbor, who had met a horrible end in an alley and William decided that it was time for him to be legit if he intended to stay for an extended period of time. He knew Mr. Rosenblum to be without next of kin and he was a rather rich man. Taking possession of his estate, William sold everything that Mr. Rosenblum owned that didn't require meeting with people who could call him on his lies when he realized that he could persuade people to do things, if he put his will behind his words. That made things a lot easier.
William knew about dark gifts; the coven had found out quickly that his was to manipulate memories, but William didn't know that as one grew a certain age, other dark gifts could emerge. After understanding that he could alter the memory of those knowing Mr. Rosenblum to exchange the deceased face for his in people's mind, and that he could have every identification of Mr. Rosenblum be altered to look as being legally his, William's life became so much easier. He cruised through the 19th century, using Mr. Rosenblum's money to make investments. He became quite the broke of deals, using his powers to rob people blind.
It is only when he noticed the effect of his dishonest deeds that he... well he did not stop, but he slowed down. At the turn of the 20th century, he was a rather wealthy man, but threats of wars were, once again, looming over the European continent. William secured his fortune, packed his things and moved once more. War had become increasingly destructive over the last few years. It was no longer battles involving 200 to 400 people. That kind of group could now be killed - and even more people - in a single bombing spree. Also, his name branded him a Jew even though he was not and the idea of being branded as such and confined to ghettos was not appealing at all.
Hearing how the other side of the Ocean was no longer a part of Great Britain and that the conflicts there were lesser and far more avoidable, William went to the northern states and found an old friend. A red head with whom he had traveled some three or four centuries ago. Time was starting to blur all together of late. He stayed with the Vermont coven, giving some money to help build the mansion and stayed there for the longest time yet. As the world seem to slip into some kind of relative stability, William felt like he could finally have the roots that he had been looking for.
Seeking for new investments to make, to make sure he would never find himself without cash, he made some very profitable ones that added to what he already had. It came to the point where he could not work for the next century or so and still have some cash to spare. Will was not the kind to sit on his ass and let things grow stale, however. He loved a challenge and when he heard that a few shifters and vampires were gathering in the north, he decided he was up for a new challenge. He went there to invest, buying a piece of land to build a recreation center. People living somewhere so remote had to have somewhere to let loose or they would go crazy... It wouldn't bring much cash in, if anything it would be a constant negative balance, but he could take it. It would keep him busy...
