User:Tristram

From HollowWiki

   * People's Protector of Gualon.

   * Often found within his estate there, or the gardens he maintains himself.

   * Fiercely protective.

   * Dabbles in the political arena.

   * Rolls his own cigarettes.

   * Rarely found without one tucked behind his ear.

   * Cleans up nice.

   * Has little tolerance for upstarts and blowhards.

   * Womanizer.

   * Frequently aided by his manservant and partner in crime, Jacobo.

   * Interested only in things he can't have.

Tristram's Biography:

"But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil. And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ, And seem I a saint, when most I play the Devil."

-William Shakespeare

Tristram Darkeheart was hatched over five thousand years ago in the northern Palatinate of Setairiem, a relatively small area governed by a king and council from a single, large city. It's landscape is similar in many regards to that of Hollow, a little less temperate and not quite so volatile, but there is one major difference to the settlement of races. Humans exclusively live within the walls of the city, strictly enforcing border security and promoting racial segregation, and the rest of the outlying territory is claim to the dragons. Originally the various flights had been descendants of the ancient dragon lords of Hollow, a splinter faction of saurian nobles that had retreated north when their empire fell, and so held similar traits to the humans (or the humans to they), in that they would refuse to mix with their brethren of different shade or size. What would come to be the modern blue flight claimed the coastal areas, the green took to the forests and red claimed the land surrounding the human city itself, preying from travellers and livestock. Black and white were often in competition over territory, the former taking the caves and the latter claiming the mountains in which most caves were located.

Being of the black dragonflight, even throughout his long term as a whelpling Tristram was subjected to conflict and death, the dark dragons often raiding the nests of the light, the retribution always a swarm of sallow scales burning the woodland around the caves, killing off the game the blacks depended upon. He quickly developed a hermitical mentality, preferring his own company to that of his kindred, as he set his lair in a more placid area of the uplands, hunting to his desire and decimating any other dragon that would make to invade his claim. It was while hunting on the fringes of his kingdom that he caught the strong scent of exotic fragrances and spices, flying out into the heartlands to investigate the source, the territory of the red dragonflight. It was not long before the scent of blood filled his nostrils, blended with the rich and overwhelming smell of spice, the dragon coming across a sight that made him laugh for the first time in his long life. What appeared to be a human archmage, the source of the aromas that had coaxed him down from lofty heights bursting from his form like a brilliant explosion of blossom in barren flats, stood inspecting the corpses of no less than a dozen red dragons that had struck against him upon the road. Tristram hovered upon the fringes, the magus paying him little heed though aware of his presence, as the saurian noticed an oddity. All the corpses were female.

The mage was tearing apart the great stomachs of the fallen queens, probing their innards for traces of fully formed eggs, the soil buried beneath intestines and flesh. And this was when Tristram formed his idea. He approached the man, making it known he meant only to speak with him, and they soon struck a deal. Tristram would deliver a pristine egg from the broodlair of the black flight, a specimen superior to that from a red dragon, and in return the mage would grant him the ability to alter his form and assume the semblance of a human. The egg was stolen and delivered, both the malicious businessmen keeping to the bargain. The saurian immediately flew towards the city with intent of making full use of his new ability, setting to ground several miles from the north gate and taking the form of a youthful human male. He passed the gate into the bustling metropolis of the human settlement, breaking out into a world unknown. He frequented several whorehouses, sampling human interaction, he stole from the houses of the aristocracy, dappled in various mind-altering substances, ate, drank and lived flamboyantly. Eventually he tired, returning to his lands and massacring the few white dragons that had taken it for themselves in his absence, contacting his old brood and informing them that it was the whites that stole the egg from their lair; his own revenge.

It took little persuasion to convince the black flight that they had indeed been looted of the most precious treasure by their sworn enemies, the flight brutishly attacking the upper slopes of the mountains much to Tristram's amusement. Over the course of a year, as he observed the failures of each side, the conflict drew on until finally, in one large and decisive engagement, the blacks triumphed and utterly obliterated the white dragonflight. However, this came at a crippling cost to the black flight, only a handful of their number remaining to try and rebuild their brood. Now with no war to amuse him, he yearned once more for the rich taste of human indulgence, and confident that his territory would be secure he made once more for the city. But along the road, he came across a wench he had bedded many a time in his previous visit. And she had with her a bundle. She ran from him immediately, even when he appeared before her as he had, eventually trying his patience, tearing off her feet to prevent a dull and mundane chase. As she lay wailing, he forced from her an explanation, finding out that she had sired him a child that had not appeared human, and she was forced from the city as a traitor and exile. Furious that he would not be able to return to the city in his altered form as she had pegged the crime upon he, he destroyed the wench, taking up the child and returning to his mountainside. Such was his rage that when an elder of the black flight came begging aid in their dire times, he slew him and all the surviving members. He was determined that he alone would be the prodigal son of the black flight. And then he remembered.

The egg. The egg given to that dreadful mage would be hatched soon, and then there would be another - a usurper - and he would not be the last. His draconian daughter was left in his lair with a vast stock of food, some alive and crippled that she might savour a little hunt in her first times as a Darkeheart child, the father streaking out across the sky in search of the wizard. It took him several days to catch the powerful scent of the man, living in solitude in a large tower as oft men of his ilk tend to, the saurian waiting until the fall of night to make his attack. It was easy to place the mage in the tower as the moon rose, for a flame flickered from candle and lantern within the upper chamber, as again oft men of his ilk prefer to the lower storeys. The dragon flew directly at the tower, lancing his tail through the window and skewering the studying mage before he had any chance to weave spell, the tower torn down by the saurian and the egg crushed beneath his dire talons. He was triumphant, now, the undisputed lord of the black flight in Setairiem, and scourge of the fallen white. But he was dissatisfied, still with a yearning to indulge in pleasures mortal amongst the dirty and ignorant humans. He took his daughter and set out with her towards the nearest land, Hollow, his impact on his home but a flicker in the legacy he had planned.