Name: Kerr Donahue Galvin
Age [appearance]: Thirtyish (he was 32 when sired)
Date of birth: 1.1.1606 (Capricorn)
Age [actual]: 413
Gender: Male
Species: Vampire
Sires: Sawyl Loman (deceased) and Angus Sully (deceased)
Fledglings: Meinwen and Dei Loman (deceased), Ben Samson and Ichabod Conners
Place of birth: Killarney, Ireland
Appearance
Hair: His hair is dark brown but, where it was once kept long enough that it brushed his shoulders, falling in thick waves from a central part atop his head and he occasionally pulled it back into a ponytail, he's had it cut short. His hair is now about an inch long all over his head - just long enough for him to style it into spikes with some gel or wax or let it sit against his head in a scruffy sort of casual way (that can't look
too untidy because of its length).
Kerr had a rather individually styled beard - with a moustache that sat beneath his nose and curled around the corners of his mouth and a relatively thin line of hair that continued his thick sideburns from his hairline, along his jaw and lifted in a line in the middle of his chin, reaching to below his bottom lip - but it is gone now, too. Although he went through a stage where he wore it in a goatee style, he's now clean-shaven and his sideburns have been trimmed to a regular size, making him look younger still.
With regard to other body hair, Kerr is generally covered with dark brown hair where he should be but not to any noticeable thickness - one would never label him hirsute. His chest hair doesn't curl overly much, it's generally straight and spans his pectorals generously, tapering in a thin line to his belly button and then beyond. He has a few too many hairs (for fashion's sake) below his shoulder blades on his back and across his shoulders but since he never looks there - or cares to worry about it - it doesn't bother anyone much (of course, should anyone notice and remove the hairs for him, he'll look all the better for it).
Eyes: Dark brown, surrounded by thick black lashes and set possibly a little too close to his nose, Kerr's eyes are fairly narrow and always filled with quite a serious expression. The straight eyebrows (arching slightly on the edges near his temples) set low on his brow ridge only add to this intense appearance.
Face: Kerr's nose is a
tad too long and dominates his expression if he looks too happy. His lips are average in thickness but his mouth is wide and naturally downturned, giving him a grim appearance when not smiling. His cheekbones are high, his jaw strong and his eyes intense; he looks every bit the swarthy rogue at any distance.
Height: 188 cm (6' 2")
Weight: 92kg
Frame: Kerr is broad of shoulder, narrow of waist and bears long, heavily muscled limbs. He was an oddity in height at the time of his youth but the world has caught up and generally surpasses his six foot (almost) three inch frame now. At a glance, he bears the powerful, thick-necked frame of an elite and powerful sportsman, though his figure is hardly the result of tackling, running and playing team games.
Born into a hard-working farm ethic (despite his family being the lords of their land), he tilled earth, rode horses and herded sheep from a young age, securing his underlying musculature early on. Wealth and indulgence in many things in his twenties added some extra padding all over his body that only increased his stature but when he was turned, this insulating layer left him. Every part of his body is therefore muscled with natural bulk created during his life of manual labour.
Kerr's best feature is his torso with its firm pectorals, defined abdominals and sleekly muscled shoulders but his legs are shaped by attractive curves over not-as-bulky muscles, too. His ass is great from any angle (especially when nude) and his fingers are like all his limbs; long and graceful. His toes are much the same, unfortunately, meaning that his feet are just not that pretty and will never win him modelling contracts or beauty contests (he always wears shoes when out and only goes barefoot in the privacy of his own home - not that he has any particular opinion on the attractiveness of his feet, though).
Tattoos/Distinguishing Marks: Kerr began tattooing his body from the time he turned thirty. He always had a passion for tradition and, not knowing it would likely kill him, he had his entire back and most of his arms tattooed in woad ink.
His upper arms down to his elbows are coloured in blue, a thick braid filled with intricate knotwork designs travelling from the outer edges of his collar bones down to his elbow. To make the braids stand out, they are the only artwork to be seen there. All his tattoos are done in relief, so that his skin is coloured blue with woad and the pattern shows up via the unpainted flesh between. The braid decorates the edge and length of his triceps, contrasting the blue bulge of his biceps handsomely, as it molds around them.
His chest was not marked at all, the colouration instead continues across the back of his shoulders and down to his tailbone from the hairline at the back of his neck. There is a range of different patterning to be found amongst the blue, here; most significantly - and perhaps ironically - a large Celtic cross in the very centre of his back, its arms twined with beautiful braiding and knotwork weaving in and around itself, symbolic of the connections of life. Around the cross are some labyrinthine designs that are meant to complement the cross and show the paths of life's journey (unfortunately none able to show the sharp twist his life took when he became kindred), in both step and key designs.
As with all vampire Oligarchs, he has a two-inch black dragon tattoo on the left side of his neck (that is no longer concealed by his long hair, so it's generally visible for all to see and attribute him his correct role in the city's supernatural council).
Recently, Kerr got a few new tattoo additions but when he and Ben split up, he had them removed and they linger only in his memory now.
He has pierced his left ear and currently has a spear-like rod of metal that sticks out about half a centimetre either side of his lobe and comes to a rounded tip.
Usually seen wearing: Where once he favoured traditional and formal wear in dark hues and rich colours such as navy, wine red and deep emeralds - most often seen in slacks and a tailored button-up shirt with wrist-length sleeves or any of the enormous range of suits that he owns - he's become a lot more radical recently. Not only will he be found wearing jeans and a woolly, cuddly-looking jumper (around home it's often just the jeans and probably a T-shirt), he's got a new appreciation for leather and, when going to Risk, will sometimes be found in leather pants and jacket (and some eyeliner). He usually pulls on a black, calf-length wool coat whenever he goes out, hands tucked in its deep pockets.
Usually seen holding: Nothing - unless he's checking his mobile for messages or fiddling with one of the silver rings on his fingers or thumb.
Visual Habits: When thoughtful or agitated, his jaw will often be working because he's gnawing or chewing on his tongue stud. This also happens when he's feeling playful, the difference being the glint in his eyes. He frowns easily, giving him a glowering appearance with his low brow line, but he's rarely in a foul mood despite the way he looks.
Personality: Kerr is a gentle giant, a slumbering tiger. He is a humanitarian vampire who will not willingly kill a human and who generally cares a great deal about everyone who touches his life - even when he knows he shouldn't. He has learned to accept that there is great evil in the world - some of which he helped create, unfortunately - but he chooses to stay as far away from it as possible (in a way that could be construed as righteous, when he decides to share his viewpoint).
He has a healthy ego when it comes to his vampiric talents (a developing one where his looks are concerned) and is confident in most situations, even though he tends to hang back until he's compelled to interfere or speak - then he will generally have
lots to say. He enjoys being tactile (even if he's just met someone) and has a bit of a fetish for people of equal or greater stature who can bear him down and make him feel a little dominated (for he's always been so big and had to be so careful with those he's interacted with throughout his life, he sometimes likes to feel he's not completely in charge).
Formative History In Kerr's words:
"I was born on the first day of the new year, sixteen hundred and six, the only son of Donahue and Bridget Galvin. They were...
umpteenth generation Irish, noble and proud that their line had resisted Viking and Norman invasions... mainly because their lands were too out of the way to be noticed. Oh, they were just grand for the sheep we ran, the flax we grew, there in our home of Killarney, but really we were just lucky that we never became a target for invasion," he drawled.
"We were what you might call nobles; employing people to work the land, fairly safe in our situation. We weren't the
only well-to-do family in the area, but we were respected. I remember my father as a good businessman; he could talk anyone around, whether they were intent on trouble or making a deal. He had a loud, contagious laugh and the annoying habit of smacking people hard on the shoulder when he'd had too much to drink," Kerr said, his lips twisting into a fond smile as he recalled this fact.
"I was born at the time that England began to stake her claim on our country and there was dissent while I grew up... but the political stuff didn't touch our hearts nearly as much as the frequent deaths did. For as long as anyone could remember, people died mysteriously in our village. Young, old, pretty, ugly... it didn't much matter. There was no rhyme nor reason to it, just one day you'd wake up and there'd be a corpse by a roadside or something. There were talks of curses and ungodliness of course; but the source was far more tangible and a
lot nastier. Angus Sully. He was the most foul, evil son of a bitch that ever walked this earth, and an immortal. Not that anybody knew that then. He did some truly foul things in his time - and to this day I have no idea how long that time even
was. I only know when it ended, because I helped do it."
"In 1626, a child by the name of Sawyl Loman was born. He was small and beautiful and as much the darling of the village as his family was reviled. Possibly he was loved so much because he'd come from some enormous trouble and scandal - though it wasn't his fault how and what he was born to," the vampire added hastily, defensively. "Anyway, when he was eleven, he still had the look of a chubby, happy eight year old. Truly, he looked an angel. Angus Sully coveted that beauty, that innocence, and he took him one night and locked Wyl in his home. It was a fortress, would never have been penetrable - had anyone even
known. The countryside was scoured for a week, but no sign of the bairn was found. The child's family were distraught, mothers in the region began keeping their children in their bedrooms, fathers began carrying weapons and talking of revenge. But no-one knew against
what... and it had always happened. Nobody said it, but everyone knew that soon they'd find him, white as a ghost and twice as dead, behind a barn or floating in one of the lakes... with no explanation, just like all the rest had been found. Except this time... we never did."
"Unspeakable things were done to the child in that tower; sordid, horrible acts. And then Angus decided to sire the child and curse him to remain forever at his side. Forever to be tortured. But Sawyl was as cunning as he was terrified by that stage. It took him a year, but he eventually convinced Angus that they would need some help or... some money or... something," he frowned and shook his head, indicating that he had never got the full story out of Sawyl but that he didn't feel it really mattered. "Whatever it was and for whatever reason, Sawyl chose me. Might have been for my lands, my money... or maybe just because I came from a trusted name, had a good relationship with everyone in the village. Had good connections. Whatever it was, Sawyl came to me and lured me to that demon's home. He didn't tell me his full plan - he was too small, you see, too small to drink and make me on his own. He needed Angus' help to make me; and then he needed my help to kill Angus."
His face fell into a troubled scowl then, as that walk through the misty rain, in the pitch black of that long lost night came back to him. He couldn't remember enough of it; couldn't recall what Wyl had said to get him to the keep in the first place, what Angus had said in greeting; nor even how it all transpired.
"I'm sorry, but I don't
really remember how it all went. Just that it was fast; I walked in and then Sawyl was upon me, at my neck. I... fell down. There in the entrance way, I believe. It was... fast, because I was scared. It was like someone was playing a fife right in my ears... it was loud and dizzying. I know being drunk from can be beautiful, but it wasn't for me. My heart was racing so hard and Sawyl had fasted specially for it, that he took everything he could accept, as fast as was possible. I've since learned that it was
because it was so fast, that it hurt so badly. Well, I went into shock and I passed out. Not very exciting, eh? I recall that I woke up drinking - it tasted horrible, I tried not to, but I was forced onto Sawyl's wrist by Angus, until I'd got most of it back and in me - and then I passed out again. When next I rose, I was dying and...
ohhhhh fuck I remember
that... hurt!" he chuckled, giving a wry grin as a finger pointing downwards at the blue velvet of the seat emphasised his final two words.
The jocular tone and the smile faded as his thoughts turned inward again. The frown returned and he stared moodily at the candle. "Dying hurt. I remember that. But... it passed," he finished softly, and said no more as he stared into the flickering light... and the past.
"Sawyl helped me to understand what I'd become. Angus didn't have much to do with me at all - except to laugh at my disgust when he brought people for me to eat. They were people I
knew! I couldn't do
that to them!" he cried. "He taught me other things, though. He taught me to hate, to understand that I
could kill - I'd never killed
anything until then, not even a sheep, my father always did it. But when he killed my mother I felt it; a rage so strong and powerful that I wanted to tear him limb from limb."
Kerr's upper lip was curled, he spoke through clenched teeth, the power of that hatred and burning desire to hurt and maim in revenge able to transcend clearly the centuries since the events he was describing had transpired.
"I knew what he'd done to the boy - Wyl had told me everything in an effort to have me help him kill his tormentor - but it had only filled me with revulsion and a horror so great I was weak. I
was weak. New to being a vampire, hating myself for it; hating them for doing it to me. I'd been a good Catholic lad, held faith in the Lord and always been thankful for the blessings me and my family received. Then, without my consent, I was never able to walk in the sunlight again, never able to set foot on holy ground, spurned by all that was good and embraced by the most..." he halted in his rapid speech, stumped by the lack of a descriptive enough adjective to convey his utter loathing of the beast that had taken him, the beast he'd become. His hand flapped as his mind searched, but it didn't help. He simply couldn't express how fundamentally
wrong everything had been to him, "
evil, horrible, dark,
rank things that I'd ever heard of. And I was one of them!
"Well anyway; I was Sawyl's toy and he told me everything about what I was, how it would be, how Angus had treated him. Suffice to say that I was crippled by my horror - of them and myself - that I survived on animal blood alone and half hoped that someone would find me and kill
me before I could become what
they were. I didn't blame Sawyl, it wasn't his fault, was it?
He had become what he was shaped to be. No, it was all that hideous, scaly-skinned beast Angus Sully's fault. He was a despicable creature - and
so ugly! Long, clawed fingers, red eyes, bat-like face," Kerr intoned critically, mouth twisted and a mock shiver running through him to add to the effect as his own shapely hands moved eloquently around his pleasant features in vague, molding gestures.
"I was locked in with Sawyl - who could come and go, but I was too weak and confused to attempt to get out - for about a month. Maybe two. I learned everything I
didn't want to know in that time, especially how desperate the angel was to get back to his family. I sympathised... no, I
empathised, but I was a wreck, I didn't see how it could be done. Angus dragged me out of the tower room occasionally, to tempt me to feed on live victims and make me watch them feed - he and Wyl - but all I did was cringe and cry and call for God throughout the whole ordeal, so Angus grew very angry with me. He wanted to teach me a lesson, force me to 'let go of worldly ties', he called it," the vampire imparted, his tone as mocking as that of a child bully taunting one much smaller and more cowardly. "So he grabbed my mam, and killed her before me - after she understood the full horror of what her only child had become and it was as torturous as it could
possibly be for everyone, of course. And while he fed on her, thinking I was still whimpering in the corner as I usually did, I grabbed an axe and separated his head from his body. It was... cathartic," the elder intoned sweetly, a smile at last touching his lips.
"Sawyl put his head on the lawn on one side of the house, I dragged his body to the other and when the sun rose, it disintegrated. The next night I... took my mother's body home and... I t-told my f-father..." his throat worked as he was unexpectedly taken by the power of
these memories. He hadn't anticipated that it would still be able to effect him so strongly, when everything else was like the blur of an eight millimetre film shot in poor lighting and shown on a reel that had a bump in it; disconnected and scratchy. His gaze left Ben's and he stared just below his cheekbone instead, unable to share that, either. He forced a smile, though he supposed it was obvious that he didn't
feel it, that he wasn't actually looking at anything, his eyes were focussed on long-dead events. "I shouldn't have done that; told him. It was too much for him to bear. It killed him, eventually. So then all I had was Sawyl," he finished with a distracted shrug.
After killing his Ancient sire, Kerr and Sawyl attempted to return to their lives in the village... to no avail. A few months after their release and attempt at integration - to the great mistrust of those who couldn't understand how the odd pairing had shown up together after so long away they'd been given up for dead - Kerr's father died. Kerr had confessed the truth to him and believed he died of a broken heart. Either way, the Galvin land went to Kerr as the only child and he sold it to interested neighbours, using his newly-made fortune to get he and his unusual
new family out of Ireland.
He and Sawyl sired Meinwen and Dei not long after and life became a whirlwind that didn't settle for centuries. Kerr was in love with Wyl as much as a parent is with their child; besotted and devoted to helping and protecting them, forgiving or turning a blind eye to everything disagreeable about them.
