Theodoric
Sobriquet: The Goth or The Night Minstrel or (Theodoric the Younger)
Contents
Appearance
His eyes burned an arctic blue in the brighter glare of the smaller silver moon, Keresese Hold. And in the ample light, I could see the faded liver-spots and wrinkles that made up the roadmap of old age. Crisscrossing that stern visage were deeper crevasses, one moved diagonally across his mouth from left to right, another stretched parallel to his nose and a third ran from the outer edge of his left eye to the left corner of his mouth, old mortal scars that told the tale of a warrior's life. His silver-white hair and matching beard, cropped short as a Roman soldier might, granted his harsh face a kind of faded elegance, like a lion grown old, but not weak.
Behavior
Theodoric is callous and indifferent to most of the world around him. A king before he was Kindred, he has not had much time to consider the feelings of others. Nor much desire to do so. Theodoric is pragmatic, and inclined to move the shortest number of steps to reach his goal. While this might seem to make him impatient, in fact it means that he spends a lot of time setting things in motion so he has to expend the least amount of effort to get what he wants. Theodoric has been a control freak for so long that he sometimes neglects to remember what he told people to think when he dominates them. It is such a habit for him by now that he uses the power almost without thinking, heedless of what it does to mortals.
History
The man who would later rule under the name of Theoderic was born in AD 454, on the banks of the Neusiedler See near Carnuntum. This was just a year after the Ostrogoths had thrown off nearly a century of domination by the Huns. The son of the King Theodemir and Ereleuva, Theoderic went to Constantinople as a young boy, as a hostage to secure the Ostrogoths' compliance with a treaty Theodemir had concluded with the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Thracian (ruled 457–474).
He lived as a hostage at the court of Constantinople for many years and learned a great deal about Roman government and military tactics, which served him well when he became the Gothic ruler of a mixed but largely Romanized "barbarian people". Treated with favor by the Emperors Leo I and Zeno (ruled 474–475 and 476–491), he became magister militum (Master of Soldiers) in 483, and one year later he became consul. Afterwards, he returned to live among the Ostrogoths when he was 31 years old and became their king in 488. The legend that he was illiterate arose from the fact that he used a stamp to affix his approval of laws; he no doubt spoke Latin and Greek and could read these languages although one cannot know how well.
After being embraced by Sybil, Theodoric was brought to heel by the powerful Antediluvian through a long amount of time and unstinting use of the blood bond. Sybil expended a lot of power forcing him to acknowledge her as a superior. He was never cowed as such; he just was pragmatic enough to know that he couldn't defeat his Mistress due to her Generation and her hold on him. This rankled for Theodoric, and for several centuries he was a grudging servant, bound by the blood bond. The former king was never good at being a lesser, and being undead hadn’t changed that. When the Pageant arrived in Verona, Theodoric was sent to examine it and return with an assessment for his Mistress. Theodoric approached the Pageant and walked among it, enthralled by the party atmosphere and performances.
Encountering Nabil ibn Saqr Theodoric passed through the maze. Theodoric found himself at the altar in the center of the Shanty of Fools. The mage ibn Saqr grasped his mind and pulled from him his greatest desire. Theodoric wished to command his own destiny again and no longer be the servant of Sybil. Having this revelation spill out into the night nearly broke the former king, and he wept tears of blood that his humiliation was so clear to the world around him. Ibn Saqr named a price, and Theodoric agreed. From that moment on Theodoric was a member of the Pageant, and he hasn't looked back on the Clan Lasombra since, a free being once more. For a time he reveled in the wandering freedom of the Pageant, until one night a hundred years ago he came to the realization that he was as much a slave to the Pageant as he ever was to Sybil, and once more the king began to chafe under the yoke.
On Erdach Kodesh Theodoric completed a plan to supplant the current Master of Two Worlds. He now is reveling in the power granted by the Powers That Be. He is quickly coming to understand the strain of being the conduit between the living and the siphon of Oblivion. His absorption of life energy is stronger now that the Pageant is no longer on the Killing Ground. Theodoric, as the Master of Two Worlds, can for the first time in Millenia walk under the sun for brief times.
Relationship with Rambert
Relationship with Aegon
Dormitor to Aegon, while he cannot bind the man, he keeps him blinded by Dominate suggestions that keep the human in line.
