Critias
Sobriquet: The...Doctor
Appearance: Critias is a older man in his late fifties, a touch on the heavy side, he still appears surprisingly fit, but only stands a bare five feet tall. He is olive complected, with a shiny pate and just a fringe of hair that traces itself over his ears and down the back of his neck, before joining up with a full white beard that most Greek Orthodox priests would be proud to boast. His eyes are the color of the Aegean sea on a stormy day, framed by a tan angular face with more than his share of laugh-lines. In public he wears conservative scholarly suits that are usually ten to twenty years out of date; its hard for Critias to take away time from his studies to keep up with modern fashion trends. In the privacy of his haven he prefers the comfort of nudity or the robes of an ancient Athenian scholar.
Behavior: Critias is 2500 years old, give or take a decade or two; he moves according to his own pace and nothing can hurry him, save the threat of final death. In all things he maintains a distant emotional stoicism that makes him seem cold and very un-Brujah; but, this is the result of twenty-five centuries of discipline coupled with the ennui of his fantastically long existence. Critias has seen numerous civilizations rise and fall, from his point of view, the lives of individual mortals are comparable to the life-cycle of the common mayfly. In many ways, Critias has come very close to resembling the rare bloodline who call themselves "True Brujah," save for the fact that when pressed too far, he too can suffer the eruption of his deep passions, with rare, but tragic consequences.
When he deigns to speak with individual mortals or younger Kindred, he tends to play the devil's advocate, answering a question with another question. While this mode of debate and indoctrination flourished in his native Athens twenty-five centuries ago, it tends to frustrate the callow and often emotionally immature youth of this century, who want the truth without expending effort or time in its pursuit. Everything Critias says has a rhetorical angle and he rarely speaks in a literal way unless forced to do so. When he is compelled to answer questions directly, his answers are often preceded by a significantly pregnant pause meant to convey the elder's irritation at being hurried by disrespectful young people and further frustration can ensue as Critias tries to reconcile his ancient dialectic with appropriate modern terminology.
History: Critias is an ancient Brujah, who remembers the times when his Clan was one of warrior-philosophers and not of rambling anarchs. The scion of his immobile sire, Critias is drawn into the feud beween Menele and Helena.
During his lifetime, Critias dwelled in Athens and was a popular philosopher who populated Sophist teachings. His philosophies made him many enemies among the nobility of the city and when the plague hit Athen, they accused him of corrupting the cities youth and exiled him. But before he could go anywhere, he was visited by a dark stranger who introduced himself as Menele.
The two discussed their philosophies till the dawn and then Menele offered Critias the possibility to caryy out his role for all eternity. Critias accepted. Afterwards, the cities authorities tried to execute him, but he returned and, in a fit of Frenzy, killed and drained the entire household of one of his executioners. Afterwards, he fled together with his sire to Cyrene, feeding on the blood of his sire and generating a blood bond that, because of Menele's potent vitae, had been active even after the two parted ways.
Critias traveled to Carthage, fascinated by the ideal of a world where Kindred and kine would live side by side. Because of his abilities in debates, he was made the cities envoy and traveled the world in order to find allies for it. Because of this, he was not in Carthage when the Ventrue of Rome sacked it. Furious, he traveled to Rome, dedicating all his efforts to destroy it as Rome had destroyed Carthage. He began by stirring up the farmers against the landowners, but the revolt was quickly beaten down. He tried to create struggle between Rome and other Italian cities but the Ventrue were able to quease the conflict.
Critias even usurped a kingdom in Asia Minor and led the armies personally against the Roman legions, gripped by a Frenzy that lasted three nights. It was only after he drank a 12-year old girl dry that he returned to his senses. Horrified, he sank into the earth and abandoned his troops. When he eventually learned of the massacres his army committed, he traveled to Eurasia, feeding only from animals and lived as a nomad until he came to terms with the horrors he had committed. He ventured to Constantinople, where he stayed clandestine until the 14th century. He wanted to visit the new places of learning and began to travel through Western Europe.
Unknown to him, he aided the transportation of his sire's body into America by financing an expedition into it. He himself arrived in the New World short time after the Revolutionary War, enarmoured by the first practical use of the athenian democracy in centuries. He traveled the land until he settled in Chicago, unknown to him that his sire had summoned him. Supporting the anarchs in order to create creative conflict, Critias eventual goal is to create a democratic government for the Kindred in Chicago.
He spends his time teaching a few courses of philosophy in the university, enjoying the company of bright young males who later become part of a network of intellectual retainers that stretches itself acroos the whole United States.
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