Jalan-Aajav

Gangrel

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Sobriquet: Seraph of the Blackhand

Appearance: Lean, swift and powerfully built, Jalan prefers thick leathers, woolen overcoats, steel-shod boots and other heavy garments reminiscent of the hide and horn of a bygone era. His hair hangs in long, matted tangles about his face; when not hidden behind sunglasses, the feral glare with which he regards the world burns with quiet genius or genocide.

Behavior: Impulsive and irreverent, you are like a spring wound too tightly, always scant seconds away from violent explosion. The consummate assassin, a master with any weapon or none at all, you have never met your equal, which your attitude reflects well. Despite your headstrong manner, in battle you are a study in determination, a whirlwind, swift and sure, leaving devastation in your wake. It is at the height of such moments, however, that the familiar fury leaves your eyes, to be re­placed by a serene calm... or perhaps an expectant sorrow.

History: In life, the Third Seraph is said to have ridden with Temujin, he whom the Mongols later came to know as Genghis Khan, ravager of empires, born an ironsmith's bastard, torn from his mother's womb clutching a clot of blood. Even from childhood, Jalan suffered the brutalities of life on the tundra, constant competition for standing and sustenance, gladiatorial bodkin-bouts with rival tribesmen, Status afforded Jalan opportunities of the sort he had only dreamed about previously; his attentions turned to the massacre of thousands. Gifted with wealth, women and two full score of horsemen, he and his Mongol raiders ravaged unclaimed territories. They pressed eastward, into Asia, where the forces of Chin and Kara Kitai fell like wheat before the scythe, then north, across the Burkhans, where Jalan spurred his soldiers onward into lands long laid fallow by a Russian curse....

Only to learn that his hordes were not the only monsters to call the frozen steppe home.

It is commonly accepted that, even after his farewell to light, Jalan served hiskhan faithfully throughout the latter's reign, then buried him in a secret place high in the Khaldun Mountains. Temujin'sgeneral himself disappeared from historical view not long thereafter, though. Doubtless, he lost himself in Muscovite upheavals over the centuries to come, hauntingly familiar reminders of the age-old cycle of ascendancy, discord and decline. Some believe his blade rode unsheathed alongside those that slit the throat of the Byzan­tine Empire.

What is known is that, sometime shortly after the 15th century's dawning, Jalan's westward wanderings brought him into contact with another of his kind -- an ancient creature who had carefully concealed his presence during centuries of Teutonic worship, fitful in the Sleep of Ages within a new­ born Orthodox cathedral, hidden in plain sight beneath a riverside hamlet that bore his very name. There, astride the banks of the wine-dark Timis in the Romanian fisherman's village of Lugoj, the warrior first heard the tale of the Antediluvians. There, amidst the fire-flower dance of death, he tasted the forbidden fruit his brothers called Amaranth. And there, kneeling in homage to the priests and sorcerers of the manus nigrum, Jalan, onetime-terror of the East, rejoined the great game for power at any price.

Jalan ("Aajav-Khan" to his direct subordinates) is per­fectly suited to the Sabbat ideals of unified force and survival of the fittest; his soul bears the heavy black veins of countless consumed lessers. He guides the Black Hand with his brother Seraphim, leading the sect in times of open Jyhad with a recklessness and savagery that inspires fear and mistrust in enemies and allies alike. When campaigns or other duties do not require his presence elsewhere, Jalan maintains a loosely structured base of operations in Juarez, Mexico -- a network of safe houses, former resistance tunnels and underworld ties supplied and maintained {albeit reluctantly) by Regent Galbraith herself. When his presence is required elsewhere on the North American continent, he travels via the Regent's personal conveyance -- an armored, windowless rail-car appropriated from the United States Department of Defense's Transporta­tion Command.

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