Erzabet Albrecht
Gender: Monogender, man (he/him).
Birthday: November 1st
Nationality: Vologdan
Ethnicity: Chechen, Sumerian and Khemiac. Identifies as Chechen.
Species: Zmeys, a draconic Chevalier with light shapeshifting capabilities.
Patron: Corinthians III who he refers to as The Virgin.
Blessing: Via Dolorosa. When activated, Via Dolorosa forms a nigh impenetrable black armour around Erzabet. Via Dolorsa can also control hellfire.
Appearance: Erzabet is a six foot five, muscular man with an hourglass figure. He has never had top surgery but works his chest out enough that he has the appearance of having soft pecs. Erzabet has a facial structure similar to that of "classical" Greek sculptures with speckled hazel and purple eyes, a hooked nose and full lips. His hair is dirty blond and wavy and he tries to keep it at shoulder to chin level. He grooms infrequently so his thick body hair is often unkempt and he has irregular stubble on his face. His skin is tanned, on the lighter side so he can appear as 'white' although doesn't do so intentionally. Erzabet believes himself to be a priest and only wears vestments, wool pants and a leather coat when he's outside his home. Inside his home, he is not given the luxury of a wardrobe. He wears light, cotton clothing which is ill suited to the cold weather of his home city and has to wash his clothing by hand frequently. As a result he tends to wear his vestments even inside his home.
Nature: Erzabet is a neurotic and submissive man. He defers easily to aggressive people, even if he doesn't want to, preferring to take the path of least resistance socially. People usually believe that he is submissive by choice so they don't notice his resentful side. The more he is 'pushed around', even if he says he is satisfied with it, the angrier he gets. This anger is taken out on anyone he does not feel obliged to 'submit' to. Usually he takes it out on himself. Failing that, he will take it out on the target of his anger directly and then promptly fall into a guilt induced depression. At that point, he can be dominated again. This leads to a cycle in his life where he alternates between being pitied and feared.
Erzabet's world extends as far as the property line of his father's estate and he is considered to be severely damaged, mentally ill and violent by everyone not within his current circle. He retreats into fiction to expand it. Romances and historical epics of glorious conquerors make up his vision of reality. Anything that does not conform to that? He is unable and unwilling to understand. All of Erzabet's personal values are taken from fiction. He has enough awareness to consider his family's aristrocratic legacy and his father's ways abhorrent. But without any other behavior to model, he has finds himself recreating ideals of heroism from ancient literature. Protecting the defenseless, never deceiving others, fighting honorably and in sincerity. The concept that disagreements should be or even can be resolved without violence is beyond the scope of Erzabet's understanding. To Erzabet, violence is morally neutral. If the person you kill could have killed you, it's permissable. In that way he fantasizes about using his country's now degraded military might to take over the world and to make it a righteous place, that follows his chivalric code.
Underneath the layers of insecurity, fantasy and abuse, there is a sensitive and gentle Erzabet. His unyielding chivalric code is proof of this. Erzabet has a feeling of obligation towards every living creature. He believes sincerely that his mission in life is to ease as much suffering as he can. He has enough awareness to realize that most of what he can offer is the violent destruction of "enemies" of humanity; abusers, manipulators, corruptors. What Erzabet lacks is not empathy or love. It's clarity. He is unable to tell a friend from an enemy and is often shamed and forced into obedience by dangerous people or set like a rabid dog on people that love him. What Erzabet wants more than anything is a world that does not raise children to be like him.
Life: Erzabet's primary profession is the leader of the small band of templars, the Order of the Bloody Stars. He receives a small stipend from the Vologdan Catholic Church for essential supplies. The majority of this money goes to funding the templars with the remainder towards buying his siblings' holiday and birthday gifts every year. As a result, Erzabet is completely financially dependendant on his father Fyodor. Erzabet is not troubled by this as he prefers to live an austere life. He has only one hobby that does not related to fighting or his religious order. He is a romance author. He writes by hand and then gives his manuscripts to a local Chechen culture group. That group then transcripts his stories and posts them online for free, offering books for only the cost of printing. Erzabet has no idea how many people have read his novels and anthologies and to a degree, doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to be criticized, he wants to share them.
Although Erzabet's family are descended from nobility, they are effectively a government puppet. They receive no money in taxes beyond the salary that Fyodor receives as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This salary puts them solidly in the middle class of Vologdans but Fyodor oftens squanders it, leaving the Albrecht family in poverty regularly. Erzabet has become resourceful, often mending clothing and doing carpentry in order to improve the living standards of the household. Erzabet's family do "hire" staff but the majority of staff members are either independently wealthy (and from wealthier countries where their money goes farther) or are receiving only room and board. Erzabet's personal retinue receive only room. Their board is supplied by themselves, despite Erzabet's frequent attempts to pay them more.
Erzabet is assumed to have schizophrenia. He does not have a formal diagnosis but he does take various medications bought online to manage his symptoms. These aren't always effective. He also has a habit of abusing Witches' Hammer. This drug worsens his hallucinations but completely removes his sense of pain, allowing him to work harder and for longer. He also uses it to self medicate as the hallucinations from Witches' Hammer are generally of a more pleasant character than his "natural" ones. Erzabet has also formally been diagnosed with an intersex condition and was assigned female at birth. He currently takes hormones synthesized from dragons and has undergone "male" puberty but he has given birth in the past.
History: Erzabet has had a complicated life from the start. His mother is the Duke of Wrath, Margaret the Dragonslayer, who left his life early and left him to be raised by Fyodor and his stepmothers. Fyodor was known to be a womanizer and had ten different wives at the time, not counting for mistresses and other women he was seeing on and off. He had children with almost every one. At the peak of his popularity, Fyodor had maintained twenty six children with a confirmed fourteen women. The household resources were stretched as thin as they could go. Many of the less liked wives and children suffered from malnutrition even when the household finances were stable. Civil instability in Karparty caused Fyodor's salary to half. He was no longer able to maintain a basic level of care for everyone in the household and was forced to start sending them away. Eventually, the wives realizing that there would be no safety net for them or the children until balance was restored took it upon themselves to remove some of the competition. Some children were murdered. Some merely died of illness or exposure to the elements. By the end of it, Erzabet, his two older brothers and his five younger siblings were the only survivors.
For a while, Erzabet brought his family glory by training as a soldier, occasionally working as a wrestler as a hobby. He was able to receive a gold medal during the yearly Olympics for his country. During this period he was stable. Although he had a number of painful memories, both from the way his father treated him and the death of many of his siblings, he was still able to cope with reality. It was after the death of his brother Yujiro and his subsequent internment in a conversion facility that changed him. His internment coincided with the onset of his psychotic symptoms. At the time, the people who ran the facility considered him to be faking in order to escape. This lead to increasingly harsh treatment until he "proved" that he was cured. Upon release, his family realized that he was actually legitimately ill. Because Vologda has poor mental health facilities, he is self medicating on antipsychotics obtained via a foreign pharmacy (as well as with Witches' Hammer). These antipsychotics are not always reliable and he often forgoes them anyway.
Erzabet converted to Catholicism when he was twenty and applied to become a priest but due to his status as a "former" gay man, they denied him. Instead, he was offered the position of templar and given the defunct Bloody Stars organization. Despite the church's best efforts, he was able to grow this organization to a small but servicable number. He now performs templar services out of a church he made on the Albrecht estate yard. Currently, his father is looking for a fulltime caretaker for him as he is concerned about what will happen to Erzabet when he dies.
People: Erzabet is the second oldest (living) son of the Albrecht family. He grew up with a number of siblings but only a handful are still alive. Of these living, his undeniable favorite is his older brother Sava. Although, he doesn't dislike any of his siblings either. He also has a particular, special relationship with his youngest sister, Christabel. The Albrecht siblings are known to be closer than any other siblings of any other dynasty. How much the other siblings support that is variable. But to Erzabet, his family are the most important part of his life.
Erzabet is the leader of the Order of Bloody Stars, a group of exorcists supported by the government. This groups is relatively small and consists of a few other disabled templars and Rowan Jaegar, a very good friend of Erzabet's who he often sleeps with. Erzabet is also attended to by Periwinkle Moreau, a Saarlander and amateur psychologist who was hired to help with his anger issues.