Name: Prince Derek the Ill-fated
Gender: Male
Description: Tall, with a countenance of dark majesty. The curse of the Dark Fey has rendered him looking inhuman, with two small rows of horns sweeping back along his scalp, dark violet skin, and deep indigo hair sweeping back to his shoulders. His teeth are now sharp points and his eyes glow with a sickly yellow light. Because of this, he takes great pains to disguise his appearance, often covering himself completely in shrouding robes. Under this he dresses in the unspoiling regality gifted to him by his parents
History: The king and queen of a lost and distant land were barren. In an act of desperation for their royal lineage they made a pact with dark fey to have a child of their own, offering their most precious possessions should they be made to conceive. To their delight, a son was born, Prince Derek, and on the day of his christening the dark fey arrived to admire their handiwork. These royals had not been so foolish as to not invite these malign creatures and welcomed them with a feast. They set forth the sum of their treasures that the fey might take what they wished, willing to trade any and all of their possessions in gratitude for their son.
The dark fey, every tricky and sinister, inspected the whole of the kingdom's riches with wry smiles and roving eyes. With haunting voices did they announce that, as per the agreement, they has selected the possession that they would take; the most valuable in the kingdom. They also declared that, after the feast and with treasure in hand, they would depart in peace from the kingdom and never be seen again. The banquet passed in great anticipation, but the royals worried not at all.
Those nobles in attendance were allowed to hold the infant prince and, as the babe was passed around, the dark fey asked that they too be allowed to hold the child. The royals agreed hastily, wary of offending creatures of such fickle power and desperate to keep their country whole. But the moment they took hold of the young prince they cried in exultation that they did now have the most precious possession in the kingdom. Screams of protest sounded through the great hall as they dark fey vanished in that very moment into a cloud of the inkiest blackness, never to be seen again.
Years passed in the Winterlands, the cruel, barren, and otherworldly realm of the dark fey. Young prince Derek was raised by his evil and malicious surrogate parents, exposed to blood curdling horrors and suffering in his tender-most years and was sent to bed each night with stories of trickery and deceit. To the dismay of his parents, however, he seemed resistant to their attempts to turn him fully to wickedness.
As he grew, he was trained in fine arts and groomed to be a leader of men, a general for the dark invasion the evil fey had planned to launch upon the mortal realms and the Summerlands. Derek drank in the knowledge, but after years of fright and torture, kept his gentle nature hidden away from his wicked parents. Still, despite his dreams of a peaceful life filled with joy, his parents were unrelenting in their efforts to tempt him into true evil.
But even the dark fey are not infallible. The day of Derek's 19th birthday was made to be a great celebration because of the completion of his training and his mastery of tactics and strategy. The party was filled with the Unseelie courts and fey and beasts drank and feasted into stupors. As the party progressed, many of the creatures present boasted of their greatest tricks and vilest acts. When it got around to Derek's parents, they had only one story to top all. They told, loudly and brazenly, the tale of their deceit that saw them with the greatest mortal general groomed by the dark fey; Prince Derek.
Hearing this tale for the first time in his life, Derek found a great weight of curiosity descending upon him. Who were his true parents? What was his kingdom like? What would life have been had he been raised by a king and queen who cherished him above all else instead of in the perpetual horror of the Winterlands? In a fit of drunken defiance, he demanded that his parents allow him to leave and live in the world of mortals where he belonged. To his surprise, the dark fey readily agreed and outfitted him for his journey with their magic. Derek, now calmed, asked that he be sent to the kingdom of his birth where his true parents were. The wicked laughter of drunken fey was the last sound he heard as they enacted their magic spell that would send him home.
As with many things of the fey, time is but a whim and reality a plaything. Though Derek was only 19, he arrived in the ruins of a long-dead kingdom, centuries after his parents had perished. Searching through the crumbling remains of the palace, he found the memorial resting places of his mother and father. His sorrow gathered up into a single tear, the first he had shed in true grief, which fell to the ground. From that drop sprang forth an imp, D'ktari, who told the prince that his parents had freed him, but only upon certain conditions. He was to live cursed among mortals, changed into a fiendish form that none would fail to recognize as otherworldly. He would also be unable to speak of the dark fey upon the mortal world, lest he reveal their sinister plans. Finally, should Derek wish to return to the Winterlands, he need only call his parents' names. Cackling with delight the imp vanished, promising to return to torment him again.
But as the imp departed, a good fairy arose from between the tombs. She told Derek that his hidden kindness shone like a beacon to the inhabitants of the Summerlands and that he could yet break his parents' curse. A kiss from a beloved princess, she said, would restore his human features and break the shackles of the dark fey spell. Gifting him with her own robe of glittering white, his countenance was hidden in shadow so that he might travel amongst the lands of mortals. Telling him that this was all the boon she could grant, she set him on his task to find the princess who could free him from the devious whims of the evil fairies.
Magic: Prince Derek has no magic to speak of. The limit of his abilities is minor trickery learned from the fey he grew up with.
Abilities: Fey-Trained Knight (swordsmanship, horsemanship, tilting, dirty tactics)
Dark Knowledge (working knowledge of wicked things)
Leadership (Tactics, Strategy, Inspiration, Discipline)
Inborn Kindness (helpful and gentle, charitous, honest)
Dark Majesty (Evil creatures can mistake him for an ally)
Equipment: Dark Fey Steel Longsword (thin-bladed slashing weapon)
Fey-Steel Armor (fine-linked mail and cuirass)
Concealing Cloak
Winterland Steed