Khalid Al-Nasir, Heir to Hashashin

Name:Khalid Al-Nasir
Age: roughly 24 (he's not entirely sure)
Gender: male
Race: vampire (would call himself a qarin)
Powers: All the powers typical to a vampire, blood memory (gains memories of blood victims), potential to use vampire magicks
Skills: Stealth, theft, hand to hand combat, marksmanship,disguise, demolitions, bladed weapon fighting, poisoning , deception,painting, calligraphy, sculpting,
Occupation: odd jobs on night shift
Likes: silence, cool air, drawing nature, learning new languages, the desert at night, reading, cats, flowers, incense, the smell of blood, the feeling of serving justice
Dislikes: Loud crowds, bigots, werewolves (he's scared of wolves), american pop music (just too loud), criminals, the corrupt
Appearance: Khalid is an arab male of lean but fit build and above average height. His skin is a deep tan, his eyes dark hazel (red when feeding), and jet black curly hair cut kept short with a well trimmed beard.
Background: Khalid has been a killer since he was young. For the young boy, the youngest of eight children to a poor family, was seized up and Embraced in the dark alleys of Cairo by one of the few ancient vampires left. The legendary Al-Mualim..the Old Man of the Mountain and ancient chief of the Assassin Clan. Millenia ago he had gone into torpor when the purges began and had awoken  two weeks prior in a much changed world, wondering where his ancient clan the Banu Assasiyuun had gone. The old man had wandered the middle east for years, seeing it as a destabilized battleground infected with chaos. Feeling that the world needed the Assassins again, to bring order back to the region, he began searching for the perfect successor, for his body had grown weak and he wished to join his ancestors soon . As he saw the poor street thief wandering the alleys of Cairo he smelled potential in the young orphan boys blood....Potential to become heir to his legacy and knowledge, whether the boy liked it or not. A few nights later the boy was scooped up from his room in the night, he never saw his family again.

    It was that same night that Al-Mualim, in his selfish ambition passed on his blood, and with it his curse to Khalid, and declared him his heir apparent. So began the boy's long tutelage, instructing him in the skills needed to carry on the assassin clans legacy, combat, marksmanship and mysticism. Khalid's entire life, his family, his friends, the only city he'd ever known...all swept away, all destroyed in one night. It was unfortunate then that this tragedy was only the beginning. Khalid's adolescence was spent in spartan like conditions, always moving from place to place, job to job, whether as contract killers for a Saudi oil sheik, or spies for an Iranian cleric. Al-Mualim despite his millenia in torpor was still the master, and knew where to find work. One brutal lesson after another until the boy had grown tall and strong and deadly, no affection, no reassurance, no friends, no free time.. just the mission, just the clan. Nothing was true, everything was permitted.

    However, the ancient assassin, so removed from the humanity he scoffed at, never could account for the human factor. And despite all his brainwashing, despite all his words, and strikes and harsh bloody lessons...Khalid never truly became devoted to him. With no love, no purpose to hold on to, he held onto the only human emotion he could find. That caustic toxin known as rage and with it the deep deep desire for retribution. The world had never been fair to him, not since he'd entered it, and there was nothing he wanted more than to set things right. This anger only festered as the years went on, spread like mold and mildew in a corpse until it choked his very words, and pierced his every thought. The more blood they spilled, the more 'lessons' he learned, the more and more rage he felt. Eventually he just couldn't hold it in anymore, he felt his head being forced between the boiling waves of blood...and he drowned. So one night right as the old man was waking from his torpor, vulnerable and yawning from the deep fog of sleep, Khalid went berserk.

    There was nothing that could've saved the old man, against such young and reckless hate, no poison, no magic that could aid him against the rending claws and howling wassail of his student. For he was old, and did not drink as much, and deemed he could keep control through words and loyalty. Foolish, for even a dog is only loyal for as long as it is full, and so there he sat at the foot of his coffin, looking as though he'd been mauled. As thick vampire hearts blood stained the silver of his beard, he croaked out one last reminder "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" Khalid does not like to call back any of these memories, but what happened after that is something that he never disclosed. Perhaps because of guilt, or perhaps because the taboo such actions have in the west. Rage can drive a vampire to do many horrible things, many things considered dark atrocities, draining another vampire dry is one of those things. And when Khalid left their base that night, the body he left behind was nothing but a shrivelled bloodless husk.

   But as the memories of his master rushed through him, a thousand plus years of fears, ambitions, opinions, loves and hates all rushing through him his mind...he couldn't help but feel sympathy, he could see now  the clans' heyday, it's golden era. When the Bayt Al-Sakin was in it's prime with Mualim as it's still noble grandmaster, ruling from the fortress citadel of Alamut. There was some value in it, a clan that would do what the others wouldn't, that would live by a code, that would hunt the hunted, that would police the undead. When some set worshipping undead pharaoh erupted from the sands of Misr, their blades slashed him to dust, when mad mullahs chanted their dark magics it was the assassins who silenced them. In their time the lands of Islam had found relative peace against the princely feuds of the west, and in so doing the vampires of that land , or ghuls didn't collapse quite so dramatically. Some were killers and fanatics granted, but also judicators and philosophers, their influence had spread from the glowing streets of Cordoba to the spice filled bazaars of Baghdad. Perhaps there would be something to saving this ideal after all? Or were those just the whispering remnants of Al-Mualim in his mind?

   No...no first he needed to find himself, and to come to terms with the new memories that now slept in his mind. For to drain another vampire has a few prices to go with the benefits. He needed to escape, both the Middle East and the specters it held for him. And while He hates to indulge the stereotype, perhaps America will have the freedom he so longs for? Besides he's heard of this quiet little desert town called Springwater and it sounds like such a nice place to settle down...maybe just maybe he'll find his peace after all.