Name: Adriano Adenauer
Name Etymology: Adriano is a masculine name of Italian or Portuguese descent that is derived from Adrian, a feminine name with English, Romanian, Polish, German, and Russian roots. Adrian, in turn, was derived from the masculine Roman name Hadrianus, which meant ‘from Hadria’ in Latin. Hadria was the town in northern Italy that also gave its name to the Adriatic Sea.
Surname Etymology: Adenauer denotes a family or clan that originated in the German city Adenau.
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Apparent Age: Early Twenties
Place of Birth: Demaitre
Species: Vampire
Coven: Tarepha
Appearance: A striking young man of curly brown hair and eyes blue as a clear morning sky, Adriano’s square-jawed face sports a skinny nose that has obviously been broken several times. Yet this does not dissuade one from noticing the broad-shouldered guy’s sleek speech or smooth, clean-shaven skin. While it is true that his typical faded, ripped blue jeans and black t-shirts, his dark-blue denim vest and his harness boots give off a ‘punk’ vibe that is often radiated through his attitude toward others, it is also true that his confident walk is not the only thing that has been well-maintained over the last thirty years. He is well-groomed for one who makes a point of not caring what others think, and his semi-deep voice reflects this in the manner in which he speaks to women he considers strongly attractive.
History: Adriano was born to what some might consider just another wealthy family being put down by the media and everyone that follows their stories. In truth,
People magazine hit it right on the nail when the editor printed a story about the Adenauer family not only having strong ties to the mob, but in fact
being the mob themselves. When Adriano was just seven years old, his father told him something he’s remembered very clearly ever since:
“When people put you down, just smirk at them and turn away. When people ask after your family, tell ‘em to piss off unless they’re related. And when you find a girl to take for your own, make sure she ain’t a fucking cop.”
He took that to heart immediately and quickly made his German father proud of him. Despite his having married into the Italian mafia, Adriano’s father was much like them himself and both he and his wife managed to bring Adriano up the way they thought he should – for the most part. He wasn’t into wearing suits, though, and this became startlingly apparent at the age of twelve years when Adriano gave up trying to straighten out his hair and started wearing jeans, t-shirts, and a denim vest. He always managed to steal the money somewhere and became quite rebellious over the next year. His parents finally gave up and let him do as he wished, though he got no more allowance and had to work for what he wanted. For Adriano, of course, this meant learning how to steal without getting caught and learning how to sweet-talk people into thinking he was innocent. When he was fifteen, however, he was arrested for car-jacking. His parents bailed him out, naturally, but after that he really cracked down on not getting caught and started listening to his parents a little more – if only a very little.
Adriano’s sixteenth birthday present was more of a bribe than anything else. A 1979 Harley-Davidson FLH Shovelhead painted candy-apple red with ghost flames was Adriano’s bike of choice, and though his parents thought that they could trick him into wearing a suit for the wedding of his older brother (whom he’d never personally met and thus didn’t give a rip about), it only inspired him to get greedy. He hijacked a shipment of computers, which seemed to be getting rather popular, and sold them to buy a large and rather expensive house on the other side of the city using a false ID. Then he did it again and used the money to buy several vintage Harleys that he kept as his personal project bikes. He started restoring them and selling them off to buy others, keeping only the ones that he really wanted for customization. Then he met Veronica.
Veronica Martin was the daughter of one of Mr. Adenauer’s biggest competitors – the same competitor from which Adriano had been stealing, coincidentally. It turned out that Veronica was pissed at her father for trying to arrange a wedding between her and some guy she’d never met. The beautiful brunette thus decided it was time to piss her father off in return. Veronica and Adriano got deeply involved after she caught him hijacking a third shipment of computers, which pissed her father off to no end. He didn’t know that Adriano was the one doing the hijacking, of course, but he still tried to have Adriano killed. He failed. When Adriano told his father about the incident, relaying only that he was sleeping with the man’s daughter and that he’d tried to have him killed as a result, it began an all-out war between the two. The Adenauer family won the war and became the biggest organized crime family in Demaitre. Of course, the eighties weren’t over and a number of other crime families also popped up to try to claim that title. Though they didn’t succeed, they certainly came very close.
When the crime war was over, Mr. Adenauer shot and killed Veronica to prevent anyone else from the losing family from getting any bright ideas about coming against the Adenbauers. This, however, prompted Adriano to respond in kind. His mother suspected what had happened but didn’t know for certain that Adriano was responsible. He took his portion of the inheritance – almost forty million dollars and roughly ten million worth in property – and left the family. He sold off the property and lived alone, dealing in the restoration and resale of Harleys, until he was twenty-two. That’s when things got really weird.
Adriano might have been seen as just another punk by most, but in truth he became far more than any other punk on the block could have. He was turned by a man calling himself Arden while cleaning up a bike one night. The man gave no other name, but he did help Adriano get over the shock of the turning and learn the laws of the Tarepha coven and of the vampire underworld as a whole. Then Arden said he had some business to attend to outside the city and disappeared from sight. Adriano, obsessed with his newfound powers and too eager to explore the new world that had opened up to him to care about Arden, began to bring down one woman a night. He’d hypnotize them to get them to sleep with him and then he’d feed from them when they were finished. After, he’d dump the body in the river and go have a night on the town with his new powers.
As Adriano went on, though, he began to realize that money wasn’t everything. He began collecting Harleys solely for the purpose of restoring and customizing them, rather than reselling them to interested buyers and fellow collectors. He also began feeding from various mafias within Demaitre just to see the chaos that erupted between the families. It eventually destroyed his own family and most of the others, leaving only a few organized crime families there and only one that had any real influence in the city. Then he decided to move.
He sold the property and bought another one outside the city. He found he liked the quiet just as much as he liked the night life. He also discovered that he liked having naked women run around his home serving his every whim. In this manner, he became a kind of mix of the old and new, a hybrid of ancient culture and new tastes that had a certain style of its own. He has lived there since that time, spending most of his time either painting while jamming out to rock n’ roll music from the eighties, ‘playing’ with his mortal slaves to the same tunes, or going out to see what the nineties – and then the twenty-first century – had to offer in Demaitre via the night life.
Powers
Adriano has the amazing physical prowess and sensory perception of most vampires. He can penetrate a mortal's mind easily, sifting through thoughts and memories as though he'd done it all his life. Staring into a mortal's eyes lets him command them to do anything he wishes them to do for any length of time, including temporarily or permanently remembering or forgetting things, but he can also greatly intimidate someone with that same stare. His fangs are retractable and he has the Tarepha's unique ability to easily scale walls.
Weaknesses
While doesn't really bother him all that much, even diffuse sunlight will burn him as though he were fed a molotov cocktail. A stake through the heart won't necessarily kill him, but it will cause paralysis. He also doesn't like bright lights, so he often wears sunglasses even in places like movie theatres. Also, he can't change his outward appearance other than getting the occasional haircut; he always remains pale and ice-cold to the touch, except immediately after feeding.
Resistances
As stated before, Adriano has no problem with fire. Holy water, the crucifix, silver, and garlic have no affect on him whatsoever.
Sleeping Habits
Adriano cannot survive even diffuse sunlight, so he makes certain he's in his home well before dawn - like about an hour or so before. He can move about as easily as any mortal during the day, though he is often tired and easily distracted during this time. As such, he usually sleeps the entire night. As a heavy sleeper, he almost never wakes up before the sun has completely set.
Feeding Habits
Adriano can drink living or dead blood, though he strongly prefers living. He can wait about four days before feeding, though he sees no reason to and in fact enjoys feeding every night. Like most Tarepha, Adriano prefers to feed violently; he typically leaps from the shadows to attack an unsuspecting mortal and rip at the throat in order to get to the hot blood flowing so deliciously through the victim's body. Immediately after feeding, his body warms quite a bit - though it's still lukewarm to the touch - and he gains a bit of colour. He's still pale, but he appears almost mortal after feeding.
