Oran Black

Dhampir / Sorcerer

Submitted character story

Oran was born to an unholy matrimony between a vampire lord and a human witch after her village was destroyed by a giant. The two quickly fell in love, giving birth to their son: Oran Halstead.

 His father, Lord Halstead III trained him in the art of the blade, while his mother, Aria Black, taught him basic spellcraft. The trio loved each other very much, spending their days in Castle Halstead together as a single family unit. This lasted until a group of vampire hunters stormed their home, subduing the three and taking them into the forest to be burned alive. 

As Aria was being executed, Oran escaped his shackles and freed his father, who slew the entire group without mercy. He did not watch the carnage, instead holding his mother's charred remains as she took her final labored breaths. From there, their relationship changed. 

Halstead went mad, training his son to destroy humanity for taking his lover away. Oran’s days were spent training until he could hardly stand for the remainder of his formative years, until his father deemed him ready. He was gifted a new sword and instructed to slay everyone in a nearby village- which he did successfully. Only after did he realize how far his father had fallen. He had just taken over a hundred innocent lives for no true reason. 

 Oran returned to the castle and challenged the vampire to a duel to the death, which lasted 3 days and 3 nights, until Halstead finally fell. The final expression on his face was pride for the warrior his son had become.

 Grieving over what he had done, he welded heavy iron chains around his neck and both wrists, vowing to keep them on until his debt to society was repaid. Along the way his toll only grew. On a quest to slay the leviathan, his entire adventuring party was swallowed by the waves, vanishing into the sea with the dying serpent.  On another quest to claim and destroy the sorcerer’s stone, it bound to his soul, preventing him from aging or being affected by disease.

Oran Black only took two wives.  His first wife, a rogue who protected travelers at night, grew old and died in his arms. Oran's  second wife was executed by association by a mad warlock. She had no combat experience at all and was simply a farmer. After her demise, Oran decided he could no longer allow people to grow close. Despite blaming it on being too dangerous, he knew deep down the true reason was because the loss hurt far too much.

 Despite saving countless lives, it was never enough for Oran. Although he continued growing stronger and gained a reputation, he always needed to do more to fix his debt to society. As technology began to overtake magic, Oran’s legacy became too much to bear. He faked his own death, which led to widespread mourning across the planet. Despite this, he continued under a new name- Trevor Greendrake- as he was still attempting to fill his bottomless chalice. This lasted until the Grand Repository- a database of Old World knowledge- burned to the ground, wiping his deeds from history, leaving the remnants of The Old World completely lost.

 With the Grand Repository's fall, humanity entered the Age of Isolation. Borders tightened across Earth. Some countries gained new, powerful technology while others fell into darkness. Oran was spread incredibly thin, forced to choose who to save. This drove him deeper into despair, as each choice meant someone somewhere else was left to die. This continued for a few centuries until the first spacecraft was invented, and with it, the cosmos noticed Earth.

Earth's first contact was with an alien race known as the Maxacorians. They did not come to the small blue planet peacefully. Their home world of Multova was a volcanic, rocky world with few resources. They had come to Earth to rob it of its natural resources and enslave its people. Earth united against the threat. Oran Black himself joined the war, raiding ships to slaughter the alien invaders inside. Those who saw him gave him the name "The Crimson Killer."

Oran's wartime conquests led him deeper into the conflict. One day, he decided to attack their mothership singlehanded. After breaching it, he began slaughtering the reptilians by the dozen, raising their corpses to fight next to him until arriving at the bridge, where he killed all the Maxacorians without mercy. With the captain dead, the ship began to fall out of orbit. Oran had planned to redirect it, however he made a fatal error: the technology on board was like nothing he had ever seen.

Oran began frantically trying buttons to stop the collision, but nothing worked. Realizing it was imminent, he fled the mothership as it crashed into the sea, exploding as it descended beneath the waves. The monsoon that followed ravaged multiple cities, killing thousands of innocent people. Oran fled the war after the error, believing that his continued assistance was a detriment to the human cause.

Not long after the mothership fell, Earth repelled the invaders. As they celebrated, someone else took notice of the victory: The Universal Order- a coalition of millions of worlds that provided protections, laws, and trade routes to all of them. Earth had matched all of their standards except one: A single unified government. The world leaders argued for over a year, yet support for the offer was overwhelmingly high. The One Earth Government formed, and Earth became an Order planet.

As wartime cleanup began, survivors of the flooding reported on the pale man in Old World robes who had fled the scene. Surviving records of that era were scoured until Oran Black's identity was found. He was immediately declared an Enemy of Humanity, which only caused him to hide further. He continued helping people, even if the world he fought for was demanding his head.

At over 4000 years old now, Oran Black is a powerful ally or adversary. He is a master of the blade, allowing him to fight multiple enemies with ease. He has also mastered multiple forms of dark magic, gaining the ability to revive corpses without their souls, call upon the fires of Hell, and even call upon shackled demons to do his bidding. Despite this, Oran Black is not evil- he uses these powers to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

And yet, guilt still weighs heavily on his soul. He speaks little and rarely allows his mask of apathy to slip. He lives alone in Castle Halstead, which he has renamed to The Black Bastion, only leaving to continue his endless crusade. Most people believe he doesn't care about anything. And yet, the truth is that Oran Black cares far too much.