Vampire Dwarf

Where to even start with General Kenneth Decker?  Well, the first thing is that he acts like a bridge between worlds.  He is a trusted soldier of Xavier Tempest who is his maker and an ‘unofficial’ member of Clyde’s gang.  This gives him an interesting dynamic where he needs to act two different ways.  He has to be more polite and civil around the nobles while he can be freer in speech and opinion with the gang.  It makes for an interesting scene when he has to handle Clyde and Xavier at the same time.  Because of this Decker, tends to come off as the more serious member of the cast.  He’s always on guard with his behavior and finding ways to be authoritative while not starting a fight.  Kind of weird for a dwarf, which he wasn’t prior to the books.  So, what was he first?

Remember me mentioning the soldier that did a number on the game version of Xavier Tempest’s storyline?  This was when he was Alucard Tepes and you really don’t need the details here.  Decker was the other character that caused the derailment, which was well within his character for the game.  My friend, who had enlisted around the time he made the character, played this guy as a serious, tactician that loved to get involved in fights and cut loose.  He tended to look at every player in terms of combat use, which caused issues with my guy because he didn’t use guns and was rather archaic.  They got along, but butted heads a bunch.  In the end, Decker tended to steal the show because the player has one of those personalities.  You always know he’s there, but not in a negative way.  It also results in people expecting him to be a lot taller than he actually is.

Because of all that, Decker was turned into a dwarf and ends up being the only vampire character with a magical weapon.  While the others use natural and unenchanted weapons, he has an axe that he can charge with various elements.  Vampires typically don’t do this because it can be a drain on their blood and feel awkward, but Decker shrugs that off rather easily.  While it hasn’t been questioned in the book, the reason is that axe is a backup in case he’s in the sun and loses his powers.  This is another aspect of the character in that he, like his game counterpart, is a fan of precautions and plans where he maintains control.  At the very least, he ensures that he will not be found weak and vulnerable, which makes him highly dangerous.

The decision to make Decker the ‘child’ of Xavier came by accident while I was writing, but I wanted to have him be more than a simple soldier of Nyte.  This helped make him more of a bridge between the two worlds that are working together.  Yet, I did have to change some things because the original Decker personality wouldn’t mesh at all with that of Clyde.  I removed a lot of his take charge habits and made him more of a wise adviser/trusted friend.  He will do what he thinks is right, but he won’t force Clyde to accept his plan or go along if they’re disagreeing.  There’s a lot of trust between them to the point where they can let the other get away with a lot.  In fact, another character and Decker tend to argue because he isn’t really a thief like the rest of the gang.  This is an odd sticking point for some characters because it creates a sense of uncertainty with a character who is all about being sure of himself and the situation.

The best Decker story I have is an odd one because it was more between the player and another one.  That other one was my wife who decided to step out of her comfort zone of physical fighters, casters, and superhuman teens.  She created a vampire prostitute who gathered information.  Decker comes in because the the player and my wife tended to verbally spar with each other.  This time it was doubt that she could pull of a seductive character because, as much as I love her, she’s never been that type.  This led to her accepting the challenge and going all out on her character description and introduction to Decker.  We all got a pretty good laugh about it since she pulled it off and his only reaction was ‘Damn’.