Forgotten Realms Vampire

I hate to admit that I almost forgot about this character who shows up in War of Nytefall: Rivalry.  I have no real excuse.  Maybe it’s because Dean Pendrac has a rather strange origin when compared to all of the other characters too.  It’s one that always made me forget about him until his name showed up in the outline.  Strangest thing is that he had this problem way back when he had a bigger role.  Not really building him up here, but I can explain.

First, Dean Pendrac was called Dean Pendragon at a time when I was getting into the King Arthur mythos.  I don’t remember the trigger, but I wanted to create a character with a sense of nobility.  There weren’t any Dungeons & Dragons games where I could do it, but somebody was starting up a Vampire: The Masquerade game.  I decided to not revive Clyde or play a battle or art focused character.  Instead, I made one of the ‘nobles’ known as Ventrue and played him up as someone who believed he was descended from King Arthur.  It was going to be a lot of fun playing a pompous character who . . . The game never got off the ground.

I did get another chance to . . . That game died during character creation.  What about this one?  Nope.  Fourth times the charm?  Okay, that failed, so I think I should considered Dean cursed.

That’s really why he tended to be forgetful to me.  I had played Xavier, Clyde, Kai, and Lou or was with people who played the other characters.  Dean is the one who I repeatedly tried and failed to get into a game.  So, he never got a chance to flex his muscles like his fellow vampires.  Maybe it was for the best because I found that I can’t really do the nobleman concept that well.  I can’t play arrogant for too long before I begin to get bored or start apologizing enough that the facade is broken.  Dean ended up staying in my character folder, which disappeared way back in 2005/2006.  That’s a pain that I will never live down because Luke Callindor, Clyde, Sin, and Darwin Slepsnor were in there.  I’m getting off topic.

When I decided to first make a vampire series, Dean Pendragon kept his full name and ended up starting as the main villain.  This lasted for about two iterations before I put Xavier Tempest in the role.  Dean was moved to the position of loyal adviser and conniving diplomat.  He had absolutely no combat ability and was a fairly sniveling lackey whenever I tried to write him up.  That didn’t sit well with me and then his position was given to Kai Stavros.  Dean Pendragon was again left without a home until Jewelz was turned into the Vampire Queen.

I had her all alone in her story, which never really worked out.  She needed to have someone that she could boss around, get advice from, and possibly trust.  This time, I changed him to Dean Pendrac and he ended up going the distance here.  He wasn’t ambitious anymore because he served a woman who had big dreams.  This left him as an open book with only his nobility staying intact.  I came up with the idea of a rogue nobleman as I began writing.  This led to the idea of him being more about knowledge than wealth and conquering like the rest of the Vampire Council.  Connecting him to Xavier gave him more of a history as well, but it also flushed the Lord of Nyte out a bit more.  It was nice to see Dean finally get a purpose and not get tossed back into the trash bin.

That’s really it for him because a lot of Dean’s history and secrets are part of War of Nytefall: Rivalry‘s story.  Give it a look.