Stephen De Ocham
From LanceaSanctum
Player Name: James Convy
Current Name: Stephen De Ocham; Pillar to the Devoured Sin
Clan: Ventrue
Covenant: Lancea Sanctum
Title: none
Faction: Order of the Devoured Sin/Hardliner
Creed: Monachal Creed
Concept: Liar/Covenant Finatic
Apparent Age: mid-30s
Date of Embrace: Says 1377, actually 1854
Contents |
[edit] Public Information
Physical description: Caucasian, 6'5" tall, with short cropped black hair and dead brown eyes. Clean shaven.
Stephen de Ocham is known as a converter and evangelist. He will talk to anyone who will listen to his preaching. He has very little care for human life other then to make sure they know that God's light is brightest in this word. He is known for his Dark Mass on forgiveness in Norfolk, VA where the ripped the heart out of a human crack addict after she confessed to her sins. He wanted to make sure she could not sin again and thus losing her salvation.
[edit] Background
This information can be assumed to be in character for those PCs who would have a reason to know it.
I am Stephen de Ocham, born of Micheal de Ocham and Catherine Milner in the year of our Lord 1357. I was raised in the Church in Worchester and became a priest. It was the year of our Lord 1377 that I became one of the Damned.
Unbeknownst to me, I was watched by Brother Adam Wade of the newly formed Lancea Sanctum. I was lost then. Even though I was a priest in His church, I broke many of his commandments. I was an adulterer even though I preached on adultery. I was a thief even though I preached against stealing. I was everything that I preached against. While the congregation did not suspect for my acts was concealed by the veil of night, Brother Adam knew my sins. It was not until a widow gave birth to my child did Brother Adam truly take interest and set his mind on the course that he took that night.
I could not have a child and the widow threatened to tell the town. In a fit of fear and anger I grabbed the child and tossed it down a well just outside of town. The widow was found hung in her house "over the grief of her lost husband was too much." My sins weighed heavily on me as I sat in the darkened alley beside the closed tavern. It was then Brother Adam approached me. He guided me back to my cell in the church cloister and sat with me throughout the remainder of the night listening to my sins as they poured unabashed over my lips. It was close to morning when he took his leave. I was too worn and fell into a deep sleep.
I was awoken suddenly midday by a group of priest. Anger surrounded them as they had heard of my sins through the door to my cell that night. They tore my robes from me and excommunicated me from the Church. They kept me locked in the room, naked and alone, until the magister heard my crimes in the morning. That would be a morning I would not see. Soon after the rays of the sun disappeared, the door to my cell was thrown open and Brother Adam stepped in. He beckoned me to rise and he led me into the woods near the village. There he looked into my soul and Embraced me into the Eternal Night.
I was spirited away to a forgotten cathedral in the southern most tip of Ireland. There Brother Adam confessed his sin of embracing me and was lashed unto morning. I spent years in the study of the priests there. Nights turned into months and months into years. The Lancea Sanctum became my family and I forgot of the world beyond. I was given an acolyte to feed from. I do not even remember his name as I poured through our texts and through the Bible trying to understand my purpose. I read through the bible and the Testament of Longinus several times storing the words in my heart.
In 1487, I left the monastery to see the end of the Wars of the Roses. I saw the world change from the shadows and cloak of night. I saw the world slip more and more into the faithlessness but I was young and not strong. I needed to learn more. I felt drawn to war. I spent my time traveling to battlefield to battlefield preaching to the soldiers at night when they sat around the campfires. Many did not hear for they were blinded by bloodshed and hate. I wept. They did not see they moved from God. Even worse the Church drove them to this. I returned to the cathedral. When sleep overtook me I went deep into the catacombs and slept the long sleep.
I woke in 1582. The steps the mortals took amazed me. They replaced God with this science. I needed to know more about this science so I took a learned man under my control. He was a strong willed teacher of mathematics. His ideas and words amazed me. He reviled to me the world as it was. He taught me math and in turn I taught him the words of God. I would not Damn this teacher. His heart was good and his soul was close to God. In 1600, he was stabbed by a thief and was killed. I listened to the thief's last confession before I gave him his eternal rest.
I woke again in 1855. It wasn't until 1878 that the teachings and words of Nietzsche reached my ears. I asked the Bishop to go and talk to this blasphemer. I was told no. Even the words of the unbeliever must be heard for even God has a plan in using his words. I went into the surrounding area and took my anger and frustration out on a local boy. I found him in an alley during my walk. He was with a girl about his age. They must have been lovers for they were kissing and attacking each other in a lovers embrace. I slit my wrist and while preaching and screaming about fornication and falling from God's grace I whipped him with my Blood Scourge. I left him bloody and ruined but alive on the ground. His woman sat curled up beside him weeping and asking God for forgiveness. I grabbed her by the collar of her dress and lifted her off the ground. I calmly grinned and told her to confess to a priest. I let her go none to gently. A brother I cannot remember escorted me back to the cathedral. I was purged of my blood and left to hunger as Christ had hungered in the desert. I fed myself with the words of Longinus. After a week I was fed and confessed. I slept and dreamt of Longinus. I new what I must do.
It was during the first World War that I woke and left the sheltered cathedral and returned to the mortal world. I went among the German and English soldiers in the trenches preaching at night about the sin of falling from His light. I became feared as the preacher of death to both sides. I would even walk among the dead on the field gathering up items and parts and leaving them next to those who enjoyed the death they were causing. Many turned and repented.
I traveled to America soon after. The soldiers returning home had caused the country to forget how far they had fled from the light. I went from city to city showing those most in the grip of their own pride and sinful ways what happened when you fell from God's grace.
The world would not stand for peace long. The world went to war again. I traveled to France where I gathered up those of the Lancea Sanctum. A few came under my lead going to the soldiers and people of war torn France. During this time I came to understand that one can not preach on what one does not know. These younger members of the Lancea Sanctum did not know the world and only knew fear showing themselves to the mortals as if that alone would make them understand. I taught them how to make the mortals see the horror of their path. I showed them how to commit the horrible without using their powers or rituals. I explained to them what to do with only the most adamant mortals. Once again, I had become a priest to my own kind.
I left them soon after peace once again had settled and returned to America. I once again gathered some of my brethren and taught them all that I had learned in my long years. It was then that I went to confession. My pride at having so many look to me for guidance was leading me down a path that was not my calling. Such human emotions as pride should not have entered into my head. To remind myself of my nature, those above me had my arm scorched by God's anger each morning for a month to purge such thoughts.
In 1991 I returned to California. There I met a young vampire named Jess. She was young and full of hate. In my teachings to her, I found myself coming to a realization. This is what God wanted. Feeding upon the humans was not only for blood but to become something more evil to make them turn to the light. As I stayed in there I became to reflect more on the words of God in the Bible calling himself the light. Were we not his darkness? Are we not the furthest thing from God but still doing His will? I covered my head in shame so the light could never grace my head and God would not look down and see my impurities. Since I can not commit every act of sin how can I preach to one who has without doing it myself? I heard of a rapist in the area who was released from prison. He was old and fragile. I asked God to take the sin from him and give it to me so I may know the sin and not commit it. I drank deep of the man until he fell into sleep. I felt inside that God had given me his sin and now I knew more of God's curse. The deeper the darkness the brighter the light. Others came and heard my words. Soon, the Lancea Sanctum was calling us the Devourers of Sin. Others called us the Shrouded as our heads were never exposed.
They listened to my dark words and I taught them all I could. I was approached by a member of the Ojo De Dios one night in 1993. They had heard of my teachings and wished me to become one with their Knights. I listened and knew this is where God was leading me. Time rolled on. I traveled from city to town. I attended Midnight Masses in every section of the country and even one in Canada. I am now settled in Virginia in a city known as Richmond. It is in much need of seeing what happens to those who fall from God's Grace.
Information Not Known In Character:
In actuality: I am Stephen de Ocham the second. I was embraced in 1854. I was conditioned and dominated into believing I was Stephen de Ocham only being told the spotty history I have before my embrace. Stephen embraced me and conditioned my to act as his shield hearing rumors of the Crone's movements against him. He disappeared and I "woke up".
[edit] Character Inspirations
The movie "The Order"
Emperor Palpatine
[edit] Rumors and Damned Lies
(please feel free to post rumors you have heard about this PC here)
- The Crones are hunting him for unknown reasons
- Enjoys selling Cookies for Longinus
- Stephen has 3 childer
- His sire was an Icarian
- Gabriel is hunting Stephen to appease a promise to the Crone of Hampton
