Name:Benjamin "Ben" Lassen
Age: 237
Race: Human/Vampire (Class-7)
Gender: Male
Birthday: April 29th
Analysis: What information is known about Ben's past was gleaned from the personnel files in the United States Paranormal Research Guild main headquarters. In order for one to understand Ben, one must first learn about the circumstances involving his parents, Israel and Charlotte Lassen. Captain Israel Lassen served in the British Royal Navy until he felt the gnawing need for a change of scenery. After submitting a letter to his superiors, he decided to take a tour of Europe. While dining in Italy with several old friends from his navy days, he met Charlotte Van Garrett, a young woman of Cherokee heritage. Israel came to discover similarities between Charlotte and himself: both had been schooled in France, both had been ostracized due to their respective bloodlines......and both were wizards. It seemed as though nothing could stand in the way of the couple's firm pledge to wed as soon as they were allowed, except for one impediment.
Israel was a vampire.
Charlotte had no knowledge of this, but she had a sharp mind, and Israel knew that it would only be a matter of time before she discovered his secret. Therefore, he suddenly announced (after stopping by Van Garrett Manor rather unexpectedly) his wish to spend Sunday with the Van Garrett family. Israel loathed the decision when he found out that the first place on the family's visiting list was a Catholic church and feigned illness as an excuse to stand outside and wait for the service to end. He kept this same pattern up until Oswald Van Garrett, a quick-tempered old Dutchman, demanded that Israel stop beating about the bush and marry Charlotte before his superiors decided to ignore his resignation letter, order him off on a madcap voyage and get himself killed. Needless to say, Israel consented.
The newlywed Lassens moved from New York to Israel's house in Salem, Massachusetts and in time the empty manor was filled with the Lassen's eleven children, with the first child born in 1754. Then in 1769 came a surprise. Charlotte was pregnant again and nine months later, at the stroke of midnight on April 29th, Benjamin Asga'ya-ge Lassen was born. And the rest is history. Literally. Ben's early years were normal and filled with happy memories of picnics, playing with his siblings, Christmas parties at the Van Garrett house, horseback riding and studying the Scriptures. All of the Lassen children had a deep love for each other, but Ben was especially close to his brother Thomas (whom he idolized) and his sister Martha. In 1775, the Revolutionary War turned Ben's idyllic childhood upside-down. Israel was pressured into re-establishing his old ties with the British Royal Navy, while his three eldest sons rashly sided with the growing number of independence-minded colonists.
During this time, Ben bemoaned the fact that the local militia men permitted teenagers to join while he, a patriotic six-year-old who was more than willing to set off a few gunpowder kegs, had to contend with being an ordinary civilian. Martha, Thomas and their mother were sympathetic and would cheer him up by teaching him to read from his father's books on military tactics. Charlotte, being an eccentric yet practical woman, also gave the younger children wilderness survival lessons, drawn from her own experiences as a teenager who became lost in the wild and was forced to survive on her own for three weeks until a search party found her. Her devout Christian faith, sharp intellect, and compassionate personality left a permanent mark on Ben's psyche, fueling his later involvement in the suffragist and abolitionist movements during the 1800s.
In the early spring of 1778, Richard, Andrew and James returned to Lassen Manor. The horrors of war had taken its toll on the formerly vibrant, upbeat lads. Richard's transformation had been the most disturbing of all. The somber man sporting a patch over his empty left eye socket barely resembled the same Richard who swapped the table salt with sugar on Christmas Eve and played other simple pranks on the servants. Just as the three brothers were beginning to adjust to the relative normalcy of home once more, a horrific event shook the entire family to the core: Charlotte's spiteful cousin had her put into in asylum out of racial hatred, saying that his adopted relative was a danger to herself and her children. Israel, having faked insanity, left the British Navy and stowed away (under a pseudonym) on a merchant ship to aid the French at the time, so the Lassen children were left in the care of Charlotte's brother in Europe, a Benedictine priest named Father Oliver.
Nine-year-old Ben came to view his uncle as a second father, and was even more delighted when the friars at the local monastery taught him to read and write in Latin. His brothers and sisters also seemed to blossom in the loving care of the monks and nuns, excelling in their academic work as well as their faith. Tragedy again struck as Father Oliver received a letter from the asylum, saying that Charlotte was dying and that Israel Lassen was sending for his children. Father Oliver had always harbored suspicions concerning the sincerity of his brother-in-law's profession of keeping the faith of his wife and children, yet he relented and after many tearful goodbyes the Lassen children returned home to America. When the family came to the asylum, Ben would later recall that it was "the worst nightmare a child could be in". Charlotte Lassen was emaciated and sickly looking, a ghost of her former vibrant self. Worse still, on the direct order of her cousin, she had undergone experimental procedures to "heal" portions of her brain so as to relive it of any unnatural, unwomanly defects. Amazingly, although Charlotte recognized none of her children, she remembered their names and began screaming them loudly. Israel quickly brought his terrified children back to Lassen Manor. A week later, Charlotte's physician stopped by and said that his patient demanded that "the little boy who bears such a resemblance to Benjamin" be brought to her, alone.
After Israel Lassen's consent was won over, he and Ben accompanied the physician to the asylum. By this time Charlotte was in a fevered delirium, mumbling cryptic sentences and broken words from different languages. The sight of Ben's terrified face seemed to bring her around. Charlotte noticed Israel in the corner and threw a vase at him, yelling for him to leave. Once he had been escorted out of the room and into the hallway by the doctor, Charlotte told Ben to sit next to her bed. Charlotte then reached underneath the headboard, pulled out a small box with a string bearing two keys wrapped around it and handed it to Ben. Her breathing became fainter as she told Ben that the box's contents must be given to her son. Meanwhile, Israel managed to shove the physician aside and re-enter the room only to be greeted with the sight of Charlotte dead, and Ben crying hysterically on the floor.
All of the Lassen children were devastated to learn of their mother's death, yet Israel's reactions were not that of a man burdened by grief. In fact, he appeared to be almost relieved by the event. Once Charlotte had been buried in the Van Garrett family plot, Israel gathered every single trinket of her belongings in Lassen Manor and systematically destroyed them. Only the small box that Ben held so dearly to his heart escaped the purging. With his wife gone, Israel blatantly ignored his children's pleas to be allowed permission to attend the clandestine Sunday Mass offered by a local butcher and his brother, a priest from Ireland. Ambrosia, the second-eldest of the Lassen children, would make excuses to go to the village on Sunday and hide her siblings in the wagon, then sneak quietly into the wine cellar that the brothers used as a makeshift church. Israel soon discovered the ruse and it was through the intersession of Camille Martell, a wealthy, French spinster, that Ambrosia was spared a public flogging. Israel's reputation with the townsfolk waned further when he openly flaunted his interests in Camille, although only three months had passed since Charlotte's death. On one occasion when she dined at Lassen Manor, Israel announced their engagement. Annoyed by the blank stares on his children's faces he asked if they were grateful that he had chosen such a worthy, beautiful woman to be their new mother. At those dreaded words, before anyone could silence him, Ben screamed "She'll never take Mama's place! You want to forget her, Papa!" and bolted up the stairs to his room in tears.
Six more months passed.
On April 29, 1781, Captain Israel Lassen and Mademoiselle Camille Martell were married by the town magistrate in a quiet ceremony. The fact that the date coincided with Ben's twelfth birthday was noted......and completely overlooked. Israel had planned it deliberately out of spite, since he began to view Ben as becoming a thorn in his side. When Ben refused to even look Camille in the face, Israel stated to his miffed new wife, "What could one expect from a thankless child whose mother was Cherokee?" The cold, almost disgusted way in which Israel had spoken of Charlotte's ancestry hurt Ben, who had never known of his mother's lineage. To hear it be spoken of as if it were blasphemy angered him and that anger fueled one of the most drastic decisions he would make in his life: thirteen weeks after his father's remarriage, Ben packed an old sailor's trunk with his belongings and signed aboard as cabin boy for an American merchant ship. In a strange turn of events, the ship was attacked by pirates and the entire crew joined them out of loathing for their arrogant captain. At first, the pirates planned to simply let Ben suffer the same fate as the merchant captain, but their captain would hear none of it. He then asked Ben if he was willing to sail under the black flag of piracy and without a moment's hesitation the twelve-year-old boy from Salem, Massachusetts signed the pirate's Articles.
Ben quickly adjusted to his new life as a pirate, although due to his young age, he spent most of his time helping the cook in the ship's galley. During one occasion, Ben caught the cabin boy trying to sneak a few apples and confronted him. The two then engaged in a fierce skirmish which left Ben nursing a bloody nose and the cabin boy with a black eye. Consequently, both boys were forced to stand as lookouts for a week. Ben spent the first two days of their punishment battling off seasickness and the cabin boy's taunts. On the third night, the boys spotted a French man-o-war heading in the direction of their own ship. The cabin boy, who divulged his name as Victor Mounroe, climbed down the ratlines to the deck of the ship. Victor ordered Ben to stay aloft, despite the younger boy's protests. Soon, the two ships were locked in heated battle. Ben watched as men from both sides hacked and shot each other to pieces. That was when he took interest in the large amounts of blood accumulating from the fracas below. Had Ben known it, he would have recognized this interest as the symptom of his first bloodlust.
By the time the battle was over the casualties totaled to over 300 dead, 89 wounded and 16 critically injured. The surviving crew of the French man-o-war were given a choice to either sign the Articles or die. Only a dozen of the men complied. The rest were herded into their own lifeboats and set adrift without any supplies. A cruel fate, yet crueler still was the execution of the French captain: hanging and disembowelment, followed by decapitation. The sole noise to be heard for the next twenty minutes was the Frenchman's tormented shrieks as the pirates meted out his death sentence, ended finally by the sound of the sword that cut off the captain's head. Another scream rang out in the pirates' ears. Victor, who had sustained a broken arm, went to investigate. There, hidden from view behind a pile of debris, was Ben. He had heard the entire murder while pinned through his left shoulder to a crate by an enemy dagger, once he himself had chosen to participate in the battle. For the only time in the thirty-five years he would spend in piracy, Ben regretted his decision to run away from home.
Time rolled on like the endless waves of the sea.
The following four years transformed Ben into someone quite different from the child he had once been. Ben often smiled at the thought of what his father's reaction would be if Captain Israel Lassen even managed to recognize the copper skinned, long-haired teenager who rubbed shoulders with some of the vilest cutthroats to ever sail the seven seas. Jamaica, Singapore, Haiti, India, Madagascar. Ben had seen them all. He walked through noisy markets and sashayed along the roads of fishing villages where old men told ghost stories by firelight. He knew the smuggler's routes and forgotten caches of treasure from ships long run aground. Ben could battle a man in words as well as he could battle him with a sword. He fully understood the supreme advantages of his wizarding blood and put it to good use by teaching himself from every book of spells he could get his hands on. The vampiric blood, however, was more of a curse than anything. Certainly, Ben proved to be far stronger and faster than a normal human boy of his age and build, but it came with a price: the hunger for blood. Ben never tasted so much as a drop in his life and swore again and again in his payers to never allow himself to succumb to it. It took every figment of self-discipline for Ben to ward the evil thirst off each time he witnessed bloodshed. That was when he discovered how to make the seals.....magic seals. Seven of them, created to hold a specified amount of his own powers. Through experimentation he further discovered that he could 'unlock' up to five at once.
On January 9, 1785, while en route to the island of Mona, the worst of luck fell upon the pirates. The HMS Selkirk, newly dispatched from England, was waiting for them in one of the island's secluded harbors. Severely outmatched, the pirates reversed their course.......only to be confronted with another English ship, the HMS Resilience. After a double broadside obliterated all three masts on the pirates' vessel, the Selkirk and the Resilience gathered the pitiful wounded and surviving buccaneers for transport to the nearest colony for trial: the infamous Port Royal. This bustling colonial outpost had once been a pirate's heaven. Women, rum and riches were everywhere. Once an earthquake killed two-thirds of the population on June 7, 1692, however, Port Royal quickly became known as the British Royal Navy's chief base and a death sentence to buccaneers. For the captured pirates aboard the two HMS vessels, Port Royal carried no beauty or charm......only the morbid image of looming, grey cliffs where sun-bleached bones creaked in their nooses came to mind. The trial which followed the pirates' arrival was swift and forceful. When the final verdict was reached, the president of the court voiced the mantra of doom:
"You and each of you are to go from here to the place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God in His infinite grace be merciful to your souls!"
Over the course of the following three weeks the pirates were lectured and prepared for the gallows by the prison chaplain, who more often than not was sent fleeing out the door. An unexpected miracle came in the form of Andrew and Martha Lassen, now well-learned, sophisticated adults. They had heard of the trial while in Jamaica and made a passionate plea to the local governor on behalf of their wayward younger brother. Surprisingly moved by their testimony, the governor astonished them by granting Ben full pardon and an instant release. It would be a bittersweet moment. Out of his entire crew, only three other pirates were allowed such clemency while the rest, including the captain, were hanged two days later. At last, Ben would be returning home.
The majority of the return voyage to the ports of Boston, Massachusetts was nothing short of tedious. Young powder monkeys and old salts alike often caught themselves watching the brooding young stranger who stood at the bow for hours on end, his gaze always fixed upon the wavering horizon. Some wondered if this former pirate planned to incite a mutiny, and Thomas managed to thwart a small posse of sailors intent on hanging Ben from the yardarm, claiming that they were doing their duty by ridding the ship of the "Jonah-brat". The infuriated captain personally flogged each member of the would-be vigilantes, withheld their grog rations for the remainder of the journey and advised the Lassen siblings to keep a close eye on Ben, noting "The boy's in the hunger". Andrew and Martha reacted to this unsettling remark with one conclusion in mind: This captain was well-versed in vampire lore. The "hunger" which he spoke of referred to the state a vampire or dhampir entered when the desire to feed had reached the breaking point and the afflicted person in question would attempt to satisfy that urge by any means necessary. During their evening meal, Andrew confronted his younger brother, demanding to know when he had last consumed blood. Ben met the question with an icy glare and continued wolfing down his soup. Martha took to a different tactic, but received the same response. Both siblings fell silent and neither of them pursued the matter any further, knowing full well what consequences would await Ben as soon as they reached Boston.
MORE TO COME!!!!
Likes: Medieval history, ranting about current United States politics, star-gazing,occasional visits to the Chaos Nightclub, sailing, the Redwood forest, playing guitar and piano, church, the shooting range, blackjack, writing stories, potions, card tricks, being eccentric and strange.
Dislikes: Family reunions, quarry that refuses to come quietly, liars, negligent parents, dancing in public, serial killers, arrogance, women who throw themselves at him, attention seekers, the school system and his bouts of depression and paranoia.
Distinguishing Features/Attire: Mid-shoulder length brown/black hair, sapphire blue eyes, glasses and a scar on his chest from being staked. Ben normally wears a long, black trench coat and black leather boots over his clothing, even to church. At times he sports black, fingerless gloves to keep his hands warm. On the middle finger of his right hand he wears a silver cross ring and a silver Celtic cross pendant around his neck, a last gift from his mother.
Unlike most monster hunters, Ben designed nearly all of his weapons himself. His greatest accomplishments as of yet are: the two types of Shreckenwald hybrid silver bullets, stun darts and the Chimera, a combination of sniper rife and high-powered machine gun. Ben is also armed with rune-enchanted knives, holy water, crucifixes, garlic, standard issue silver bullets, a rapid-fire pistol and his grandfather's Claymore.