the player
name: Ray
age: 17
timezone: US Eastern

The Character
name: Bert McCracken, has gone by many others, but returns to his birth name.
age: Appears in his mid twenties, around 800 years old, he doesn't the exact time of his changing.
where we know them from: Vocals of The Used
journal: mcliarliar 
aim: firefirebertums
picture:

race: vampire pack/clan: none
sire/Parent: She's dead and it's not like Bert knew her name anyway.
history:
Robert McCracken was born to a wealthy Lord in the English controlled section of northern France. At the age of 8, like all sons of noble birth, he was made a page to one of the greatest knights of his father's kingdom. At the age of 15 he went with his leigelord to Jerusalem for the first Crusade, a bloodbath for the Muslims and a crowning victory for the Christans. There he was knighted at the age of 17 and inducted into the budding fraternity that would become the Templars in the years to come.

His father soon passed away and the land given to him at the age of 24. Not long after his father's death Bert was invited by an uncle on a hunting trip to the deep wilderness of unexplored Russia to track the savage snow tigers. On this trip he was seduced by a succubus of a woman who praised his deeds of war and told him of a life that would never be ended by blade or time, of how he would be one of the greatest knights that ever lived. Struck by the possibilites he agreed to this life, drinking deeply from the fountain of youth she offered to him.

After his turning Bert was an unstoppable force. He passed his kingdom to the care of his younger brother, choosing to pursue the life of war and glory. He came to command the Templars, winning many victories in the name of Jesus his Lord and Savior, using his grand new form for the good of God and the people, but one powerful vampire could not sway an entire war. After the last failure to recapture Jerusalem he left the Templars to seek new life elsewhere.

He trained to become a doctor, not wanting to fall into the temptation to use his powers for murder, fighting the losing battle against the Black Plague. In his failure he grew partially mad, creating a new crusade to find the cures for all diseases. He travelled for two centuries through all of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, appreticing under witch doctors and the healers of the Emperorer of China himself. He became a scholar of sorts, learning language and culture as well as seeing the horrors of the world his kind created.

Just when life seemed to have lost it's meaning for Bert, the colonies were set up in the new land of America. The name even sounded like a future worth living. As the colonies grew he died and rose again several times over, a doctor here, a farmer there, a carpenter, and architect, living with the humans and caring for them as if he had fathered them all. He set out on the first voyage to Africa, able to nogotiate with the descendents of the peoples he had learned medicine from to gain slaves for the American plantations. He hated the sea but he was as important to the trips as the ships themselves. They sometimes had to stave off pirates, though they were a dying breed, which was easy for Bert's experience with war and single battle.

Fighting in the American Revolution to bring his people the freedom they truely deserved, Bert helped to begin the new chapter of America as the United States. From there he fought for life and liberty. A bitter defeat during the civil war sent him into a hole of despair, all the lives he had taken and had been taken for a lost cause. He fled America and began working in Germany as a part of the Industrial revolution, studying medicine and chemistry.

He fought for the Germans during the first world war, meeting a young, ambitious solider who felt that his duty in life was to save Germany. Bert was enthralled by the man's words and followed him in his rise through politics as his advisor and protector, feeling that he had found his rightful place. Bert knew he would be the shadow behind the most powerful man in the civilized world. He served at Hitler's right hand from the beginning, fighting on the ground war as well as the war in politics, his greatest victory being the day Hitler was crowned Chancellor. They swept Europe, Bert's knowledge of warface, medicine, and weaponry blasting the German Reich foward. As time passed Hitler became cocky and stopped listening to Bert, convinced that he was the one responsible for all his victories. Bert, outraged that his devotion was repaid in such a way, left the Reich, allowing Hitler to fall.

He returned to America shortly thereafter, giving up the constant strain of war for a life of hunting for that same purpose he felt while surrounded by the Nazis in Germany. He led several neo-Nazi movements and fought to suppress the rising of the negroes, only to have his ways shunned. So he hunted werewolves and vampires to pass the time, occasionally going to school to keep his mind filled of information, and bouncing from place to place.

Then he heard of Laurel Falls, an intriguing city that sounded as if he could seek a new interest, a new purpose there. Never before had Bert been around other vampires that he wasn't fighting to kill, the idea of it was as interesting as his work on the hydrogen bomb. He purchased a large bayside condo with big windows to overlook the water with the generic interior of a wealthy human. The presense of an old 'friend' was the final thing that sealed the deal. He only hoped that the place would be ready for him.