The Reaper

Name	The Reaper
Race	Vampire
Type	Unknown
Faction	Nightbred
Premiere	Desideratum: Blood Bonds
Relative(s)	N/A

Her true name forgotten even to herself, the Reaper was truly the world’s greatest assassin. While little is known about her origins, the first rumors of her go back as far as the time of the pharaoh, Khnum Khufu, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period (26th century BC). Nuit came to him and offered physical immortality, but he refused. However, Khufu had his enemies and she went to them promising that they would replace the royal family. They accepted and rose as Nightbred, attacking the palace and slaying the guards the very next night. Khufu was saved by priests of Ra who managed to hold the creatures back with Light Magicks until, just before dawn, the vampires fled back into the wilderness to hide from the sun. Khufu went to the Nile and beseeched his namesake, Khnum, for aide. Because Nuit had interfered with the mortals, the god heard his pleas and granted the pharaoh two scepters. One granted life, the Scepter of Isis, and the other granted death, the Scepter of Osiris. The next night, as the Nightbred attacked again, Khufu had a choice. Though these were his enemies, he could again grant them life and remove the undeath or he could enslave them to do his bidding with the power of death.

As the gods waited for the mortal to exercise free will, the vampires grew closer. Khufu granted them back their lives. The corruption of Nuit removed from them, the pharaoh ordered them to leave Egypt forever. Ashamed, they acquiesced. Now Khufu went in search of Nuit. As the priests of Ra intoned their magical incantations, Khufu used the power of the Scepter of Osiris and banished her back into the Outer Darkness. However, before they managed to track her down, Nuit had found one of her followers. The young woman had always prayed to Nuit and felt a fondness for the night. She was a street beggar, born with misshapen limbs, and Nuit came to her. She allowed the woman a single drop of her blood. The woman accepted this blessing, and her body metamorphosed into a Nightbred. She was possibly the first Domnitor, long before Vlad Țepeș created his own vampires, or perhaps she was something unique. Regardless, she hated humanity because of how they treated her, so she vowed revenge first to those that had wronged her.

Hiding in the day and appearing at night in her beggar’s hooded cloak, she hunted and stalked every person that she could remember mistreating her while she was impaired. This included her own family who had spurned her and tossed her to the street in childhood. She relished her new body, the freedom, and the taste of warm, mortal blood. Eventually, she learned that she could make coin or gain artifacts in exchange for assassination. This is how she eventually obtained her blades- the Daggers of Anubis. She excelled in her craft, honing her abilities ever further. Over the centuries, her fame spread and created the actual myth about the Grim Reaper. In truth, it was this hooded Nightbred that when witnessed, always killed her mark. In fact, the Reaper never failed in her tasks, until recent times.

Hired by the Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the Reaper was supposed to slay the nosferatu, Brone Lorcan, and claim the Book of Thoth, an artifact containing incantations to summon Egyptian gods. Interestingly, over a thousand years earlier, the Reaper had been hired by a Hekaduat to kill a cabal of priests and steal the very same artifact, which she had done. However, this time would be different. She had almost no experience murdering nosferatu as to their rarity and general cowardice, they seldom made an enemy. However, Brone fled to the roof of the Portland Museum, and as the Reaper made to slay him, he changed into a bat and flew away, carrying the book with him. This failure tore at her mind and soul. She desperately wanted to kill Brone and when next she and Báthory spoke, she assured the countess that she would not fail again, and offered to do the job entirely free.

She was to go back to the very same museum which housed the sarcophagus of her old, original pharaoh from life, Khufu. Brone would be dispatched to open the tomb and take the Scepter of Osiris. The Reaper arrived in earnest directly after sunset. She rushed to the chamber containing the sarcophagus, delighted to see only one possible escape route for the nosferatu target, she expected revenge. What she did not expect was that others also targeted the same artifact on the same night. She remained in the shadows near the ceiling of the chamber as she felt shadowy energy pervade the entire building. Confused, but professional, she remained with the sarcophagus in sight. Eventually, she could hear screaming and strange growls from within the building. The walls rattled from an explosion on the floor below, and not long after she watched as a small woman and a massive creature entered the room.

The woman was Evelyn Addams, and at her side strode the Anax, himself. His green light filled the room and he and Eve approached the sarcophagus. Then, while the Reaper attempted to formulate a plan to deal with this new event, another woman rushed into the room. The Reaper could smell a mix of Van Gothen blood and knew the other scent to be that of Vlad Țepeș, as she had encountered both these men more than a century earlier. That woman was Absinthe Van Gothen, and she prepared to fight the Anax. Unfortunately, no mortal could stand against the boogeyman. He was about to convert Absinthe into one of the Shadowed, when Khufu awoke. Using the scepter, he banished the Anax and his minions. Seeing this, Eve fled to hide, and Absinthe talked with the old pharaoh before she was forced to use the fire-sword, Dyrnwyn, to slay him. While Absinthe battled the mummy, the Reaper watched Evelyn conjure the Anax again. The entity prepared to again take Abby, when the Reaper’s target, Brone Lorcan arrived.

He and the Anax seemed to know each other, but finally, the Reaper had everything she wanted in one place. Leaping from her hiding spot, she told the others that they could live, but that Brone would die and the scepter would be hers. She descended on Brone, eager to have her revenge for his previous escape, when the Anax intervened. He thrust his claw into her skull and converted the Nightbred into a Shadowed. Then he banished her to his portion of the Shadowlands in the Outer Darkness where she now obeys him. Working as his own, personal assassin in the shadowy planes, she converts his enemies to his cause.