Thomas Raith

*The Bastard Prince of House Raith*

* Overview
* Sheet
* Background
* 'Ships
* Logs

 "Let's get something clear up front. I'm not Harry Dresden. Harry's a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He'll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences -- and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being. I'll be damned if I know how. But then, I'll be damned regardless. My name is Thomas Raith, and I'm a monster."

— Thomas Raith

To those who don't know him Thomas comes off as an overblown, egotistical hedonist whose only concerns in life are getting women, getting drunk, and very likely getting women drunk. Those that do know him, however... well to be honest, the opinions aren't that different. Still, he tends to be to be a true friend, fiercely loyal to anyone he considers family and friends... if still an overblown, egotistical hedonist. Only those who are the very closest to him, such as his sister Lara, know that that is a facade. He is intelligent and devious, a shadow player in a game where the players remain hidden by default.

## Personality

Thomas is a study in conflicts. On the surface he is a shiftless hedonist whose concerns in life are flirting, feeding, and... some other activities that start with the letter F. He drinks too much, listens to music too loud, avoids and any semblance of responsibility like it was a love note between Romeo and Juliet. It's an act, but it's an act the man wears well. Beneath it, he is deadly intelligent, cunning and fiercely passionate. In a species where love is toxic, he has the conviction to want it for himself and to protect it for others.

## SKILLS

An expert with firearms, especially when tapping his Hunger, Thomas is as skilled as any human marksman.

Thomas is a social butterfly. He is normally able to talk to complete strangers with ease and can, more often then not, get them to say far more then they ever intended.

Thomas has an innate skill to make anything he wears, regardless of how it would look on someone else, look like some sort of chic fashion statement.

Especially when tapping his Hunger, Thomas is an expert at hand to hand combat and using short bladed weapons. He prefers a cavalry saber and a kukri knife.

## POWERS

While tapping his Hunger, Thomas has a level of speed and agility that far out pace normal humans.

White Court vampires can exhibit a form of mind control over their prey. Its effectiveness is variable. True Love can nullify it completely. Being of opposed sexual orientation will at least greatly weaken the effect, as can merely having a preternaturally strong level of will. In contrast, those he has fed on previously become easier for him to manipulate.

Psychic vampires of the White Court feed in very specific ways, with each coven of the court having learned to focus in a particular emotion. When Thomas is feeding on someone, it more or less short circuits their brain. He draws out their life energy by stimulating their pleasure centers, then feeding on that emotion. Even those who know what is happening are rarely able to exert the willpower to pull away. It requires exceptional willpower to do so, and those with supremely potent force of will may be able to resist the feeding entirely.

While Thomas prefers to draw on lust, which is the emotion his family specializes in manipulating and feeding on, it doesn't mean that he /can't/ feed on other emotions at all. However, with lust he is skilled at replenishing the emotion as he drains it, if he feeds on fear or pain he is draining it off without the ability returning a reserve. In the short term this can be beneficial to the victim (what the Raiths would call a "doe" or "buck") as it lowers the stress levels inside them. Small exposures to his feeding leave victims feeling relaxed and pleased, dulling pain and often better enabling them to handle an immediate trauma, but prolonged exposure tends to have almost entirely negative effects.

There are several negatives. For the one fed upon, they will feel lethargic, having been drained a significant part of their life force without replenishment and also they will, likely for several days, have trouble "feeling" the emotion in question at all. For the psychic vampire, specifically Thomas, there are also problems. First there is the "taste." While he likens lust and passion to "rich, hot cocoa," pain is closer to three-day-old burnt coffee and fear like straight lemon juice. The sustenance from these unpalatable emotions is itself a problem, as it agrees with his system about as well as a large Mexican meal would agree with someone who has never even had a taco before.

While tapping his Hunger, Thomas has the strength to wrap the handles of two barbells around each other.

## ADVANTAGES

Like most of his kind, Thomas has an almost unnatural level of physical attractiveness.

Thomas has access to a small fleet of (all white) cars, including sports cars, luxury cars, and a Hummer.

Thomas is one of those blessed few that no matter what he wears it looks great on him.

Thomas can draw on the finances of the Raith family, which like that of most old psychic vampire families is quite vast.

## WEAKNESSES

All of Lord Raith's male children have died under "questionable circumstances."

All of Thomas's powers and abilities are tied directly to his Hunger, a sort of symbiotic demon that needs to be fed regularly. If he draws too much on his powers the demon will take hold and Thomas will gorge himself, likely killing whomever it is that he feeds upon.

Like all members of the White Court, Thomas can not feed from or even touch someone who is truly in love and is loved in return. Even symbols of love, such as a rose or wedding ring, can be dangerous.

Thomas can not turn the glamour that makes him attractive to others off. This can lead to undesired attentions from people, including complete strangers.

Thomas was born the youngest (and currently only living) son of Lord Raith to Margaret Gwendolyn LeFay (deceased). His mother left his father, and subsequently him, when he was very young. He would learn later that this "betrayal" had enraged his father and the man set out to kill her. He succeeded. The only reminders of her that Thomas has are a silver pentacle amulet she left with him and the portrait his father made of her.

Like most of the White Court, Thomas knew nothing about the supernatural as he grew up. He had as normal a childhood as a young boy could have when one is the child of an extremely wealthy and eccentric man. His older sisters doted on him, though he himself was nowhere near as physically attractive as his family members. It wasn't until a little after his twenty-first birthday that everything changed. Everything.

He never even knew her name. For many years later, that fact always struck Thomas as a little sad. She had gone by the stage name "Kandy Kane" at the strip club his father had taken him to, but certainly that's not what her parents had named her. It's not what the people who loved her called her. The act, that first feeding, is all a blur to him. He remembers wanting her, and more than that he vividly remembers her /wanting/ him, not in the faux way all strippers pretend to want their clients but with an uninhibited needful desire. Thomas took her. He took every drop of her life force and left her nothing but a husk. It was only later, well after Lord Raith had disposed of the young woman's body, that the truth of what Thomas was, and what it meant to be a psychic vampire of the White Court, was revealed to him. He was taught that people are cattle. Food. Taught how to use his Hunger, capital H, to make him better then he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster. \*cough\*

After the truth of his nature was revealed to him, a number of disturbing pieces fell into the puzzle of Thomas Raith. He learned that every single male child his father ever sired had died under less than natural circumstances. He learned that his sister, Lara, was deeply embroiled in schemes of her own. Most of all, he learned that he had a little brother--half brother, anyway--named Harry Dresden. It seemed that after she had left his father Thomas's mother had married Malcolm Dresden and had a son, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Poor kid. Worse, Lord Raith took this insult with supreme fury. He murdered Thomas and Harry's mother, seeming to shrug off the powerful sorceress' Death Curse. Thomas understood at this point that any uprising against his father would be tantamount to suicide. So, he began to construct a facade of the hedonist, shiftless, no account. He stayed far under his father's radar, and he watched, waiting for the moment when he could act out against the most powerful psychic vampire of the White Court.

Logs featuring Thomas Raith:

* 2019.02.03 - It May Be the Apocalypse, but Armageddon Is Canceled