Adrian Wulfric Putnam

*“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”*

― **Plato**

## History

It was an early Rainmoot evening when Adrian came into this world. It was the same night that his mother left it. Adrian pregnancy and birth had been a particularly dangerous one. Of course, at first the expectant parents and the midwife thought that this was due to normal complications. It wasn't until the baby had started to crown on the night of the delivery that anyone knew that there was more than meets the eye to the newborn.

Several generations ago, the pious yet insecure Putnam patriarch made a deal with the devil. Literally. When their village had fallen upon hardship, a man in a black cloak had come to the then Reverend Joseph Putnam and promised that he would offer a way for the preacher and community leader to hide his people from the eyes of [redacted], if only for a few decades. Of course, he would need to do this in exchange of his blood. Not knowing to read between the lines when it came to demons, Joseph agreed. He pricked the tip of his finger, and signed his name in the book in blood, and the demon was good to his word. For three generations, the village remained hidden, even if it did have problems of its own.

75 years later, and the devil made good on his promise to take Joseph's Putnam's blood; his great-great grandson, Adrian Putnam, was born a tiefling, all hellfire as he entered this world. His mother could not survive the difficult birth, leaving the Goode Reverend Putnam, the now leader of their church of Gargauth, a single parent, raising the offspring of the literal devil. And somewhere in his infernal home, the demon laughed.

The Reverend ordered the midwife to secrecy (though she would die some quick few weeks afterwards due to a mysterious illness.) As such, for most of his life, the reality of Adrian's heritage remained a secret. His skin color was dark enough to perhaps be a trick of the shadows and lights. Barovia was such a dark place already, and at night he could talk with people almost without it being noticed that his skin was just a little grey. Other times, he learned how to disguise himself with large clothes. His father learned that if he bleached his skin, Adrian could pass off as ill and sallow, a common enough occurrence in Barovia, and a common explanation for his mother's poor health during her pregnancy. Perhaps most cruel was when the Reverend would spend time making sure that Adrian's horns stayed filed down, if not completely to his skull, than at least enough to hide under a hat.

Due to his time in extended isolation, Adrian had to find ways to occupy himself. Music and history were particularly fascinating to him, and he would often go diving into his father's library in order absorb whatever he could. On some occasions, he was lucky enough to learn subject material directly from individuals who were there. Whenever he thought he was alone, in the library, playing his viol into the long hours of the night, a guest would join him, and explain to him the meaning the song he was playing, or some detail that couldn't be found in any book. At a young age, this was a regular occurrence to him, and he never though to mention it as odd to anyone. It wasn't until one such time that he asked his father if one of their guests could stay for dinner that he realized he was the only one who could see them. No matter what happened after that, and no matter how many times Adrian's father attempted to beat the concept out of him, Adrian's ability to see and speak to spirits was tied closely to his love of history and his skill with the viol.

It was common for him to be allowed to attend services on Pelday with the rest of his father's congregation. After all, it would look odd if the Reverend's only son did not attended the day of worship. It was also the only time that Adrian was encouraged to interact with the other citizens of the town. It was during mass that he met Anastasiya Nadezhda Konstantinova. He recognized her in the group and someone who was new to town, though she was sitting with the town's physician. After mass, he naturally did what his father had always wanted him to do, and that was speak with this new person. She revealed her name, and that she had recently apprenticed under the physician. Noticing that she had an interest in such things, he offered to invite her over to his house to look at his father's own collection, since the one she was studying from might be rather limited, though they would need to do so in private, since to have any guests over would be to invite his anger. Ana agreed enthusiastically, and thus began their secret encounters in his father's library.

What began as a mutual love of history, books, and the arcane turned into a close, personal relationship. The two of them would spend hours talking to each other and it brought their hearts closer together. This closeness soon translated into a passion for each other that quickly sparked into love. Soon, their secret visits were not just about studying the books, but about studying each other. It was during one such particularly intense session that they were discovered by the Reverend. He was angered by the deception, but also angered that there was ever a union between them. In his eyes, this Vistani woman was scheming with his Infernal son to produce more demonic offspring and overrun the world. The Reverend quickly had Adrian locked in his room, and Ana arrested. She was kept for an entire moon cycle to ensure that she was not pregnant before she had a quick trial and was found guilty of witchcraft and sedition. She was sentenced to execution via burning at the stake.

Adrian would not have it. In a final attempt to save his beloved's life, he delivered an impassioned speech about how much he loved Ana and what he would do to save her if his father insisted on carrying on with the execution. It so happened that at that moment [redacted] and come down from his home in Castle [redacted] to view to burning. [Redacted] took a special interest, for his own reasons, in Ana, and ordered to have her released. When he turned to take her away, he recognized that Ana and Adrian were truly in love, and he had Adrian taken to Castle [redacted] to be imprisoned as a means to have bargaining power over Ana. While Adrian has attempted to escape several times from his place in the dungeon, he has so far been unsuccessful, though [redacted] does occasionally allow the lovers to see each other as a way to keep Ana in line. None of it has killed his spirits, though, and Adrian remains in high hopes that he will one day be free on the dungeon, and will return to Ana so that they may live on together.