Valeriu is a kalona batwalker. Once he was a mighty warlord and leader of a deadly group of kalona terrors. Now he wanders insane and alone, trying to find his children and not truly knowing what he'll do once he has.
Personality: Valeriu still retains all of the internal strength that he had before he was cursed but it with it he has descended to madness. He is fierce and commanding, iron willed and implacable. He accepts nothing but the best from himself and is a perfectionist in his own doings. He is, however, quite insane. He is prone to berserk episodes of manic carnage during which he loses himself in the skinwalker bloodrage. During these times he even loses the ability to speak and becomes nothing more than a crazed monster.
More than anything, Valeriu wants to find his children. His original intent in this act is long gone and only scrambled remnants remains. His incoherent notion is that he must find Vlad to either place him as the new leader of the Draculesti herd or to kill him, he can't remember which.
About the Draculesti Herd: The Draculesti herd is a group of soquili located in the isolated mountains of Romania. They are primarily kalona though have bred other breeds into their group and keep "lesser" soquili as servants. They are mostly all related and part of one large family, with hereditary leadership. The previous leader was Valeriu. Since he and Vlad have both disappeared, Vlad's younger brother Radu has stepped up to lead the herd, though they do not yet accept him.
The Draculesti herd are "vampires." They do not possess any special powers, but they live by vampiric laws. They drink blood for pleasure and ritual, sleep during the day, and shun all that is holy. They are generally a cruel and violent group, though there are kinder members who are the exception to that rule.
Valeriu's history: When Valeriu was born the Draculesti herd was not the proud group that it is presently. Back then it was a disorganized pack of kalonas who fought with each other over everything from hunting grounds to breeding rights. Valeriu grew up in this environment and grew to detest the chaos and ineptitude that surrounded him. He sought to change this when he became an adult. He fought his herdmates and family members relentlessly until they were finally united under his rule. He abolished the petty squabbling that had wasted so much of their efforts before and under his guidance the herd became both cultured and cunning. It wasn't long before they drove out or took as servants all of the other soquili in the surrounding areas and even ones further out grew wary. Valeriu taught his herdmates how to prey upon the humans just infrequently enough that they would not launch an organized opposition to them. It was a great time of growth for the Draculesti herd with Valeriu leading the way.
The Draculesti herd grew in size and power throughout the years and their neighboring soquili existed in equilibrium with them. It was with foreign soquili that they had problems. One winter, news reached Valeriu that another large kalona herd was on the move. Rumor said that they were led by a skinwalker and were murdering and devouring anyone that crossed their path, both soquili and humans. Valeriu, angry at this encroachment into Draculesti territory, led the Dracluesti herd against the horde.
It was a long and bloody campaign of battles and many soquili on both sides were lost. In the end, it was Valeriu himself that met their skinwalker leader in combat and defeated him single-handed while his guards kept the other enemies at bay. With that, the enemy host was defeated and the Draculestis drove off and scattered the survivors.
Though Valeriu had no way of knowing, an angeni had been watching the battle that day. Her name was Mihaela and she was intensely moved by the courage and strength that Valeriu had shown in defeating the skinwalker and leading his herd. She knew that even though he was a kalona that Valeriu had committed a great act of good that day and had put a halt to the atrocities committed by the skinwalker's army. With this in her heart, she came to him and introduced herself, admiringly wanting to know more about this kalona that shook what she thought she had known about his breed before.
Valeriu found himself instantly taken with the beautiful angeni that seemed to have come to him as a gift for his triumphs in battle. He cared for her deeply in those days and it wasn't long until they had a child, a son named Vladislav. Through Mihaela's influence, the Draculestis became even more civilized and even less dangerous than they had been. She and Valeriu were very close as Vlad grew and in not too long Mihaela had given birth again, this time to twins who looked just as pure angeni as she was.
Valeriu thought it was odd that the twins had no kalona features, but they shared some of his markings so he gave it no great thought. As they grew though, he noticed strange things about them. They both possessed angeni powers, and he knew that angeni/kalona were supposed to be cut off from the holy spirits that allowed them magic. Whispers went around the Draculesti herd that Mihaela had cheated on Valeriu with another angeni. After all, how else could the twins have the powers that they did?
During that same time, another rumor was spreading. This rumor was about Mihaela's domain. She had always claimed to lack a domain but some Draculestis said that she did, that she was the angeni of immortality. This knowledge ignited the ferocity in the Draculestis that had been declining during those past years. They clamored to Valeriu, demanding that he allow them to devour Mihaela and therefore gaining her immortality for themselves.
Valeriu gave Mihaela to them and they killed her and ate her as promised. It is unknown why he did this and whether Mihaela was willing in these actions. Perhaps he loathed her for her disloyalty and decided to cast her to them as punishment. Perhaps the rest of the herd together was enough to threaten his position and he felt that he needed to give them Mihaela so that he wasn't overthrown. Perhaps their children were threatened as well and Mihaela sacrificed herself as a way of protecting both them and Valeriu. No Draculesti knows the truth but Valeriu and he threatens with death any who now speak of the incident. All that is known is that the kalonas who devoured Mihaela were not immortal and that Valeriu lost any kindness he had once his mate was dead.
The years passed on after that. Vlad went off wandering on his own and was followed by one of his angeni sisters. Valeriu remained leading the Draculestis along with his daughter Jessalyn. Nothing much changed for the Draculestis for a long time... then Valeriu was cursed.
When Valeriu was cursed into a batwalker he did not lose his mind immediately. Once he got over the shock he behaved much as he always had and many of his herdmates didn't see that there was any difference. Slowly at first and then faster after that his mind fragmented. He began to rant, rave, and kill indiscriminately. Seemingly at random he declared that it was not Mihaela that had been the angeni of immortality but her daughter, Ecaterina who had run off to be with Vlad. The Draculesti herd mobilized to try to find the missing Ecaterina but to no avail. She had disappeared and Valeriu seethed with frustration at her loss. One night Jessalyn ran away from the herd and disappeared and that was what made Valeriu finally crack.
Valeriu left the herd immediately after Jessalyn, trying to find any of his children he had with Mihaela but forgetting which he was looking for and why. The last words that a soquili told him before his death was that his family had all been seen across the sea in the New World. Valeriu decided to follow them there, and so brought his reign of blood and carnage to a new land....
