van Staade, Bastian

by **Bastian van Staade** Sun May 05, 2013 11:55 pm

DOSSIER: DEMON HUNTER

van Staade, Bastian 30left

”I keep on thinking that it's all done and all over now.”

BASIC DETAILS

NAME:
Bastian "Bas" van Staade

AGE:
49

GENDER:
Male

NATIONALITY:
South African (passport makes him a dual citizen of South Africa and Russia)

BIRTHPLACE:
Cape Town, South Africa

BIRTHDATE:
July 4th, 1962

PICTURE:

Spoiler:

*********

PERSONAL DETAILS

DESCRIPTION:
At a hulking 6 feet and 10 inches, Bastian van Staade is ultimately a man to be feared in any regular street fight - and as if his height was not enough, his musculature is surely enough to. Bastian gives a new meaning to the words "brick shithouse". After forty years of martial arts and thirty-five of Demon hunting, his body is honed, sculpted, crafted, and defined solely for the purposes of killing Demons. He hulks over most people and there is not an ounce of visible fat on his body. If it exists as an extension of his physique, it can be tensed. And flexed. Trust me.

Bastian shaves his head on a regular basis. Thankfully not yet going grey, he styles it in a single, thick mohawk, maybe around an inch tall and an inch and a half wide, of spiky, well-maintained jet-black hair. This would be all; were it not for his late sister, Ademina, who wore her hair in a plaited ponytail, and thus for the same reason, and remembering her, the strands at the back of his mohawk lead down into a thin ponytail, which is plaited simply and tied off with a bow, and then hidden down the back of the Hunter's shirt. Alongside this, the man possesses a very thin moustache, sharp and tapered almost perfectly, and a pair of cold and steel-grey eyes.

Perhaps one of the most striking of Bastian's features is also one he aims to keep the most subtle. As is only visible at close range or when conversing with him when the ex-miner is still, Bas has no right arm. Usually he pulls his coat fast over this, but when it hangs open or he removes it - for he is not ashamed of this fact - it's quite obvious. As it's been removed more or less from the shoulder, it's something he's grown accustomed to over the past thirty years, but, goddamn, you never quite get used to people staring like that. Obviously, in Inferis, almost of his Evocations stem from prostheses concepts, which is a clear difference in his appearance.

Bastian's clothing on Earth typically consists of a t-shirt or jacket with a trenchcoat around it, as he tends to frequent Russia a fair amount, which warrants thick clothing. It tends to be black or dark blue, and then with a pair of army-style plain fatigues, and usually combat boots. The colour scheme changes little to none when he moves into Inferis, but he tends to just actually open the longcoat, whereas on Earth he shies away from doing so as not to expose what remains of his arm. He holds no shame; but to do so is to openly display weakness.

Bastian holds himself with pride, honour, grit determination, and a don't-fuck-with-me-I-won't-fuck-with-you aura unless you're a Demon, then he'll just fuck with you regardless. His voice is deep, gravelly, and accented heavily with those South African tones - unless, of course, he's speaking Russian, which he's absolutely fluent in, down to the accent properly. When speaking English, both of the countries of his citizenship come into the mix, with a light hint of Russian beneath the strong grip of the Afrikaans overlaying it all.

PERSONALITY:
In every city, every town, every settlement, there is a man who walks the roads alone with a brave, stoic, quiet face and a soul tortured beyond the likes of which most can even comprehend. In some cities, towns, and settlements, there are many men. In Irkutsk, in Johannesburg, and in Helsinki: one may find Bastian van Staade, the South African Demon Hunter.

Come across him in the street and you will do well to so much as get a word out of him. Bump into him and he will mutter apology and simply walk by, obviously concentrating on something bigger and beyond you. He comes with an aura of muffled importance that most simply ignore, and his greatest calling card in the world of the living is subtlety. Bastian does not like people. He does not like to be sociable. Truly? He would be alone. He would take silence and solace over society and community any day.

Why is this? People are two things. First of all, they are dicks. All of them. Even children. Even the elderly. Even the nice and even the kind. At the core of every man or woman lies an innate feature common to every human. Bastian comprehends and understands this, and it applies to with him. For Demons are not figments of our imagination. They do not haunt our dreams. Figuratively, each man or woman has their own Demons, their own secrets, their own dark thing lurking within. At their very basest form: humans are evil, and with but a moment's notice, they can turn from that image they so valiantly present to a twisted re-imagining of what they once were.

Bastian does not get close to people. He does not get attached. And this is for a reason. See enough people you care about die and you realise that life's easier to live alone so that fate doesn't kick you and the people you love in the balls and tell you to suck it up and carry on. For all the tragedies that have befallen him, the stoic has simply risen back up and grabbed the world once more, but with a sense of humanity that degrades and degenerates further and further each time until nothing but a raging wreck is left of the man: and he refuses to so much as care for another once again. It's easier for him, and it's easier for them. People close to him have a strange habit of dying.

As said before, Bas views every man, woman, and even child as possessing something truly harrowing deep within. He views himself as no exception. Purity does not exist. Within him, however, the beast, the demon, the evil, has simply been tamed. Leashed, recognised, and accepted. With this in mind, Bastian can grasp the devil within him whole and wrest it under his control, and whether it likes it or not, he can force it to help him. Simply enough, the man accepts his bestial nature: and uses it to destroy those who would try to tear his world apart. Fight evil with good, dark with light? No. Fight evil with a lesser evil. The ends justify the means, time, and time, and time again.

Faced with Demons, the man you know as Bastian van Staade, the quiet, aging cynic who lives down the road and exudes sheer enigma, becomes something different entirely. A snarling, growling, beast of a man, he dives towards his adversaries and tears them to shreds. He is no-holds-barred utterly ruthless. But through this, Bas is efficient. Do not release your anger. Control it. Chain it. Enslave it. And use it for your own will.

At the end of the day, it is true that Bastian has a moral code which is in the right place, but he uses the flawed conception of utilitarian logic to justify his acts. Children are not pure, but that does not mean for a moment that Bas stops holding out hope for the existence of it, and he will not so easily condemn a child. Even though he recognises these evils, he himself is flawed, he does not so much care as understand. His moral compass exists: but coaxing it out of him is... another thing altogether.

The final and underlying point of Bastian van Staade's personality is one that must be recognised regardless and in spite of everything else. He is determined. When he grits his teeth, furrows his brow, readies his arm, and casts away his coat, there is nothing he cannot accomplish. Determination incarnate. He will set himself on the warpath, and all in his way will move or be trampled beneath him. And if you are an enemy who chooses to oppose him?

So be it. But you will not last long beneath the might of the one-armed titan known as Bastian van Staade.

*****

Bastian has only additionally affirmed this sheer determination in the events that have unfolded since his introduction to the cosmic audience proper. His sheer ability and tenacity have had a light shined upon them; as have the two extremes of his personality when it comes to wrath and compassion, showing an infuriated anger at an inability to pursue a target, blaming himself, inherently, and making outlandish vows confirming the foretold death of anyone who he's unable to unfortunately execute on their first meeting.

Additionally, whilst it's mainly a stoic, half-silent and rather belittling side of him, it has been shown that one-armed titan, Bastian van Staade, can even crack a joke or a smile every now and then, when the situation is somewhat less tenuous than he always makes it out to be in Inferis.

HISTORY:
Every human on this earth has a story. And every story begins with a child, with a birth. Trace any one or any thing as far back as you can, and somewhere, somewhere in time, either forgotten or eternally captured in gilded picture frames and flip-through photo-books, there will be a mother and a baby. And, in the case of this story, there were two.

Twins. Tobias and Mary-Anne van Staade blinked. Twins? They were to have twins? Looking to each other apprehensively, the father shrugged before breaking into anxious laughter. Tobias van Staade was a working man, with a ruddy complexion, a chiseled figure, and a hulking form, three things that had remained consistent for Mary-Anne from the very day she had met him. They had wanted two children all along. It just seemed the second would be arriving earlier than predicted.

After another four months, the very day came along; and the two were born. It was truly something ironic to see, when Bastian van Staade was born, almost ten or eleven pounds, a massive baby, and in stark comparison, the younger twin of five minutes, Ademina van Staade, barely six pounds, and thought almost that there was a defect in her size. But a few days later, after some routine checks, with boy and girl in her clutches, Mary-Anne left the hospital with the broadest smile upon her face.

For the next few years, things were grand. Bastian's determination showed through even from a young age; but in this time, an era and eon away, as did his exuberance and extrovert nature. Ademina was something of a more collected child, but she was creative, and proud, whereas, typical of the boy of the twins, her brother was far more outdoorsy and adventurous. From afar, Mary-Anne and Tobias watched on from their small condominium in Cape Town. Life had come along and it had been perfect.

But this sort of harmony lasts not for long in the cruel grip of fate. Unbeknownst to his wife, his children, his parents, and having no siblings that he could have confided in, Tobias van Staade had seen things. From a young age he had lived in Johannesburg; unwittingly around an Inferis tear. As he grew older, evidence of his genealogy began to shine through. Tobias van Staade was a Demon Hunter, as his children would be now. And looking on, his brow furrowed as he packed his bags in the middle of the night. He would have to leave. He could not extend to them such a divine and unholy punishment. The only way they could never know would be if he left.

Tobias van Staade has by his son and his wife been now called many things. A coward. A traitor. A fool. But in truth, his only crime was that he loved his son and daughter far too much to expose them to the world he'd uncovered in his days as a Demon Hunter. He organised and left all the account numbers on the kitchen table, and that day, in the dead of night, drove out to Johannesburg, and, as he had promised himself such a time ago, crossed into Inferis with a gun in hand, and turned it upon himself. That was the end of the father's trials. He could only hope, that as a tear stemmed to his eye and his finger tightened around the trigger, that Bastian and Ademina would never discover the genetic affliction he'd placed upon them.

From then on out, it was but a confused Mary-Anne and her twin children taking on the world, and none else. Being a single mother was difficult, but if Tobias had instilled into his wife anything, it was perseverance; just as she'd thought he possessed, and just as he really did. Continuing through life as best she could, working and taking care of her quarry, things were never quite as harmonious as they had once been with her husband around, but the situation begun to look up. Her beautiful children were nearing their shared eighth birthday as she came up to her thirty-seventh. The 1970s were upon them, and for the mother and her children, a new decade was a new start.

But life was never that simple.

The yellow bus that ferried Bastian and Ademina to school and back everyday had always been faulty, but they'd never realised the extent to which it was damaged until one day in October 1970. It was a few minutes before 8AM on the roads through Cape Town, and a wearing, frayed brake line snapped completely. The bus, not even doing fifty, veered immediately off of the side of the interstate, smashing through the concrete shoulder as the rising screams of five dozen children filled the air. A fifty foot drop laid below, and the bus began to teeter on the edge as the elder children near the back opened the emergency hatch and tried to ferry the younger kids out as best they could.

Amidst others, Bastian scrabbled to the top and out onto the ledge. But gravity was a cruel mistress that day, and soon enough, the tarmac gave way beneath them, and the yellow bus began to plummet, two dozen kids still trapped inside along with the driver. Frozen in place, as he stared, sickness welling in his throat, the bus dropping to absolute silence as the nihilism engulfed the eight-year-old, a single fact reverberated and highlighted itself in the eerie halls of the large child's mind. One of those two dozen was Ademina.

CRASH.

That was all she wrote.

The pileup below had thankfully not caught any other cars as collateral damage, but the bus had nose-dived into concrete. Within were thrown around the remaining two dozen children, pressing against each other as bones splintered, the driver's neck snapped from the moment the front had made impact. The crash rippled through and killed almost all of them, the greatest tragedy to brace Cape Town, what would later be known as the great bus crash disaster of 1970. And within the panels of yellow metal and splintered glass, scrabbling down the banks frantically, from afar, as he paled, Bastian could make out a single, still, motionless face, pressed against the window with a bloody smear. All of her features were intact and preserved, but two streams of drying blood welled from her nose in the yellow wreckage. Ademina van Staade. Eight years old. And she was dead.

After that... Bastian's life changed forever. As did Mary-Anne's. Several times a day her son would find her weeping; and the way the boy dealt with his sister's death was not through grief nor anger, but simply detachment. Cold, with distance in his stare, he grew for the next eight years in near silence, words only passing his lips when there was a requirement to. That childish adventurer and his tomfoolery had long since been buried with the body of his sister. Time passed; and Cape Town forgot about Ademina and her family. The pair of them received meagre welfare checks every month, and mourned for her every month, setting a red rose and a glass of milk down by her grave. But between mother and son there now lied a void, a void shaped like his sister.

And for all her tears, for all the things he couldn't come to grips with, Bastian believed that it was his fault. That she was angry at him, for he had survived whilst Ademina died. Of course, this was far from the truth; but in his quiet depression, the hulking, growing, now-teenager, for eight long years, believed himself somehow inexplicably responsible for his sister's death. At sixteen, he left high school in Cape Town, and looked instead for other occupations. Work could get his mind off it, or so the young man thought. Sixteen without a purpose or direction - but his mother could not bring herself to spend another day at the office, so it was now up to him to carry on, to leave her be and to pay his penance to the world for Ademina's death.

The hardships of Bastian's life were not over yet. By seventeen he had joined a mine in Johannesburg, the boy's hulking frame and impossible musculature a great asset to the team he was assigned to. Sure, they knew he wasn't eighteen, and technically still a minor; but who was going to turn down a 6'10 behemoth who wanted to work, regardless of what the pay was? He was hired up immediately and got to cracking rocks as best he could, right on the fringes of the city, emerging every day covered in dirt, silt, black smudges and sweat. This was his penance. The work was backbreaking. It was not enjoyable. But it took his mind away from his life, away from thinking of Ademina. Perhaps in appearance the boy had detached himself from the memories of his sister; but his mind still had a tie to the girl. A tie that would never be severed.

Two years in the mine. Two years alone. Two years with barely a shakily-written letter from his mother a month, whose sanity degraded with every passing day. Two years, two years he had put towards just forgetting about it all, just moving on, but that image of Ademina van Staade haunted her older brother, by day in his mind, and by night in his dreams. An inescapable phantom of his past. A memory tethered to him. Was he damned to live like this forever?

And then at nineteen, working on day in the Johannesburg shafts, he heard the call from afar. The ground began to shake as the great shout found its way towards ears. It was 1981. Seismic activity could just about be sensed with equipment they'd only just placed in the mind. And as if by a stroke of divine retribution, not weeks after, it happened. Bastian was just about to raise his pick to strike once more at the rock he was splitting. And then... "EARTHQUAAAAAAKE!"

Everything exploded around him. The pounding of feet, the sharp intakes of breath, the dropping of weapons, and that great, unsteady lurching between his feet. But Bastian was the deepest in of all his team. Silt and pebbles were falling from above. And as everyone sprinted to the exit, he wondered; did he really want to see the surface again? Perhaps he could be trapped down here in his own grimy solace for eternity. That would be... fitting.

But as the stones began to land in his outstretched hand, he curled his digits inwards and set the pickaxe carefully against the wall. That was not how a van Staade thought. To welcome death was to surrender. To survive was his creed. To survive his father's absence. To survive his mother's grieving. To survive his sister's death. And now, to survive the earthquake in the mineshaft. Without any urgency in his stride, Bastian van Staade walked - not ran, but walked - as slowly as he felt was right away from the heart of the mineshaft as the ground quivered and shook around him.

But this decision of supposed "bravery", as Bastian would later realise, was nothing short of foolish. And for that, the world would make him pay.

The whistle was what he heard first. Then, he rose his head, and dove to the side. Not moments later, he felt a thud at his shoulder, let out an instinctive grunt, and a curtain of darkness descended on his plane of vision. Bastian van Staade passed out. Out of consciousness. Out of light. Out of time. Out of one world...

*****

...and into another. It felt like only moments he had been unconscious, but when Bastian awoke, he felt a swelling pain in his shoulder, just as he had before he fell into oblivion, and rose then to his feet. But with him there came an unfamiliar weight. Airtight, it clasped around his arm, and as he flexed the fingers and tested the muscles of his right hand, it whirred and hissed pneumatically, a symphony of servomotors. It appeared to be a great metal glove of some sort, fastened around his body. Where was... what was this...?

The miner scrabbled up onto his feet and looked around. It was the same mineshaft he had been in before he had passed out, but it was... different. The air was thicker. Hotter and more humid. Between cracks and splits in the rocks shone something different entirely; a great, intense, orange glow, which churned slowly and from which heat began to emanate... lava? But... that made no sense, the mineshaft hadn't been built below a volcano. Yet the heat that came from beneath his feet was far less natural than that which he was used to... perhaps... something had been dislodged near the mineshaft, but the nearest volcanic activity was miles away. It was almost impossible...

Regardless of what had been done to his arm, for where he was, Bastian wanted answers, and he wanted to get out. And with that, he rose to his feet and made for the exit from the cavern he would have initially followed through, hoping that he wouldn't find any sort of blockage or boulder in his path. Methane poisoning wasn't exactly the way he wanted to die down here, and without a canary, things were going to swiftly get more difficult.

The reality of what he was met with was much worse.

Two great, lumbering creatures. Fashioned of stone. It was clear now to Bastian that wherever it was, it was not this same mineshaft. And as they turned and looked at him, hollows in their chest glowing a fluorescent blue, the hand seemed to raise of its own accord, bringing the rest of his limbs with it; but infact, it was the miner's body pulling itself into an instinctive combat stance - even though he'd never been in a fight before.

With a earthly growl the first stepped forwards and pounded its stony fist against its chest. Bastian had lost all conception of logic here; whatever these things where, wherever they were, whatever had happened to his arm: he had but to survive. With that, he rose his hackles and dove beneath the weighty strikes, following up with single blows from that great metal gauntlet, shattering the brittle stone that constituted the creatures' arms, and before long, leaving only a crushed remnant of rock shards below, the last of those blue lights set heavy beneath the granite armour flickering and eventually dying.

Bastian stood tall and proud for but a moment as his knees gave way beneath him; he remembered his pain, and he remembered what he had seen in that split-second before he had passed out. The falling boulder, tapered into an almost blade-like edge. That thud in his shoulder; sharper more than anything. The world began to haze in front of him. Sickness welled up into his stomach; he'd barely moved a hundred metres thanks to that little battle. And now, he was going to die, with that dead weight attached.

The metal on his limb was not clad to his arm. It was his arm. A replacement of it, some sick intepretation. He remembered now, some form of astral projection, moving above himself in this reality he'd found himself in. The boulder had crushed and mangled his limb, almost completely severing it. In an almost trance-like state, he had brought himself here, to this place; but the projection of this hellish alterverse flickered in inconsistency before his eyes, and as he keeled back over, the pain returned sharply to the bloody stump where his arm had be, the dizziness took hold again, and moments before he passed back out, he returned to Earth, and the old mineshaft. But there was no less of a nightmare to be found there than there was in that demon-inhabited place he had found himself. It was dark. It was dank. And he was alone, left to die beneath the ground itself.

When he came to once more, two weeks had passed. He had been comatose; and luckily dancing on the razor's edge when he had been found. The indomitable spirit of the hulking Bastian van Staade had persevered and lived through another day; he was not to die yet. But he knew within that his life had only been kept through supernatural circumstances. That place he had traveled to... it had somehow suspended his existence, and kept him continuing for just the right amount of time to ensure he'd survive. It had been a lifeline and a trap. A double-edged blade.

His arm was gone, but that would not stop him. This was the end of one chapter and the beginning of a grand new novel in Bastian van Staade's life. He would continue. By the end of 1981 he had been discharged and left the mining company, and with what meagre savings he had began to learn. Learn to fight. And learn in that he would travel the world, searching for answers concerning that place he had come to. For surely he was not alone in that. And he did not stop for another five years, twenty-four, beaten, having visited five different cities, before he found a man and a text who informed him of what it was. Inferis. Hell. He was a Demon Hunter. It was in his genealogy. And his father had been, too, and had Ademina survived, she would have uncovered these abilities also.

This was in 1985. Twenty-seven years ago. He has asked for no prosthesis, but still, Bastian van Staade has traveled the world, turning quickly into one of the longest-lived and battle-hardened Demon Hunters on all of the globe. At forty-nine he still goes strong, owning shares in several martial defense companies and being a part-time senior Muay Thai instructor. But aside from that, now, Bastian van Staade, ex-miner, close combat specialist, and Demon Hunter travels the world. In his supernatural rebirth he has found purpose. And for twenty-seven years, he has done naught but follow it with one goal in sight.

Defend the world with his teeth grit and his hackles raised. Or he would die trying. And die fighting.

*****

Bastian met in Inferis moments after slaying a foul Ashland Demon a man who appeared to be naught more than a kindly Hunter. Sharing his fire and his own conversation of it - what little of it he could be bothered to spare - with the Cajun, things were going... reasonably, until the man expressed what appeared to be sympathy at a nearby Demon when the South African announced his desire to execute it. Realising that his first judgement had been wrong, and this man was simply an easy-mannered Ritualist, strange as it was, after missing a single, charged blow upon the agile Cajun, he chased him over the jagged scape of the Ashland for a few moments before losing him and proclaiming a desire to end him.

Weeks later, Bastian found himself, once more, in Irkutsk International Airport, and seated next to a young green-haired man - who infact revealed a coincidence about himself, being in Irkutsk searching for not something, but someone. Him. His name was Cael Gladius - he was a former student of Bastian's old sparring partner, Halcon Matiz... and together, the pair of them would do great things.

*********

FACTION:
Due to be one of the founders of the Four Blades.

REAL-LIFE SKILLS:
[ ONE HAND WONDER ] - Expert of modified one-handed variant of Russian Systema, and a regional champion in Muay Thai kickboxing.
[ INTERNAL BALANCE ] - Possesses impeccable balance considering his disability.
[ HUNTER CONDITIONING ] - Resilient to almost all and any minor pains because of three decades of being exposed to them continually.
[ UNSTOPPABLE ] - Has an indomitable willpower and can accomplish almost anything if he puts his mind to it.
[ CLOSET INSPIRATION ] - Though often coming out as grumpy, has been known to accomplish the odd inspirational speech or two.
[ GET TO DA CHOPPAH ] - Can fly helicopters with relative skill. Somewhat easier in Inferis, and he tends to require a co-pilot due to, you know, only having one arm.

INFERIS SKILLS:
[ MARTIAL PROWESS ] - With his prosthetics, his prowess in Systema increases to beyond that of an expert.
[ MAKING CHUCK PROUD ] - Olympiad-tier strength behind his kicks.
[ THAT TICKLES ] - Able to resist even greater pains.
[ HEAVY METAL ] - Over three decades Hunting, Bastian has found himself and his body tempered to the familiar weight of a prosthesis; and for this reason, has an apt sense of balance when it comes to his prosthetic arms - the array of them that there are - in Inferis.

WEAKNESSES:
[ THE STUMP ] - Only has one usable arm.
[ ONE-TRACK MIND ] - Very easily set on an objective, and nothing will cause him to stop or falter for it once his journey has begun. A fixation is something that Bastian cannot, for the life of him, shake.
[ LET'S PUNCH STUFF ] - Not the greatest tactical genius, typical preferred plans being "run in, punch things, run out".
[ ACCLIMATISED ] - Whilst he can easily deal with intense heats, the frigid winds of the Stygian Tundra or even the borders of the Black Sea are harder for Bastian to deal with.
[ ANTISOCIAL ] - Bit of an arsehole, really, unless you provide him with some sort of reason to address you.

COLOURS:
> Bastian speaks Russian (aquamarine), his native Afrikaans (lawngreen), Demon (teal) and accented English (cornflowerblue)

TRIVIA:

> Only has one working arm, having lost his right in a mining accident in 1981.
> His twin sister, Ademina, died of a car crash at the age of eight. He wears his hair in a ponytail to celebrate her decade of life, and still dreams of his childhood with her frequently.
> Is a dual citizen of South Africa and Russia.
> Has houses in Irkutsk and Johannesburg, plus a flat in Helsinki.
> Never stays in Johannesburg or Irkutsk for more than two weeks at a time.
> LEVEL 2 alterations in cornflowerblue.

*********

USER DETAILS

ALIAS:
Ross

OTHER CHARACTERS:
Lazarus Carter, Lucifer, Damon T. Ruger, Dante Alencar, The Employer, Akrasiel, and Iggy.

ROLEPLAY HISTORY:
7 years this summer.

FACECLAIM: