character application info

basic info

Name: Ashley Raventon
Age: 19
Canon: Lost Souls
History: There's a limited amount of canon information available on Ashley--he doesn't even appear in the book, but we get a fairly clear picture of his character from his brother Arkady, who speaks obsessively about his dead brother. This is probably about 25% headcanon to flesh out what is described of Ashley in canon.
"Your brother was very handsome, wasn't he?"
"Not handsome. Beautiful. Did I mention that Ashley was the beauty of the Raventons?" Arkady pressed his lips to the top of the ivory cranium before continuing. "His hair was the color of burgundy, and he wore it long down his back, and it sparkled when he walked in the rain."
Ashley is the younger son of the Raventons, a respectable old-money Louisiana family. The Raventons are a family old enough to have been on the losing side of both the French and the American revolutions, and ruthless enough to have survived both with fairly little damage to their pride and fortune.
A striking beauty, even as a child, Ashley grew up both neglected and spoiled. His parents had little interest in him, aside from showing him off at parties, and his older brother Arkady was completely obsessed with him but had the sort of domineering personality that he impressed his own interests upon Ashley rather than encouraging Ashley to develop interests of his own. Ashley had a string of nurses and tutors, but he was headstrong and disobedient, behaving no one but Arkady, which meant that most of Ashley's education happened under his older brother's tutelage, and Ashley's young head was filled with a great deal of occult and macabre texts.
When Ashley was 18, Arkady went away to Paris to study magic. He promised to write, and to return for Ashley and to take Ashley as his apprentice.
A great loneliness. That was the first thing. Loneliness for Arkady, wanting him, wanting his arrogance, his self-assurance. Misgivings in spite of the desire to trust, and then the conviction that Arkady was never coming back from Paris. A slew of things to fill the void--alcohol and opium, lovers and new leather boots--but the late nights crept in, and Arkady was never coming back, never could, never...
When Arkady failed to come back from Paris, Ashley's recklessness shifted toward insanity. The Raventons always had a tendency toward genius and insanity, and Ashley met a pair of vampire twins who fed not upon his blood, but upon his youth and beauty, until Ashley was only a withered husk.
Arkady died in Paris, but he had made arrangements for himself and his own resurrection. When he returned to Louisiana, he found his brother dead, and tried to resurrect Ashley the way he'd resurrected himself, but
"Ashley didn't want to come back."
I'll be taking Ashley from shortly after Arkady's left for Paris, while Ashley is still flush with confidence and luxury, and his longing for his brother has only just begun to shift toward despair, madness, and self-destruction.

personality

Strengths: Ashley's remarkably intelligent, to a greater degree than he's aware. He's very well-read, particularly on topics of the occult, magic, and medicine. He's assisted his brother in dissections, and thus has a very good knowledge of anatomy.
Strikingly beautiful, Ashley has been treated like a sex object for half his life, and he's learned how to use his beauty to get what he wants. He's extremely manipulative and conniving, and very good at playing dumb, innocent, or seductive enough to get anything he wants from just about anyone.
Charismatic and playful, Ashley is capable of being extremely sweet, and can be adoring and devoted if he chooses to be. There's gentleness in his nature, which is partly because he doesn't like getting his hands dirty. He's capable of growing into a little bit of nobility and respectability and might even be a not-terrible leader, but he'll have to mature and develop into that, and it'll depend on what kind of CR he gets in game.
Flaws: Amoral and greedy, Ashley has no compunctions about what laws or morals he breaks in order to get what he wants, and doesn't care who gets hurt. While he won't get his own hands dirty, and is practically a pacifist when it comes to violence, he's got a fetish for monsters--both literal and metaphorical--and will happily support and spectate any manner of horrific crimes that his companions want to commit. His sense of loyalty extends only as far as he can be controlled.
Lazy and neglectful, Ashley probably shouldn't be entrusted with any pets, responsibility, or even a shopping list. He's easily bored and has very few survival skills, having lived all his life being doted upon by servants.
Ashley comes from a family with a tendency toward madness, and his mental state is fragile at best. His grasp on reality can be slippery, and he handles trauma by disassociating from reality.
Miscellaneous: Ashley's a petty and petulant young man, driven by an overwhelming desire for attention. Most of the things he likes or does are connected in some way to his desire for attention. Because he's been petted and remarked over for both his life, both innocently and erotically, by people of both sexes, Ashley thinks that it's right and natural that he should be desired and made the center of attention. He's disdainful of anyone who doesn't dote over him, though he's usually lazy and disaffected enough that he'll choose to ignore anyone who isn't entranced by him, unless he needs something in particular.
He approaches sex very casually, and in the books he's implied to have an array of lovers of both genders, including a pair of male twin vampires. This is also very much linked to his need for attention. He knows that people are more likely to look at him erotically than in any other way, and there's an underlying insecurity beneath Ashley's confidence and vanity on the topic: he assumes as fact that he has no value to others as anything other than an object of desire. Accepting that, he molds his behavior accordingly, taking care never to expect loyalty or love of anyone. He expects only obsession, and his fixations upon others are likewise most likely to be obsession, because he has so little understanding of loyalty or love as ways of forming relationships between people.
It's strongly implied in the books that his brother is incestuously in love with him, but unclear if this is either reciprocated or consummated. I headcanon it as reciprocated, so that Ashley is just as unhealthily obsessed with his brother, although they both take other lovers. It's implied that they're both hurt by the other taking other lovers, and this may be an intentional emotional manipulation on both sides. I'm choosing to lean into that, so that Ashley's penchant for emotional manipulation is a strong driving force.
Ashley loves luxury of all sorts, having been raised in a wealthy household and having servants to take care of him for most of his life. He considers luxury to be his right, and thinks that manipulating others is the best way to get that luxury (in addition to the attention that he so craves).
His manipulation is both a strength and a weakness. He's very good at being manipulative and at using his beauty and sexuality as a weapon, but the strong drawback to that is that there's a shallowness to his manipulation. He's more of a model than an actor--he understands how to present himself as a picture in order to convince people that he's vulnerable or sweet, but he doesn't have a good enough understanding of innocence in order to maintain any illusion for people looking past his superficial facade.
Buried deep beneath Ashley's petty and shallow exterior is a young man with a love of art and beauty, who desires very earnestly to please others and to be loved. If all his wiles fail, or if anyone tries hard enough to reach him with kindness, he has a deep capacity for loyalty that can be tapped. If, despite himself, Ashley earns love, he will imprint deeply upon the person offering it, and he will sacrifice nearly anything to protect both the sentiment and the person.

game plans

Starting Faction: Empress
Goals: Ashley will be coming in as Light Faction with a heavy dose of amoral ambition. I'm going to have him take up working as a spy/honeypot, and I'll probably give him some NPC general he'd be a plaything for, unless he finds a PC to suit his desires and ambition. His brother's in the game, but they won't find out about each other at first, giving Ashley some time to get his feet under him. I've already discussed with Arkady's player, because Ashley will probably be a manipulative little shit to Arkady, because Ashley wants power and adoration almost as much as he wants Arkady obsessed with him, and he wants to punish Arkady for abandoning him. I'm planning to keep Ashley light faction even once he finds out about his brother being here, and he'll be acting frequently as a spy so that he can move freely between the factions and lands.