Post by Demeter on Oct 11, 2011 3:50:36 GMT -5
Name: Leonardo “Leo” Valenti
Age: 324
Birth Date: October 1683
Sex: Male
Sexuality: Straight
Species:
Shifter
Genome: True
Beast Name: Nasha
Faction: Alpha of Pride
Moon Phases/Classification: Waxing Half/Mediator
Pack: Cedar Valley Pride
Beast Disposition: 4-5. Nasha and Leo are often in agreement with each other.
Beast Form: Nasha fits into the average idea of a fully grown male lion. From nose to tufted tail, Nasha measure at just less than 6’5” and weights around 500 pounds. Despite his mortal half’s fair coloring, Nasha’s is a dark golden-brown with a full, black mane.
Vampire
Bloodline: Kasi
Innate Power: Divinity/Psychic
Infected at age: Birth/18
Contagion: Leo was born a lion but became a vampire when he was 18 years of age.
Hair Color: Dark Golden Brown
Hair Style: Typically worn long, about lower back length when left down and pulled back in a braid.
Eyes: Amber
Teeth: Straight, white with elongated canines
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 179 lbs
Fitness Level: Leo remains fairly fit. Though few challenge him because he is a turned vampire as well as a shifter, Leo works out fairly often to keep his body fit.
Clothing Style: Leo likes comfortable clothing. He’ll cling to a pair of jeans until they are worn and frayed and ripped in unfortunate spots. His daughters often have to sneak his clothes out of the house. He’ll put on a fancy clothing when called for but more often then not, he’ll wear what feels comfortable.
Tattoos: None
Piercing: None
Scars: No major scars.
Personality
Leo is a very calm person. He’ll be the one trying to soothe anyone’s frustrated feelings without allowing his mind to become overwhelmed. Leo just takes things as they come and works through a tangle of problems methodically. He tends to tuck his own problems away and keeps his own emotions under tight control. If his children are threatened, Leo will go on the offensive and tear into those who would threaten what is his.
History
Parents: Mother: Emmalyn; Father: Naveed
Siblings: Brothers Dastan and Naveed Jr.; Sister Roxanna
Close Friends: Darius DeLorme, Carmine Valerio, Romulus Neri, and Sorin Dalca
Significant Other: Isabella Valenti (separated but not divorced)
Children: Sons Navid (School Principal, 27) and Nico (Lawyer, 26). Daughters Roxanna (School Teacher, 24), Riviera (Medical Student, 22), and Ruana (High School Student, 17)
Interests/Hobbies: Bonsai trees, the love lives of his friends and family, deep sea fishing, salt water fish tanks, sailing, the Persian Empire, Crime Dramas and gardening
Education: Home schooled as a child but has attended some college courses in Cedar Valley
-College: Cedar Valley University
-Major: Business Administration
Intelligence: Both street and book smart. Leo also likes to learn so he’s always increasing his knowledge.
Occupation: Administration for a refuge for lost, nomadic or injured Lion Shifters
Place of Residence: Modest ranch style house on the refuge property.
Basic History
Born as the youngest son of Emmalyn, an English Aristocrat who’d been turned while touring the Middle East, and Naveed, a member of a large pride, Leo was originally named Cyrus. Cyrus had a normal, rough and tumble childhood. As the youngest of the family, Cyrus was doted on and often spoiled. When he reached his eighteenth birthday, Cyrus left the pride, as his brothers before him had and all the other mature males in the pride, in order to find his place in the world.
Given the chance to see the world, Cyrus headed for Western Europe and England in order to see how his mother’s people live. The only problem was that he never reached England. When his family learned that his ship had gone down in a storm and there was no sign of Cyrus, his family concluded that their baby boy had been lost to the sea.
Cyrus did indeed survive the shore. In the process of getting into a life boat, he took a nasty knock to the head that rendered him unconscious. As the only soul in that life boat, he drifted for days until the boat ran aground on a small island outside of Italy. That small island boasted a tiny village of vampires. A young woman, Isabella, was the one who came across the unconscious Cyrus. She drafted a couple of strong backs to carry the man up to the house she shared with her mother.
She cleaned the man’s wounds and sat with him while infection battled within his body. As a psychic, Isabella was able probe into the man’s mind, which she did in order to find some clue about him, but she found nothing by turmoil, darkness and a sensation of helplessness. She also felt the presence of something dark and cruel and vicious lurking within the man. Something that was another being and she didn’t like it.
Isabella had never left the island and no one on that island knew about shifters. Scared of what this thing was that lived in this man; Isabella had her mother, a magic user, bind the creature living inside the man. Isabella’s mother put the beast to sleep but something went wrong with the spell. Not only was the beast put into a deep sleep but the man’s memories were also locked away. Still scared of the beast, Isabella and her mother decided not to say anything about the beast or the memories to the man.
When Cyrus woke up weeks later, he had no knowledge of who he was so he took the name Leonardo Valenti; Leo for short. He lived with Isabella and her mother, working their small plot of land and repairing their house. He eventually married Isabella and agreed to be turned. But the turning didn’t go quite as bad. Leo had a bad reaction to the turning and Isabella told him that it was because she was still very young. She never told him about the creature sleeping within him.
For close to two centuries, Leo and Isabella lived and loved in their tiny village for nearly two centuries but they decided to leave the island and travel the world. They eventually landed in Cedar Valley and, liking the place so much, decided to stay in the area and finally start a family. The children came in quick succession. First Navid, then Nico, followed by the girls Roxanna, Riviera and Ruana.
Shortly before Navid’s thirteenth birthday, the family was out for a hike when Leo took a misstep and tumbled down a cliff. The first knock his head took knocked the spell free and Nasha, the Lion within Leo, surged to the forefront. He took control and forced the shift. While they still fell down the steep cliff, Nasha landed on his feet and kept them whole.
The whole family was shaken by the incident and Isabella finally told Leo about what she and her mother had done all those years ago. Leo, unable to believe that the woman he loved, had deceived him left the house for a few days to reconnect with Nasha and try to figure out what he was suppose to do now. The family he’d been born too was long dead and he had no clue how to even start looking for descendents.
When he returned to the house, he learned that Isabella had left shortly after him. She’d left a note, saying that she was scared of the beast that lived in Leo scared her. She’d left the children alone.
After a few years of just scraping by in Cedar Valley, Leo came across a nomadic lioness that had been forced out of her pride. Stella was young, lost and not quite sure what to do with her self. Leo took the young woman in and helped her find a place in the community. Over the next few years, Leo gathered the lost and nomadic lions that would become the base of his pride. A solid group of twenty, they lived in peace but there was also some who came and went. Through word of mouth, news had spread throughout the Shifter community of a place where Lions could come and heal or just live for a while.
Leo, determined to help these Lions who were lost like he’d once been, met with Darius DeLorme and the other ancient leaders of the town with a plan to have a home for shifters who need refuge. Now, with most of his children grown, Leo runs the refuge and provides solace for the lost ones.