"But we never do anything fun anymore." Her voice was whiny, petulant.
He glanced at her and shifted his arms into a more comfortable position behind his head. "What, like strangle kittens?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of drowning them, but you know what I mean. You're so serious all the time."
He laughed at that, just to prove her wrong. "I'm no more serious than I was before, Tasha. I'm just busier, now."
"So busy! Yes, so busy staring at the clouds. Come on, Didi. I want to do something fun for once. It's been ages."
"You keep whining like that and it'll be another age before we do anything fun again." He sat up, though, and pulled a pair of well worn bone dice out of his pocket. "Spades?"
She rolled her eyes. "Spades is boring."
He grinned, an easy, charming grin. "We'll raise the stakes, then. Kittens, or small children?"
Her eyes lit up- literally, like a pair of golden lamps. "Babies! Yes, babies- it's been so long since I've had a proper sacrifice, you know, with blood and candles and wailing." The lights of her eyes dimmed to a more human shade of dark brown. "And for you? What would you have me put in the pot, Didi?"
He twirled the dice between his fingers with practiced ease, still smiling. "A kiss, I think. And maybe a new pair of boots?"
"New boots again? What happened to your old ones?" She tweaked his bare toes, giggling.
"Lost 'em in a bet, and you'd know that if you'd been paying any attention at all," he scolded. "Come on, lets play, if you're so bored."
They used one of the small skulls at her belt as a cup for the dice, and she giggled every time she lost, and blushed every time she kissed him.
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Didi (Vladimir or Vlad to everyone else) would be my current D&D character; he's a cleric teetering on the verge of being evil, but his inherent indifference to the concepts of good and evil keep him neutral. Tasha (Short for Natasha) is a manifestation of his deity. Death and Chaos are her technically her primary spheres of influence, but Luck is closely related to both death and chaos, so she's often called Natasha the Gambler or Natasha the Lucky. When she manifests in her primary aspect as Azal, Lord of Entropy, she represents the inevitability of death and entropy. As Natasha, she represents the random factor in every equation, the force that makes it possible for people to thow themselves at the ground and miss.
Vlad's father was an alchemist- and I say was, because he died in a freak alchemical accident when Vlad was eight. He'd been a devout follower of Natasha, who is a patron of scientists and inventors. In his will he gave Vlad to the temple of Azal; had he lived, he would have eventually sent Vlad to Natasha's half of the temple.
'Tasha picked him up eventually anyway when he displayed a temperament more suited for worshipping her aspect, despite his skill at carrying out Azal's rituals. His temperament is more suited for Natasha, but he's a little more skilled at being one of Azal's accolytes. Somewhat morbidly cheerful, he freely embraces the idea that nothing he does will ever have any impact on the universe, and that every decision can always be decided with a coin toss.
Azal is the spreading entropy that will eventually swallow the entire universe; Natasha is the peculiar, particular variations in the outcome of a cointoss. Because Vlad serves both of these aspects, his ceremonial robes are red, yellow, and black to represent Azal and Natasha respectively, and the line of nothingness that binds them together.
A number of symbols are holy to both aspects of the god, but the primary holy symbol is a coin with Azal's face on one side and 'Tasha's face on the other. Full ceremonial robes usually have dozens of these coins hanging off the hem and sleeves, and they tend to jangle quite a bit. Tasha's holy symbols include any sort of gambling paraphernalia (dice, cards, etc.) and a sort of writhing tentacular ball- it's a circle with the tails of a lion, a dragon, and a bird, as well as squid and displacer beast tentacles growing out of the sides of it. Her primary aspect is Chaos, even if she does choose to manifest mostly as a deity of Luck. Azal's holy symbols are a skull and a broken circle- or really, broken things in general. Tasha is there whenever something falls, Azal is there when (if) it hits the ground.
As for Vlad, he's a little weird, but fairly likeable. His charisma is high enough and his god is bipolar enough for this to work for him. He doesn't have a concrete moral code, but he does have something like a "live and let live" attitude towards the world. He doesn't need to proselytize, because he serves entropy- and in the end, his god is going to win. No matter what, he wins. So he spreads a little something wherever he goes- sometimes it's happiness, sometimes it's confusion, sometime's it's raspberry jam- he isn't bound to uphold any standard of reason.
And because he worships a principle of chaos, he's free to do whatever he pleases- which means that, more often than not, he's a pretty reliable, sensible guy with a slightly quirky sense of humor and a vicious streak who tends to make decisions by flipping coins and knows far too many card games for one person.
Appearance wise, he has long red-brown hair tied back and thrown forward over one shoulder, and pretty ordinary looking brown eyes. He has a small scar under his right eye from a childhood accident at the temple involving a rake and a stone staircase. He's short- five foot four- and he isn't especially tough. A little on the stocky side, but ultimately pretty frail. (No constitution.) He's actually more than a little softcore looking most of the time, honestly. His daily travelling robes are dark red with a yellow sash that has a few coins hanging from it. He has really nice boots. He wears one spiked glove, on his left hand, and primarily fights with a spear. Any Vlad the Impaler jokes will get you smote. The spiked glove is generally your first clue that there's something a little...off...about Vlad.
He and Tasha get along quite well; she acts like his little sister most of the time. He doesn't interact with Azal nearly as much; they're relationship is more of a formal cleric/deity sort of thing.
I like Vlad. He doesn't have issues. *coughcoughBrenandTheroncoughcough* People without issues make me happy.
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