Place and Date of Birth ~ Hungary, 1752
Known Aliases ~The Blood Orchid
Known Relatives ~ Borbala Berényi (aunt), Andras Berényi (father), Roza Gyenis (mother)
Marital Status ~ widowed
History
There was a time in the world when men were called upon to go into battle where they fought to the death against their fellow man...a time that seems to know no end as man never seems to lose his thirst for combat. But there were other men who were called into battle for reasons not so malevolent as to kill one another, there were men who were called upon to protect mankind from the unknown darkness which existed all around him. Andras Berényi was such a man, a man called upon by religious authorities from the battlefield to fight against the forces of darkness...to become a vampire slayer! He was a man whose bravery was without question and who even dared to fight vampires at night rather than to simply find them sleeping in their graves during the day to strike them when they were helpless before him. He lived by a code of honor where he believed that vampires were victims just like those they now sought to feed upon for survival and as such, they deserved a chance to fight for their survival even if he always held the upper hand with his enchanted sword and protective clothing. But such a noble view of a deadly craft eventually caught up with Andras as he learned that not all vampires are creatures of flesh and when he met an ancient vampire named Julius Severius, he would suffer greatly for underestimating the power some vampires possess.
Now rendered all but unable to fight by his injuries and cursed by darkness to come out only after the Sun went down, Andras became a tax collector whose arrival made men fearful as he never failed to collect his due even if he did so by claiming lives who would be lost to the villages he came to. He remained important to the religious authorities who once employed him as he informed them of the whereabouts of other vampires he learned of as he travelled in darkness and because of the taxes he collected for them. It was in visiting his sisters village that he met a beautiful young woman named Roza Gyenis and for one noght with him, he allowed the entire village to escape without paying the taxes due to him. Having lost her virginity, Roza at first felt ashamed so that she hid herself from the villagers around her only to find they regarded her with more heartfelt feelings for sparing them the taxmans wrath. It was only later that she found changes occurring within her body and learned that she had become pregnant by her night with Andras and when he learned she was pregnant with child, he returned to her side as this was quite an unexpected event. It was only then she learned the truth about this scarred man with one arm and was fearful to know that the child growing within her was the child of a vampire. None in the village believed her when she told them of Andras curse because the Church would never employ such a creature and his excuse that fire had damaged his flesh so the sun caused him pain was believed because of the obvious damage to his body.
The birth of his daughter was a turning point as it was at this time that the villagers finally believed what Roza told them as he had remained too long in one place and killed too many for survival not to be discovered. The mother of his child died giving birth even as Andras was fleeing for his survival as the Church now sent its vampire slayers after him to conceal their involvement in employing him knowing he had become what he was. His sister Borbala stole away with the child to keep it from an unknown fate at the hands of the villagers and began a life among the gypsies to conceal herself from any who might still be pursuing her. The child, a daughter named Mariska, would be raised unknowing of her true nature until she reached the age of puberty when things began to go wrong for the girl who was beloved by everyone that knew her. It was at this time that her body began to change, but not in an expected fashion as she was not becoming a woman...she was becoming a vampire and the only woman she had ever known as a mother finally was forced to deal with Mariska's curse.
Mariska Berényi was a dhampir, a child of mortal and vampire cursed to walk between both worlds. Unlike a vampire, Mariska could survive in daylight and did not possess their vampiric weaknesses...unlike a human, she possessed the strength of ten men and healed very quickly from any injury or illness. She would now discover that she did not age like mortals as it would take her almost twenty years before reaching true puberty and her adoptive mother died of old age before she reached what many would call her thirteenth birthday even though in human years she was 47 years old. During this time, Mariska had been brought to live with several men who became her father figures as Borbala sought out warriors to train Mariska in the art of warfare knowing fate decreed what her destiny would be whether she sought to deny this fate or embrace it. She would finally locate a vampire hunter named Boris Vladski who understood what Mariska was and did not want her to fall into the clutches of the Church because of his own loss of faith with learning how evil men of the cloth could truly be. He would become Marisk'a mentor and even after Borbala had passed on, he would remain as Mariska's guardian until he too passed into the arms of oblivion.
From Borbala, Mariska had inherited a large cedar box left to her by her father. Within this box, she discovered his enchanted CaneSword and garments bearing intricate designs offering its wearer various inherent protections against supernatural attacks including the ability to store sunlight to use as a weapon against vampires at night. She read the diary he had left telling of his life and how he had survived the attack that made him a vampire only through the fortune that his attacker had underestimated him and cast him aside thinking him too weak to continue the battle and allowing him to recover his sword which he used to slay the vampire. He had not been bitten by the vampire, however, as he drank of the dying vampires blood willingly hoping desperately to survive at any cost. Learning he had become a father was a shock to him and he knew what his child would become...she would inherit his own one time fate as a vampire slayer but unlike him, she would be immune to the vampires curse.
So it was that Mariska embraced her destiny...but not exactly the destiny any might have envisioned. She had learned from Boris that men could be as evil as any vampire and even more so being that they chose to be evil while most vampires had been damned by it. She would become a mercenary paid to hunt vampires or to hunt down evil men and she cared little if her employer was human or a creature of the night...she cared only that the money was good and that she was paid what she was due. After all...her father had been a tax collector and you always pay the devil his due or the devil will claim your soul instead.
After many long years traveling around she has picked up some dark arts, as well as squirling away much money dealing out death warrents.
those who seek her will find her walking the darker paths.
