Barbas
From Changeling Venue
Contents |
Overview
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Name: Barbas
Alias(es): Lord Nightmare, Dragov
Real Name: Johnathan Bancroft
Location: Florida
Apparent Age: mid 20's
Seeming: Darkling
Kith: Leechfinger
Court: Autumn
Entitlements: Unknown
Motley: House of November Leaves
Keeper: The Lord of Broken Twigs
Virtue: Fortitude
Vice: Pride
Mask: Hiding the horror that lay beneath, is a nondescript man, his clothes very plain, and with little outstanding features.
Mien: Under the Mask, lay the almost translucent skin, pulled tight against bone, with the latticework of blue veins nearly visible, and his eyes are dark pits of smoke. His clothes, finery in various shades of black and grey with the occasional red accent, are often adorned with a random spider's web, which are often inhabited.
Mantle: Unknown
Personality: I take pleasure in your screams. Please, scream again.
Fear. Some are paralyzed by it, and others flee in blind panic. It weakens the bladder, and causes people to act irrationally.
Barbas uses fear, often as a scalpel to motivate people into doing what he wishes. Other times, he uses it as a sledgehammer, to destroy those whom opose him, to those resistant to more subtle manipulations. He delights in causing people to act in ways contrary to their own over-inflated egos, and he enjoys causing people to cower before him, mortally terrified.
I apologize immensely if what I have shown you has shattered your silly little delusion that the world is all bright and shiney, filled with candy canes and gum drops. The world is a horrific place, where monsters dwell. I should know, I've met those monsters.
Some may view Barbas as a despicable villain, complete with top hat and stooped posture, rubbing his hands together, as if he had stepped out of a silent film. People dislike him, because he forces them to acknowledge the horrid things they attempt to ignore, he reveals to them the skeletons hiding in their closets, he makes them face the truth. Unfortunately, people are often too enraptured by their circular logic and their webs of deceit, that when the truth is uncovered, they try to hide, like a child hiding beneath a blanket.
History
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In the early 1920's, Johnathan Bancroft was an up-and-coming actor, having been in five silent films, including a serial that lasted a dozen episodes. It was in this serial, titled The Doorway to Nowhere (1922, MGM Films), that Bancroft played the role of Barbas, a villain extraordinaire. It was his singular greatest role that drew the attention of his keeper, The Lord of Broken Twigs, a creature of alien malevolence, which delights in causing misery.
Come here, pretty please
The young actor was abducted one night, as a pair of faceless thugs came out of the shadows, and dragged him across the Hedge. He was pulled forth in front of The Lord of Broken Twigs, whom was intrigued by the actor's abilities, and wished to see a private performance of the serial. Night after night for years, Johnathan Bancroft was forced to reprise his role as Barbas, including a scene in which he kills a young heroine, after tormenting her by chasing her through a maze, which the Lord of Broken Twigs had kidnapped a new heroine for every performance. Over time, his personality and features twisted to resemble the creature whom he had once used makeup to resemble. He became attuned to the misery and suffering, to the fear that he brought about in his nightly 'victims', the kidnapped girls he would chase through a faux sound stage, always catching them, and he found that they would always run in the same direction, their choice of passages to take were always the same, and they always chose to hide in the same location.
Can you tell me where I am
After countless hundreds of performances, his master eventually grew tired of the screenplay, and rather than find new work for Barbas, he was simply forgotten, to wander his master's hallways unhindered. During his wanderings, Barbas often came across other Changelings, those whom had been kidnapped by the Lord, and forgotten as a spoiled child forgets about his old toys. Several of these Changelings he tormented, taking much delight in their terror.
I need to get my bearings
In the depths of the lair of the Lord of Broken Twigs, Barbas found an old library, something that had been constructed long ago, and apparently forgotten, due to the layers of dust and strands of webs. It was in this library that Barbas began to study, seeking a way to escape the labyrinthine halls of the Lord's lair, and to understand the other denizens that he had encountered within the halls.
I'm lost
Strange years passed, and eventually, he was followed by a few other lost toys that roamed the dark halls, whom also began to study within the library, also seeking ways to escape. Eventually, they found a notation in the index in an ancient tome, describing the 'Doorway to Nowhere', and where it was hidden within the halls of the lair of the Lord of Broken Twigs.
And the shadows keep on changing
Several weeks went by, as the convoluted directions to the Doorway to Nowhere were deciphered, and finally, one expedition managed to locate the 'Doorway'. At the stroke of midnight, the door opened, and the Changelings rushed through, into the Hedge. Days passed as the Changelings navigated through the Hedge, dodging and fighting several creatures native to the weird, until the survivors finally emerged...
To see a perfect forest, through so many splintered trees
Shocked by the transformation of ages, of years gone by, Barbas almost sought to return to the dark halls of the lair of the Lord of Broken Twigs. Instead, he traveled back into the Hedge, leaving most of his fellow Changelings in the world to fend for themselves. Consulting with a map he had stolen, he traversed the Hedge alone, until he found what he had been looking for, an oddity described in one of the long forgotten tomes, the House of November Leaves.
Time to gather up the splinters
The House, an otherworldly collection of twisting hallways, juxtaposed by rooms that shouldn't be, where no door ever opens to the same room twice, no hallway ever leads down the same path. Barbas was the first to take residence within the house, nearly a decade ago. At first, he would get lost for hours, or an entire day, wandering the darkened halls of slate gray, through nondescript rooms, growing frustrated during his initial travels through the bowels of the House. After a time, he felt that he would never learn the secrets to the configuration of the House, and when he nearly gave up hope in understanding, he began wandering aimlessly, and found that his subconscious always led him to his desired destination. A quick realization that by attempting to force the House to comply would never work, but calm acceptance of the labyrinth allowed the House to lead always led to fruition.
Barbas, seeking companionship in the cold, empty halls, opened the doors to any whom desired to live within, any whom would accept the confusion and aggravation the House had to offer. Since that time, more than a few Changelings have stumbled out of the Hedge, and into the halls of the House of November Leaves.
I'm haunted, by the promises I've made, and others I have broken
Reflecting upon his life before being taken, Barbas recalls his fiance, a woman whom he remembered that he loved dearly, but for whom he cannot recall her name. He remembers telling her how he would return from his audition for a new serial, but in time, his memories of the event has become hazy and contradictory. Countless nights he has sat in a chair, in the study, watching the fireplace, and trying to bring forth the memories that he has lost, the memories that haunt him still.
Hallways... always
Notes:
- The Doorway to Nowhere (1922, MGM Films) written and directed by Anton Lezzara, his only screenplay, a series of a dozen episodes involving murder, betrayal, and a mystical doorway whose destination is unknown, as it is only opened in the final moments of the last episode. Unfortunately the master copy of the film was lost in the 1960's during the purchase of the company by Kirk Kerkorian, and the demolition of Lot 3. To date, there are no known copies in existence of Lezzara's masterpiece. In fact, the only historical notation outside of MGM's own fiscal records of the screenplay is a paragraph in Lorna Luft's biography, recounting a tale of her mother, Judy Garland, involving Lezzara inviting her to a lunch meeting to discus the possibility of casting her in a follow up thirteenth episode.
- The House of November Leaves appears in a footnote of a paper on Non-Euclidean Geometry, by S. Carter Needs, published in 1972. The work cites not only the House of November Leaves, but also speaks of the House on the Rock, and the Winchester Mystery House. It should be noted that, the locations for the House on the Rock and the Winchester Mystery House (Spring Green, Wisconsin and San Jose, California) are listed in the work, but the House of November Leaves only receives a minor note, and no listed location.
- Further information on the House of November Leaves can be found at http://changeling.cam-wiki.org/index.php/House_of_November_Leaves
- The name Barbas is a demon described in the Ars Goetia, first section of King Solomon's grimoirea. He answers truly on hidden or secret things, causes and heals diseases, teaches mechanical arts, and changes men into other shapes. The name Barbas also comes from the Latin "barba", beard, hellebore (a plant used in witchcraft, especially to invoke demons), and also a male name. It is rumored that Anton Lezzara was familiar with the Ars Goetia, and much of the Doorway to Nowhere contained hidden symbolism.
Non sum qualis eram
Visions of Sorrow
- 'Candyman'
- 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'
Tomes of Darkness
- 'The Hellbound Heart' by Clive Barker
Songs of Lament
Whispers
- I will show you fear in a handful of dust. -T.S. Eliot
- The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them. -Joseph Addison
- The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder. -Æschylus
- Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. -Maya Angelou
- Come to the edge,' He said. They said, 'We are afraid.' 'Come to the edge,' He said. They came. He pushed them...and they flew. -Guillaume Apollinaire
- Nothing is to be feared but fear. -Sir Francis Bacon
- To defend one's self against fear is simply to ensure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced. -James Arthur Baldwin
- He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear. -Gaius Julius Caesar
- He has no hope who never had a fear. -William Cowper
- Fear makes us feel our humanity. -Bejamin Disraeli
- The world is not a happy place. There are more shadows than there are rays of sunlight. I apologize if I have broken your delusions. -Barbas
- The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown... - H.P. Lovecraft
Rumors of Dread
- He sold his soul to something far worse, in order to escape Arcadia.
- His heart is made of cold lead.
- Underneath his clothes, he's really just a mass of spiders acting like a person.
- He carved his black, twisted cane from of the essence of another Changeling.
- He has a pair of manacles forged out of frosted lead, which are always painfully cold to the touch, and those locked in them suffer freezing agony.
- He still serves the Lord of Broken Twigs.
- Man, he's all cool and everything, but don't let him touch you. That's when the pain really starts. -Wilhelm
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Inspirations
- The Joker- from Batman
- Freddy Krueger- Nightmare on Elm Street
- Palpatine- Star Wars
Hauntings
- Lord Valentine - long time associate through Thornwall
- Wilhelm- hired muscle, whom Barbas enjoys using, because of the painful methods employed by the Ogre.
SEEKING BACKGROUND TIES!
- Past victims of his cruelty.
- Changelings which were hunted by this character, and caught or not.
I AM ALSO LOOKING TO JOIN SOME TYPE OF IC GROUP, PENDING LOOKING THROUGH THE GROUPS IN THE BOOK IF YOU THINK MY CHARACTER WILL FIT IN YOURS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
Player Information
Name: B Simon Smith
Cam #: US2004011047
Email: fiveminutehhallway (at) gmail (dot) com
AIM: simetradon
