Aumrienok

Name: Aumrienok (ah-oom-ree-ehn-knock), Ri or Rien for short.

Age: 328

Gender: Male

Race: Demon

Appearance: Ri stands at precisely 6 foot, being about average for most demons of his sort. He is of average stature, neither particularly slim nor built, and has long black hair he keeps in any number of ridiculous configurations for fun. His skin is an ashen color and his almond eyes are typically black, though they turn red if he’s really angry or caught off guard, since that is their original color. He has very shiny, white, pointed teeth set in a mouth that seems to stretch just a little wider than should really be normal when he smiles, and two long, spiraling black horns that sprout from his temples and point mostly upwards. To complete the look, he also sports a nice set of leathery black wings, though no tail. There are different ranks of demons, and the lower the class, the more primitive the form, so most of his half-brothers actually have fewer embellishments than he does (no pointed teeth or horns or wings; all sons of the King of Hell have ashen skin and naturally red eyes).

Background: The King of Hell has always been allowed a harem without choosing a single legitimate queen, a system which has managed to both produce plenty of heirs and foster and encourage the type of unfortunate political scheming demons are so fond of. Aumrienok’s mother was a lower-class demon, but an extremely powerful one, and all she ever wanted in life was to get out of the gutter, stop having to work practically as a slave, keeping out the hellions and cleaning up soul gunk from incinerated souls. When the king came to their part of hell searching for souls escaping from incineration, she leapt at the chance to host and help him, and somehow her mad plan worked and the king took note of her. She was taken to the harem, which was more than she had ever hoped for.

The king’s favor, unfortunately, did not last long. After satisfying his lust with her a couple times, he never visited her again, but Ri’s mother still managed to get pregnant and bear the king a son, his ninth son, in fact, and thirteenth overall child. He wasn’t the first of the king’s children, but he also wasn’t the last by a long shot, and in Hell, the strongest son always comes out on top. As she raised him, his mother poured all of her hope for an increased status into him. But it never came.

Ri was a smart kid, good at magic, and quite a skilled warrior, and in his youth, his father seemed to favor him, often spending much time with him alone, but he never showed much aspiration for becoming king himself. As he grew older, his father also seemed to pay less attention to him. He became more and more frivolous, leaving aside his studies to sneak out of the palace for who knew what reason, generally coming to be thought of as the wastrel prince.

Only his mother knew the truth: that he was doing it on purpose and was in fact still a shrewd demon with plenty of power. What she did not know was that his father had actively warned him that if he didn’t want to be king, he should pretend to be as stupid and frivolous as possible, so as not to threaten his brothers. He has taken that lesson to heart perhaps a little too well, but has also quietly kept his own eyes and ears on the state of Hell and its denizens, and began to hear rumors of souls in the mid lands between life and death (where hellions are born) being devoured by a strange entity working its way to the land of the living. He sent a private message to it about his father. His father’s reply was, “You handle it yourself,” and he referred him to someone who would help him jump to the mid-realms.

Personality: Even if he wasn’t pretending to be a flighty moron, Aumrienok would doubtless be an irritating individual. He is a bit of a lazy jackass, whose most beloved hobby is picking at the overly serious people until they snap. It’s nearly impossible to tell when he’s being serious as he’s constantly cracking jokes and flirting at others’ expense, and although he lets other people take the lead, he never seems to listen to anyone. Add the fact that he’s spent most of his life pretending to be an idiot when he isn’t, and you get the sort of person who screws things up constantly, yet struts around arrogantly instead of apologizing. The kind of person who everyone knows has ruined your day with his stupidity and blames it on you with a condescending smirk, though you can never seem to seriously humiliate or hurt him yourself.