The Dark Furie

Meet Adam, a regular 19th century teenaged boy with a few problems. You can probably tell what some of those problems are from the torch wielding mob behind him.

When Adam was born his mother loved him more than anything in the world until she died an hour later from blood loss. Adam's father came home that night to find his wife dead and his new son suckling at her blood covered nipple. Distraught he settled Adam in his crib by the window and ran to the local town for help. When he returned with the doctor his son was gone without a trace, still unnamed by his family.

Adam was given his name by the Baron of that area. One of his manservants had found Adam crying and recognised him as having the same condition as his master. He brought the boy to the Baron, who raised him as his own, naming him after the first man as presented in the Bible. The Baron's manservant later explained to his wife how he'd found the child in his crib covered in burns with his flesh bubbling away in the sunlight as if it were being stewed.

When Adam was seven years old his nanny tripped over one of his toys, fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Adam was the only witness. When the body was later found it had been cannibalised. The Baron went to see the boy and noticed traces of blood around his lips and on his fingers. It was then that he knew for sure and started to explain to the boy exactly what he was.

Understanding Adam

Adam actually suffers from the following three problems all at once.
Porphyria
Hyperglycemia
Anemia

These leave him with a constant hunger, a severe skin problem caused by sunlight and a severe reaction to sulphur heavy foods such as garlic, as well as an almost constant rage. Each of these diseases feeds the others, making their symptoms more pronunced than they would normally be. He is treating these by regular blood transfusions (a new science pioneered by the Baron yet not perfected yet) from paid members of the lower classes, leaving them with small wounds from the apparatus and a pale countenance. They are forced to keep the procedure a secret on pain of death, causing many to claim not to know how the wounds had occurred. Unfortunately for Adam, his early experiences lying in his mother's blood has given him a subconscious association of blood and food. This "fetish" is bringing his actions in pursuing his medical needs closer and closer to his eventual ruin.

At thirteen years of age Adam suffered the loss of another parent when the Baron died. The funeral, held in the grounds of the castle at night, was a sombre affair. Adam was the only person to attend who wasn't a servant at the castle. As the funeral drew to a close, the castle butler handed over the Baron's keys to Adam and told him to take the master's room as his own.

At fifteen, after two years as Baron, Adam was coming back from a visit to one of the furthest villages in his land. His black coach with curtained windows pulled up in front of a roadside inn and the driver entered to order food. Witnesses say that the meal was taken into the coach to be consumed there. Suddenly the coach began rocking as if some great beast were inside, pounding on the walls. The door opened and the plate was hurled against the wall of the inn, the meal barely touched. Later that night the inn was broken into by persons unknown and all the garlic in the place was burned.

During his seventeenth summer, unable to take long trips anymore, Adam began visiting the nearest village at night. He romanced the local girls, arranging to elope with them, meeting them at prearranged spots then cutting their throats and feasting on their blood. He remembered the Baron's warning to only take a little and never locally but had no choice left. The summer was brutal that year, and any exposure would surely kill him. He needed this for his own life to continue as normal.

One night a farmer happened across Adam feeding and a mob was formed. They wont catch him alive though. Later that day a woodsman, who so many years ago lost his own wife and son, will find a blackened corpse lying in a clearing almost shining in the sunlight that streams from above.