Grayson Hawke

Grayson, the enigmatic prince of Lucrecio and last heir to the Hawke lineage, is without a doubt one of the most controversial figures in Gaia.

He is the son of the Sacred Holy Emperor Lascar, who strangled his own wife to keep her from giving birth to the Imperial first-born. Luckily the baby survived and, against all odds, began to grow strong and healthy. Given that not even the Emperor could spill the blood of his descendants, he ordered the construction of a strange complex where the boy was locked up in upon turning five. It was a labyrinth where the child would remain captive and in complete isolation for the rest of his life. Still, when he was just nine years old, Grayson managed to escape from the prison, solving all the puzzles and protections that the top minds of the Empire had created.

At that time, he had spent four years of his life without seeing or hearing any other human being.

Calmed and quiet, he walked half-naked in the middle of the Imperial castle, observing everything very closely before many surprised looks. Not a single person knew what to do or dared to stop him. When meeting his father, Lascar looked on him with contempt and said to the child: “The blood gets better with time. You took a lot less than I expected.”

A year later, when the Lord of War Elias initiated his coup d’état to end the depravations of Lascar and put Grayson in power, the Emperor forced his son to impale him with Aeolus’s Lawgiver. And so, the boy was convicted of spilling Imperial blood, thus losing his right to the throne. Unable to act against the child, Elias granted him the title of Prince of Lucrecio, sending him away while he tried to instill order in the Empire. Therefore, Grayson was transferred to Ilmora, where in just three years he earned his doctorate in Philosophy and Science, far exceeding any of his teachers. Just when he thought that he had nothing left to learn, he met Professor Loctus van Schwarzwald, who became his private tutor. After spending time developing a multitude of research and projects, he traveled to Lucrecio with Schwarzwald, where the prince initiated major changes. He didn’t hesitate to destroy everything that threatened or impeded his decision of gaining absolute power in the principality. From that moment on, his story plunges into shadows and mystery. During the following decades Grayson took many trips to different places in Gaia, founded Wissenschaft and subtly spread his power throughout the world. He also met the woman who would become Supreme Archbishop years later, Eljared, from who he obtained one of the 30 black metal pieces of Solomon with which he could complete The Process, a project that began a decade ago with Schwarzwald.

Grayson Hawke is an enigma to everybody. Cold, calculating, methodical… but at the same time absolutely unpredictable. He appears to be young, with short black hair and a carefully groomed goatee, although as all members of the Hawke lineage age at a particularly slow rate; though he just turned 42, he doesn’t even seem 30. There is something unusual in his presence, a strange aura that causes absolute terror and a deep fascination in everyone that looks at him. He is calm, even pleasant, and talks in a relaxed way, creating with his phrases as many questions as he answers. Nothing makes Grayson lose composure, irritates or torments him; he can speak of the death of thousands of people with the same apparent indifference with which he takes tea. So there are some who write him off as immoral, or even evil. However, he is moved by his personal code of ethics, a morality that conventional people seems incapable of understanding. To classify him as good or bad depends only on which of his facets you want to see.

Grayson is gifted with abilities beyond logic and comprehension. Quite possibly, he is the most brilliant mind of his age; maybe even all of history. He is able to predict the unpredictable, to draw accurate deductions solely based on his intuition and exploit any results or events in his favor. Sometimes, when something seems like a bad outcome for him, his subordinates are amazed to discover that it was all just an elaborate plan perfectly orchestrated by his mind. Perhaps his most inhuman feature is his ability to adapt to any circumstance and to master any subject in minutes or hours, which allows him to surpass the best teachers with only minimal attention on his part. So much so, that even disliking fencing and personal combat (he has practiced two or three times in his entire life), he is one of the best swordmasters in the world.

His objectives are truly a mystery, perhaps even to him. Anyone who is close to Grayson and bold enough to ask him what he plans to do have always gotten the same cryptic answer: “I once had a dream… and that dream is worth all the blood I’ve left behind and the thousands of corpses that will get in my way in the future.” Although most people think that he is a fanatic of science, Grayson doesn’t lend technology more importance than it’s due. For the Prince, knowledge is not a goal in itself, but a means to an end. In that respect he is a very pragmatic man; he does not conceive knowledge per se, so if something does not have a utility or purpose, it has no reason to exist.

Grayson is possibly one of the only people in Gaia that seems to be aware of the presence of the powers in the shadow, whose mere existence is to him, at best, annoying. Knowing full well that neither he nor his organization is a match for them in their current state, he would not mind absorbing other secret societies like Black Sun or Samael, before initiating something that isn’t reversible. In reality, he thinks that even with those he would lacks the power to face them, and that if he wants to achieve his goals, he will have to go further than any man or mortal being has gone before.

Despite his apparent passivity in recent years, Grayson has not stopped moving or acting. He has launched numerous projects, many of which remain active one way or another. He has become a fundamental pillar to the destiny of Gaia and, although his true objectives remain a mystery, each of his actions often brings changes that may represent a historical revolution.

DAAKU
During one of its trips to Nanwe, Grayson found a female black panther cub that had just lost its parents. Before the astonished eyes of the hunters, who didn’t know how to react, the dark man approached it and picked it up. If he just wanted to use it for his experiments or it really felt her pain, no one knows. Whatever it was, Grayson named her Daaku and personally took care of her, growing accustomed to carrying her everywhere.

While performing the second stage of The Process, Grayson subjected Daaku to the experiment in its highest degree. The result was the creation of the most powerful Processed so far, with the exception of Schwarzwald himself. In fact, his success was such that even he has never been able to recreate it.

Completely reborn, Daaku has frightful abilities, more characteristic of a demigod than a mortal creature. To measure its powers, Grayson made her fight ten Hecatondies; the panther destroyed them all in a matter of seconds. Not only does she have incomparable speed and power, but her powers also increase when she’s injured. At least in appearance, this ability makes her virtually immortal, since whenever she dies, she evolves into an increasingly powerful form, committed to destroying any threat.

Daaku is incredibly intelligent, as smart as any human being. She loves her master over all things and would do anything for him. Never separated from his side, she has become the most frightening and effective guardian for the Prince of Lucrecio.