Francis Codstone

Francis was born a human. At the beginning of the Nightworld Adventure, he is seventeen years old, and has been a vampire for approximately eight months.

Physical Characteristics
Francis has a slim, boyish build and vivid red hair, large worried green eyes and fair Irish skin. He is pretty-faced, almost girlish, and to many vampiric nobles/visitors from places where History took a few different turns, perhaps strangely reminiscent of a certain vampire Lord...

Normally Francis dresses plainly, in white button-down shirts without jacket or waistcoat, black trousers and black boots.

Francis is, and always has been, a hardcore stutterer, which only lowers his already abysmal self-esteem and tends to either worry or irritate everyone he talks to. The only times it eases up is occasionally when he speaks intimately to von Höllental.

Personality
Francis spends most of his time being painfully shy, self-conscious and needy, especially toward people who snub him. He is the quintessential shrinking violet for the most part-- except when the most important person in his life, Geier von Höllental, is threatened, in which case he immediately becomes more violent than "violet", and the unlucky opponent ends up on the floor asphyxiating in its own blood.

Francis' most defining characteristic, besides his uncanny resemblance to the late unlamented Pan, is his extreme possessiveness of his Lord.

Biographical Information
Originally Francis lived in a small town on the Sto Plains with his father, who headed a foster home and was generally too busy to pay much attention to him; his mother died when he was ten. When Francis turned seventeen his stepmother kicked him out to make his own living, which he did for a while in various odd jobs, hitchhiking his way across the country and eventually over the border of Überwald. One day he saw a certain swordsman vampire win a duel outside the bar he worked at, saw in him everything he wanted and everything he wasn't, and fell in love at first sight. This crush quickly became an obsession.

Relationships
When discussing Francis, there is only one relationship that counts: that of himself to his Lord and idol, Geier von Höllental. As long as he has Geier's attention the rest of the world can go hang. And will, if they stand in his way: despite the adoring, submissive attitude he adopts in von Höllental's presence, Francis has a nastily jealous side (as seen in the short story "Baby of the Group", in which he breaks the neck of a fledgling vampire that von Höllental charges him with watching over). Additionally, he will go to any extreme to re-stake1his claim or prove his devotion.

None of the other Jägerpuppen care for him much, although Robin and Sebastien try to make an effort (more grudgingly on Bastien's part); his singleminded devotion disturbs those who became vampires against their will. Gunnlaug finds him contemptible and unnerving, Riley sees him as a useful scapegoat/butt of jokes, and Ansel just doesn't pay attention to any of his fellow minions.

1Oh, sorry...

Universe Crossover Qualities
Francis also appears in the original-universe roleplay Electrum City as the child of two superhumans struggling with an evil split personality, on the Mortal Instruments forum Upworld, Downworld (and briefly on the Mortal Instruments RP forum) as a modern urban Earth vampire and the adopted son of a witch (in the second instance along with a similarly modified version of his master, there called Erich von Höllental).