Ian, known to the world mostly by his nickname Dread (and within context of the Mictian Project, Europe's astral research station, as Mictian), is arguably my most influential character and one that I keep finding myself fascinated by. As a gamemaster character, Ian was quite possibly the objectively strongest character I've ever wielded without regrets, effortlessly reaching almost godlike power. All the more surprising, perhaps, is the depth that I ended up equipping him with.

Dread was created alongside with the character of Frederick Pasquan in 2001, though I was initially undecided whether to truly make him a different person altogether or simply play the multiple personality card. Those reading back on the early logs will find that my indecisiveness subtly shows.

In the first incarnation of Crimson Feather, Dread survived everything we threw at him - though, to be fair, that's never really been a lot. Apparently, people know better than to waste their time trying to counter something almost godlike that only affects a bare handful of people in the first place.

In the second incarnation of Crimson Feather, however, I wanted to emphasise precisely how fragile he really was. Unfortunately, I like making my points a little extreme and he's dead now; apparently, no amount of telepathy is going to stop three bullets in transits from ripping through your ribcage.

Despite his death, his name continually pops up, even in character, which has a lot to do with how he appeared and the warranted conspiracy theories that people carry about themselves in consequence.

As a psychic, Dread's main means of interaction was through the minds of the people he decided to torment. In fact, he's the source of my "pleasant nightmares" phrase, most expertly emotionally tearing people apart between fear, loathing and more pleasant emotions, ultimately making them uncertain which of them to follow, and more often than not simply cracking under that strain. "Pleasant nightmares," was his mocking curse on people when leaving, most of the time after inflicting just that on them - a venomous nod toward that their subconscious mind was a bit ensnared by the conflict and rest would not be had.

Given that there seemed to be little rhyme or reason behind whom he picked to torture, everyone had to fear being at his whim, as there was no known way of keeping him out of one's mind, though there've always been limits on how much power he was able to wield: trying to project an all-encompassing illusion into the minds of more than four people was basically impossible, and those four would demand much concentration on his part.

Additionally, with the exception of the art of illusion, Dread disliked making use of his powers - perpetually fascinated with human emotion, he wanted to see the most of them, and controlling people to do what he wished them to do always dampened fear and self-loathing and allowed them to focus on their hate for him. Not bothersome, as such, but certainly inconvenient and less endearing.

Still, control was a frequent enough recurring theme from Dread, especially in any one character's early days of interaction with him, where focus was not yet easily shifted - as, for example, his favourite victim, Frederick Pasquan, became in himself an outcast of society, viewed in the eyes of those less knowledgeable as an unpredictable psychopath.

Never mentioned in context of the roleplay, Dread's motivation was something that eluded me for many years of playing him, given my general flavour of roleplay is explorative. While questing for one-word summaries of the core concepts behind characters, I stumbled across Dread's with some horror, understanding, abruptly, why he was quite so terrifying: love.

To understand that - which seems so obviously contradictory to the way he interacted with people - let me explain more precisely what his motivation was:

Having grown up as a psychic and found only by chance in his early years that others were not, coming to be mostly rejected by his own parents, Dread decided to acknowledge how different he was. Still, he always held respect for the species that bore him - humanity - though he considered them ultimately below him. Unlike classical snobby-arrogant villains, Dread considered this inferiority fixable, much like a parent might consider a child's measly attempts at getting a complex task done not laughable but instead worthy of aid.

Growing up on the streets of Manchester, Dread adopted a benign form of darwinism to deal with the reality of the world around him. Personally removed from the same by sheer power of his abilities, he was occasional witness to crimes, and much like a documentary filmer might consider cannibalistic infanticide in animals simple regrettable habit of the species.

The reason for his torments - a true strain of sadism notwithstanding - was a deeply rooted desire to help humanity slowly advance to a stronger race. Dread's definition thereof was, of course, mental advance; by infiltrating people's minds and confronting them with their worst fears, he either weeded them out of the gene pool or made them resistant to those fears, grafting them into emotionally far stronger individuals than the average human being.

As an example, in a way, Frederick Pasquan had almost reached his full potential in regards to Dread's worldview by the time Dread died - contact between the two had already petered out slightly, becoming more testing than truly contrary.

In a nutshell, Dread did what he did out of affection for those who survived the initial encounter. This is what made him so formiddable - most other emotions can be rationalised away, but you cannot appeal to someone's mercy who truly, deeply believes that this is what he is delivering.

Note that the only one that ever developed an understanding for Dread's motivation, subconscious though it may have been - and thus felt a deep trust for him, to the point of semi-formally becoming his girlfriend - was Elizabeth Zinn.

Taken from the Crimson Feather website, this is his original physical description:

"Dread's physical form is almost negligible - even though he has a considerable tallness, he has almost no strength. His entire physical tactics rely on swiftness - there is neither offensive or defensive capability in his fragile body. But he has never been bothered by it, as it has never been relevant.

"He keeps his hair long, the individual strands curling into chaotic waves, leaving him to look a bit as though it were unkempt, yet with a strange appeal. His eyes are so dark that they're almost black.

"His long, thin fingers are tipped with long nails that are almost constantly covered in black gloss. Normally, he keeps that as being his entire body-decor - occasionally, however, he will don royal blue, navy or black lipstick, to special events - the last to events of utmost formality.

"His clothes are preferably a silky black - he enjoys the crass contrast to his skin-colour they form."

Dread was dead before Enki even appeared in character. However, I have no doubt about that if Dread had survived his encounter(s) with Minoru Hotaru-Hoshi, he would not have survived Enki - and, much like he did not want to survive Minoru Hotaru-Hoshi, would not have wanted to survive Enki, either.

Enki, responsible for the destruction of the remnants of the Mictian Project after Dread fled that particular prison in a Gaia's Vengeance operation designated 'Invoking Shiva', as a man of intricate, meticulous planning, would have found means immediately following the strike at the research station of supressing Dread's astral abilities by some means, rendering him basically helpless against any attack.

One should not mistake Dread's darwinism as being misplaced. If such a constellation had ever come to transpire, he would have had a deep, emotional acceptance of his defeat - perhaps even been partly delighted that he was not, as suspected due to evidence, unbeatable.

In honour of the date of his death, such a scenario was played out non-canon, though the tail end of it remains unwritten; as such I would rather not publish it here just yet.