Eli Damaskinos was a pureblood vampire and the Overlord of the Vampire Nation. It is believed that he is several centuries old, perhaps even millennia. Damaskinos sired two offspring, both pureblood vampires as well; his daughter Nyssa and his son Nomak.
Biography[]
Blade II[]
Damaskinos sought to genetically alter the Vampire species for the express purpose of removing their inherent weaknesses, more specifically their vulnerability to sunlight. In essence, he wanted to duplicate the random qualifiers that created the Daywalker known as Blade. To this end, Damaskinos secretly created a virus designed to improve upon a vampire's natural strengths. He used his own son Nomak as a guinea pig, but his work did not achieve the result he sought. Instead, he inadvertently created an offshoot vampire race that came to be known as Reapers. Nomak was patient zero and a carrier of the Reaper Strain. Nomak went rogue and began transmitting the virus to as many vampires as he could find. Within short order, hundreds of vampires were being transformed into Reapers as the disease was spread from feeder to victim. The most dangerous aspect that distinguished Reapers from other vampires is that they derived nourishment through drinking the blood of other vampires, as well as humans. This fundamental trait threatened to bring the natural vampire race to the verge of extinction.
Damaskinos realized that he had little alternative but to turn to the Vampire Nation's worst enemy for assistance - Blade, the Vampire Hunter. He forged a temporary truce with Blade and convinced him that the Reaper threat was a concern for both parties. His selling point was that once Nomak and the Reapers eradicated all vampires, they would then begin hunting down Blade's "precious humans". Blade reluctantly agreed to the truce, mostly because in doing so, he would become privy to the Vampire Nation's most closely guarded secrets. To this end, Damaskinos placed Blade in charge of a vampire combat troupe known as the Bloodpack.
Few people knew the true origins of the Reaper Strain, and Damaskinos kept it a closely guarded secret. To the rest of vampire society, Reapers were just the end result of natural selection gone mad. The secrecy behind Damaskinos' plans began to unravel when Nomak sought out an encounter with Blade's armorer, Abraham Whistler. Nomak gave Whistler a ring and told him the truth about Damaskinos. When Whistler returned to the vampires' headquarters with Blade, he revealed what Nomak had told him and everyone, Nyssa in particular, learned the truth about the Reaper Strain. When Nyssa called him out on it, Damaskinos made it clear that his own family means nothing to him compared the ascension of their kind.
Jared Nomak soon returned to the lair of his birth to confront his father. He desired revenge for being transformed into a hideous monster. After Nyssa locked down the compound, thereby preventing her father's escape as well as her own, Nomak was able to catch and confront Damaskinos. The old Vampire begged his son's forgiveness, and tried to appease him with promises of global domination. Nomak heard the trembling in his father's voice, and knew that this was just the last act of a desperate man. Though he could no longer allow his father to live, Nomak could not bring himself to turn him into a Reaper. Instead, he embraced his father, and tore out a large portion of his throat with his fangs. Damaskinos fell to the floor and bled to death. His body transformed into a petrified alabaster shell.
Character traits[]
Eli Damaskinos is an old vampire, ancient enough to have extremely pale skin as thin as paper, and most of his natural powers seemingly lost due to aging. Physically, he resembles Count Orlock from Murnau's classic horror film "Nosferatu". He seems to be too old even for proper feeding, since he's seen eating something that resembles a blood jelly instead of drinking blood like other vampires. Despite this, he's strong enough to threaten his daughter Nyssa by grabbing her throat, suggesting he's still a powerful vampire.
Damaskinos is one of the most influential vampires, especially after the fall of the House of Erebus by the hands of Deacon Frost. He possesses a large amount of personal wealth and land, since he can finance a large scale scientific research laboratory (where he created The Reaper strain), an elite team of soldiers, an army of personal security, and lives in an enormous estate on a private island. He mostly acts as a mastermind, preferring to concoct elaborate plans from the shadows rather than act in first person. To this end, he makes use of spies and undercover agents like Scud, one of Blade's allies, and Reinhardt of the Bloodpack. He's somewhat charming and charismatic, but he can be cruel when disappointed or angered.
Relationships[]
- Nyssa - Daughter / Leader of the Bloodpack.
- Jared Nomak - Son / Patient Zero of the Reaper Strain, genetically built for the purpose of starting a new breed of vampires resistant to sunlight.
- Karl Kounen - Familiar / Chief Executor / Lawyer.
Appearances/Actors[]
- Canon (1 film)
- Blade II (First appearance) - Thomas Kretschmann
Behind the scenes[]
- Damaskinos originally had long white hair but it was removed from the final film because, according to director Guillermo del Toro, it made him look like Michael Bolton.