Lego Mistborn

Otto von Chriek is a very bizarre vampire. Like many others of his kind, he has taken a temperance pledge, vowing off blood in an effort to integrate better into “normal” society, which would otherwise be very hostile towards him, and indeed may try to kill him. Otto also has other quirks, stemming from his “Black Ribboner” status. As such, his mannerisms reflect this in-between state, and so does his abode. Examining Otto’s room, and the decorations and other contents within, can showcase the oddities of his personality.

Starting with the least unusual aspects, Otto’s room is continually kept dark. As a vampire, even though he is a reformed one, significant amounts of bright light against his skin will instantly turn him to dust. This is the standard living situation for a vampire, but Otto is lucky enough to have an underground room, living in the basement of the newspaper for which he works. Additionally, because of his job, Otto is often accidentally exposed to bright light, which poses a problem. Luckily, his friend and employer William de Worde provided a suggestion. Otto likely keeps many vials of animal blood on hand, not for drinking, but to wear around his neck, so that, if incapacitated, one would shatter, spill blood on his dust, and resuscitate him.

Every detail of Otto’s room related thus far has been derived from his vampire nature, but one of Otto’s quirks is that he has signed a temperance pledge. Part of this pledge is membership in the Ankh-Morpork Temperance Society. As a member, Otto is likely to keep lots of cocoa on hand, which is a favorite drink of Temperance Society members, and helps them to keep their minds off of blood. Another part of Temperance Society membership he is known to have on hand is a copy of their hymnal, which contains many songs written to help them in their quest for temperance. Many vampires strive to appear harmless, usually by removing appearances of vampirism from their outward presentation. Otto also does this, albeit in a different manner; rather than remove traces of vampirism, by dressing like and otherwise imitating the typical Ankh-Morporkian, he presents himself as a caricature of Überwald (where most, if not all Discworld vampires trace their heritage from) society. Hoping that others will feel unthreatened, Otto dresses in exaggerated Überwaldian clothing and so that is what his closet will be filled with.

Of course, the craving for blood is a magical part of vampire-kind’s nature. It is a supernatural craving, and for a vampire to stop, they have to redirect that fervor towards something else, focussing on it as single-mindedly as they focused on blood. In Otto’s case, he has thrown himself into iconography, Discworld's equivalent to photography. The traditional tools of the trade include imps, which are very artistically talented and are the soul of iconography, flash salamanders, which absorb sunlight and release it in a flash, and an iconography box, which holds an imp who typically paints the scene before him. Some unique facets to Otto’s iconography practice include engraving materials, which Otto, who takes pictures for the newspaper and needs to have them capable of being printed, gives to his imps to carve a sort of bas-relief instead of painting. This alone is very experimental, but, because of his supernatural craving, he has delved even deeper into experimenting than this. For instance, he uses dark eels from Überwald, which are like flash salamanders, except that they illuminate the past and future, instead of just the present. Otto is so enthralled by them that he ignores the warnings of many others of the peculiar and menacing shocks people experience when an eel lets off a flash. Otto also experiments with different ways of representing color, so in addition to the salamanders, eels, imps, boxes, cages, and painting and engraving supplies, he also has on hand spectacles, tinted cyan, magenta, and yellow, designed so that three imps working together can make a full color image that can be printed using the press, an example of ingenuity on his part.

While the assignment was merely to describe Otto’s room, it is amazing how much can be learned about him from his room, and of course how much can be speculated about his room from his personality. One of the most outstanding facets of his character we see is his ingenuity, as he devises incredible iconographic techniques, and his creativity, through his methods of integrating into society. Altogether, Mr. Chriek is an incredibly interesting person.