Rick Warner was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, in one of the worse neighbourhoods which surround chinatown in 1972. His parents were disinterested in him from the beginning, his peers were never interested in anything but theft and vandalism for the most part, and his schools' administrators' interest was in getting him and as many of his classmates through the system as quickly as possible. In short, he was essentially left to his own devices throughout most of his early life, raised on television and street crime.

For what it's worth, he got to be pretty good at the very few things he was good at, which basically included petty crimes and the ability to walk away from them unscathed. By his late teens, Rick had managed to avoid doing or learning anything of value to society, and was blissfully unaware of anything outside of his fairly small world-view. Perhaps that's why Max took interest in him.

Max was a weird guy. He spent all his time hanging around in the same park as Rick and his friends did, and he seemed to be about the same kind of guy on the surface; he dressed the same way, he seemed to be about the same age, and he talked about the same way... but what he talked about was downright foriegn to a lot of the other kids there. While everyone else in the park would be talking about the apartment they'd just robbed or the pigs they hated the most, Max would be talking about existentialism and zen philosophy. Moreover, he was talking about them in terms that the kids in the park could understand.

Most of them just dismissed it as pointless, but somehow, Rick found himself drawn into Max's debates. Rick was ignorant, but he wasn't stupid. He had a keen mind, but this was the first time he'd been called upon to make use of it. Somehow, talking to Max seemed to fill in all those gaps in Rick''s world-view. All those things he'd never had the ability to ponder before. Before too long, Rick found his income slumping as he spent more and more time debating with Max in the park late at night.

Over the course of the next year or so, Rick's mind began to slowly improve more and more, as his life as he had known it up to that point began to dissolve more and more. It was a morbid kind of fascination Rick had with Max. He knew that he wasn't making as much money as he was before, and that his other friends were losing interest with him, and that a lot of the things he was learning were just depressing the hell out of him, but at the same time, it was growing increasingly difficult for him to maintain interest in anything that his peers had to say to him.

As Rick began to think more and more about his existence and it's essential meaninglessness, he slowly came to the realisation that perhaps he ought to do more with his life than he had, but he was frankly stumped for options. He had graduated from high school with rock-bottom grades, his friends and family were of no use to him and had less and less use FOR him, and he had no practical skills which he could turn into a job. Even continued education was beyond his financial means. He ended up going on welfare and spending larger and larger amounts of time lazing about and watching TV, just in order to fill up his empty time.

When Rick's welfare coverage was suddenly and unexplainably cut off, he found himself thrust out onto the streets in fairly short order. He attempted to resume his life of crime, but his skills had atrophied, and he found himself wanted by the police not long after. Finally, he turned to his sole remaining friend, Max, and asked him for help.

Perhaps predictably, the help which Max gave Rick was not what he had expected.

Max offered to let Rick crash out at his place for a while Rick got his head together. When they got there, Rick was totally taken aback. Whatever he had expected, this was not it. Max, as it turned out, lived in a mansion some distance from the core of TO, and seemingly lived there alone. Rick was understandably stunned, and asked how Max could afford a place like this. When Max told him it was "The product of centuries of accrued interest", Rick had wrongly assumed that Max was talking about family savings.

After Rick had dumped his stuff in one of Max's guest bedrooms, Max asked him if he'd like to see the house's gallery. Curious, Rick agreed. Again, it wasn't quite what Rick had expected. The place was a large room, it's walls covered by paintings and enlarged photos, all in sets of three, each set seeming to contain pictures of the same person at different points in their lives. The oldest of them were from back in the 1600's.

As Max explained it, each set of three pictures told a story. The first picture in each set was of some young man or woman who led an empty, meaningless life, but didn't realise it yet. The second picture was always of that same person, having realised their worthlessness. The third was of them after their lives had been instilled with meaning. Rick had laughed bitterly at this, asking how that had happened. Completely matter of factly, Max had at that point told him that in each of their cases, it had been through his intervention.

"Oh, that's bullshit," Rick had responded. "You weren't alive back then."

"Oh, yeah? You think you have all the answers?" Max had replied with a smile. He then went on to tell the stories of the first four series of pictures; all tales of woe and despair and eventual victory, thanks to Max's role in their lives. At first, Rick had allowed Max to tell his stories in the hopes of nothing more than a good laugh. Slowly, though, he started to realise that Max's familiarity with the details and specifics of each story was too much to be mere fabrication.. It was at this point that Max asked Rick to follow him to where his latest pictures were.

There, at the end of the gallery, were two pictures. Photographs, enlarged to ten feet in height. The first, to Rick's growing horror, was of himself, sitting with his friends in the park one night, laughing and chattering about some unknown but presumably infantile topic. The second was of him sitting at home one night, eating macaroni and cheese from a pot and watching TV in his underwear. The third slot was empty.

"So, here's where you have a choice, Rick," Max had said to him then, cutting off Rick a moment before he asked what was going on here. "Do I get a third picture to go with these two, or do I have to toss these two masterpieces away? Will you let me instil your life with some meaning, or is THIS", he said, pointing at the second picture, "where your life ends?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" Rick asked. "What the fuck are you on about?"

"It's like this, dude. Right now, you're limited by the hand that life has dealt you. What I want to do is take that life away from you and give you a better one. Well, one which you're better prepared for, anyways, than this one."

"Bear with me a second here, and I'll explain. See, Rick, the only thing you've ever been is a relatively clever animal. The only time you've ever succeeded at anything was when you preyed upon your fellow man and kept yourself ignorant of the world beyond your surroundings. The first problem was that you wanted more than that, but didn't know what else you wanted. The second is that that when you got it, it, in this case, being enlightenment, it conflicted with what you already had. Humans aren't ready to be predators AND thinking creatures. They're one or the other. I'm giving you a chance to be both, if you're up for it."

"Yeah, and how are you gonna do that?", Rick asked, dubiously. He was starting to wonder if there was really something to what Max was talking about. He'd never known Max to lie before.

"Simple," Max said, as he drew a knife out of one of his pockets and flipped it open. "I'm going to make you just like me". With that, Max plunged the knife blade into his own throat and dragged it through his flesh, from ear to ear. Blood sprayed onto the pristine white floor, and Rick screamed and stepped way back, watching with horrified fascination as Max then licked the knife blade clean, folded it, placed it back into his pocket,, and then caused his neck to repair it's self. "I'm going to make you a vampire. You cool with that?"

Before Rick could formulate a response, Max was upon him, tackling him to the ground with a strength that Rick was totally unprepared for. A moment later, his neck was pierced by Max's fangs, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The adjustment period for Rick was a tough one. Although he grudgingly admitted that he really hadn't had anything to lose, it took him a while to click with what, exactly, he had to gain. The matter was complicated by his often unpredictable 'mood swings' and periods of illucidity. One minute he would want to go out and hunt down the first human he saw. The next, he wanted to toss himself from the top of the nearest skyscraper. The moment after that, he'd grow completely disinterested in anything but the most cerebral of pursuits. All throughout it, though, Max was there, encouraging Rick to pursue his every desire, and facilitating them as best he could; teaching Rick how to go about them without screwing himself over in the process.

Slowly, his mood swings began to become a bit more stable, as Rick began to realise that as long as he was satisfying the base desires of one of his moods, he wouldn't slip into another. This accorded him a bit of stability in his life. As best he could, without breaking the various traditions Max had spelled out for him, Rick began to experiment. One night he would go out and scurry from roof-top to roof-top, pillaging people's lives and homes, running barefoot through the streets for hours on end, and tracking people across the city; enjoying his predatory side. The next night, he would sit down in his sire's library and read for hours upon hours, soaking up as much of the wisdom of the ages as he could, undistracted by hunger or need. The night after that, he would push his physical boundaries to their limits, placing himself in mortal danger at every opportunity, revelling in his nigh-indestructibility; his freedom from the fear of pain.

Eventually, Rick came to terms with this change. It was like Max said, he was free to be all the things he wanted to be, simply because he had the ability to be each of them in turn, without the limitations of the others. He could pursue all of his interests and drives without conflict or confusion.

Ten years came and went like nothing, and Max eventually grew confident that Rick would be able to go out and express himself without violating any traditions. It was at this point that he came to Rick and told him, "I've decided that I'm holding you back here. You'd do a lot better off on your own. I've got some pals in New York City that'll get you set up out there. Consider yourself released". Rick was a bit leery about moving to the states, and none too pleased about leaving his sire's library. Still, he knew he's out-stayed his welcome, and there WERE those parts of him who sought the thrill of a new city, and who wanted to suffer the hardship involved with doing so, and as such, Rick didn't put up a fight. He was moved off to NYC, and there he resides tonight.