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Fashion, or rather, image, is extremely important to a vampire, especially those kings of vampire kind known as the Vampire Lord. Extremely important. Power is eighty percent in the effect one can create, the intimidation, the fear that goes before one like an evil flower girl, loosening grips and opening doors.
Image is extremely important to an adventurer wandering around the world seeking jobs, tasks, lucrative quests. In a well saturated market, peasants pick and choose based on who looks like they can slay a troll and massacre a nest of bandits.
Fashion is most important to a knight, who must project an image of nobility and piety if he intends to be seen as noble and pious and therefore above criticism. Having been abducted and woken up in a foreign land that knows nothing of the Maker, Andraste, or the Chantry, this most crucial tier is on the bottom for Ser Mettin. No one cares about the Sword of Mercy in Skyrim. No one looks at the steel plate he pulled off some downed foe and automatically grants him all the respect and deference he's used to.
And as a vampire, he has certain…needs.
The spiky black and red mess known as ‘daedric’ armour is attractive in terms of conveying pure sadistic insanity, but it's also too good at conveying pure sadistic insanity. Peasants hesitate to chase him down in order to beg him to fulfill their inane requests. Demon hunters regularly ambush him on the road. They hamstring one's expensive horse, they lurk in bushes. Luckily, they don't automatically think demon armour = vampire. Meanwhile, vampire hunters assume he's either a demon or a rich man's son, and leave him be.
Ebony with a slight touch of demon blood is a more restrained idea, and since spending an innumerable number of hours creating iron daggers with which to flood the market for the purpose of increasing the amount of blood spilt in the frozen hellscape he finds himself, Ser Mettin is able to forge a suit of part daedric, part plain ebony armour suited to his tastes. Attached to the emblems of his Order as he is, its chest features a scarlet sword of mercy, and his new shield displays a scarlet sun. Plus, it features a skirted surcoat, just like his templar armour did.
An ebony helmet fits the noble aesthetic, but its wings are not nearly large enough, nor does it show enough of his eyes. But one cannot wear a hood and noble wings at the same time. Choices.
🦇
Vampires cannot check themselves out in the mirror, and men cannot ask how they look. Serena, once princess of the Volkihar Clan until her father was killed immediately after bestowing his ‘gift’, finds herself on the receiving end of a male seeking affirmation. She's taking her first nap since the extremely long nap she'd taken earlier, when the lid of her coffin is ripped open to reveal a hellish facade leering in at her. Its helmet is the fearsome black of ebony, while its hood is a lighter shade, the contrast combining with the high collar of a daedric cloak and the v-shape cutout over the bridge of its nose attracts all attention to its eyes, which are aflame with diabolism. The mask features vertical slots which break up the black and add to the wealth of visible skin, skin made ruddy by the light of its gaze, giving the impression that a human inhabits the suit. A human with advanced conjunctivitis, rather than the literal spawn of Molag Bal.
“Wow-”
The coffin lid slams shut.