"For centuries my sacrifices brought peace to this land. Now only my shadow remains."N A M E / A L I A S
Volkimir Sturmkirk
The Mortifier
Dark Angel
The Shadow King
M Y T H O L O G Y
As a nation both vast and ancient, Ansus has a history at once both lengthy and profound. Among its many colorful legends of triumphant heroes, there are just as many tales of misery and despair. Onesuch tale regards the tragedy of House Sturmkirk, one among the many royal bloodlines descended from the venerable Forefather and his compatriots. In times long past, when the land of Ansus was divided amongst petty kingdoms and fractious empires, there were few who could called themselves nobility that held true to the honor of their ancestors. Sturmkirk was one of these few noble households; reverent to the gods, benevolent to their vassals, and merciless to their enemies. Great fortresses and cathedrals were erected in the Eastern Reaches at their command: baroque towers of stone and iron rising among the mighty trees and mountain peaks as tributes to the achievements both mortal and divine. Their territory, the Stormlands, held fast against rival kingdoms and barbarian hordes alike, and the Sturmkirk name became synonymous with power and majesty.
It is said that the glory of Sturmkirk died with their last true king, a mighty warrior and crusader. Killed in battle against one of the many barbarian tribes so deeply entrenched in the Stormlands, the crown was passed onto his son, marking the beginning of a dark new era in the legacy of that ancient breed, and indeed for all of Ansus. The newly-crowned king was not a warrior as his father was; rather, he was a scholar and alchemist, as well as a wizard if rumors were to be believed. Rather than rule by the sword, he sought to uphold the strength of his nation through more enlightened legislation, and educating his subjects. A civilized man in uncivilized times, the king's thoughtfulness was seen as weakness by both neighboring kingdoms and the barbarians plaguing his kingdom. Conflicts erupted throughout the Stormlands, as well as widely across its borders. The might of their military was enough to keep the peace, but not without cost. The stability of his kingdom lessened, the peasantry grew fearful, and the king's court began to question him.
The decline of House Sturmkirk was slow, yet gradual, and felt more strongly year by year. Border engagements became mounting defeats, and territory was lost to the Stormlands' greedy neighbors. Barbarians won out against guards and soldiers, and raids on common villages became increasingly frequent. The king grew older, and dissent grew in his court. His bannermen mocked him in their cups, and rumors circulated of dark and disturbing experiments carried out in the laboratories carried out beneath Castle Sturmkirk. His perceived failings reached their peak as the royal keep itself was assaulted by a barbarian horde. The royal guard's numbers depleted by years of conflict, the king's sons took to the walls to bring courage and inspiration to those that remained. The castle was held, but at a dire cost; the king's only sons had been killed in battle. Those closest to the king knew then that the pressure of leadership had finally come to break him, and that he was not the same man since those days.
His territory shrinking, his homeland sacked and plundered by bandits and tribesmen, and his heirs dead, the king grew desperate to restore honor and glory to his household. At first he tried what he knew best, logic and science. Logistics and law were planned and written out to revitalize the kingdom, but to no avail. Propaganda next, to stir the common folk into fighting back against the despair that had settled in their country. As even this failed, the king turned to darker arts; sorcery and enchantment were delved into, to restore the fortune and power of the Stormlands. These forbidden forays seemed to drain what was left of the king's sanity, and so he resorted to the foulest heresy of all: he procured a deal with a demon.
The demon Shilgengar was summoned from the depths of the infinite hells, promises of power and prestige on its lips and malice in its heart. The immortality and might of the divine were offered to the mad king, and were eagerly accepted. In exchange, the demon demanded that he forsake the gods of his ancestors, and offer up the very life of his family's patron angel. Without a second thought, the king cast off the gods of old, and callously lured the sacred angel Marycz to a cruel and gruesome death. The demon took the holy blood of the slaughtered angel, and after mixing it with his own foul ichor, offered it to the king and his few remaining loyalists. They partook eagerly, but were all-too-predictably fooled by the malevolent beast. Rather than bless them with divine strength, they were cursed to endure their sins eternally; they had become immortal, half-living fiends of night, Vampires.
A curse though it was, power had been restored to Sturmkirk all the same. With their newfound strength of flesh and magic, their homeland was "purified," first quickly by removing all of those who had dissented against the king. Later was the long war against the barbarians that had been a curse upon the land for time immeasurable. However, they were a blessing in comparison to what had now befallen the Stormlands. Madness of the mind and sins of the soul twisted the nobility of the Stormlands into monsters, and the entire region devolved into a cesspit of debauchery and corruption. Commoners were slaughtered in droves, and they were the lucky ones. Others became human cattle to the vampiric nobility, or were subject to the king's depraved experiments. A miasma of darkness settled over the Stormlands, as though the gods themselves had forsaken this land and everyone within it. The kingdoms of the age no longer dared to venture within its borders, and monsters and heretics from lands far and wide sought asylum in this locus of evil. Generations passed, and the black forests and looming peaks eventually became known as the Shadowlands. In a way, the mad king succeeded in returning power to Sturmkirk, as no family became more fear or hated in all of Ansus.
However, as the ages passed and the powers of the land grew fewer and mightier, a man emerged from the Shadowlands' unholy depths, bearing a forsaken name. He was Volkimir Sturmkirk, and he had come to restore honor to his name. Filled to sickening of the depravity of the vampire courts of his homeland, his personal quest had been one to return the pride of House Sturmkirk. For years untold he wandered the length and breadth of the world. In distant lands, where men spoke strange tongues and had never heard the name Sturmkirk, he learned to be a sorcerer, a swordsman and a statesman. Across the myriad kingdoms of Ansus, he delved ancient tombs and ruins, uncovering secret arts and lost artifacts. He sought out the great masters of combat and the clever craft, and upon defeating them demanded that they remember his name. With treasure and triumph, he crafted his own legend, though one spoken of only in whispers. Despite his efforts, Sturmkirk was still a cursed name, and for all of his power and prestige, he was still the same unholy monster that had bespoiled a great noble house: a vampire.
A centuries wore on, Volkimir adjusted his goals and methods, taking on a subtler approach to restoring the pride of his ancestry. Where he saw useful allies, he lent his strength to create immortal dynasties. Where rivals or antagonist could emerge, he brought destruction and ruin. From the short-sighted perspectives of men, this mysterious figure seemed to be a capricious agent of fortune, more an unreadable omen than a man. However, as he grew older, Volkimir could feel himself growing cold and distant. He felt more detached from mortal men with each passing decade, and found their ephemeral ideas and motivations increasingly unconscionable.
However, darkness loomed elsewhere than the immortal heart of the Shadowlands' outcast prince. Having finally exhausted the lives of their cursed homeland, the vampires of Volkimir's former royal lineage turned their attentions outward for the first time in many centuries. With hordes of undead, immortal warriors, and the blackest sorceries imaginable, they took to the fields of battle against the kingdoms of the age. Like a plague they spread through the continent, bringing death and despair to Ansus like the land had never seen before. These were considered the end times by many, and became known as the Horror Wars. The defending empires were ill-prepared against this unholy onslaught, and it seemed that none could stand against them. However, there was one man who could fight such monsters, as he was one of their very blood.
Volkimir beseeched the nations that still had strength to stand against the powers of the Shadowlands. He brought them his power and expertise, his wisdom and experience. Many nations turned him away at first, thinking him to be an agent of corruption or insurrection, but some were desperate enough to trust in him, and they were enough at first. The few key victories he won against the dark hordes earned him the loyalty of the greater powers, and they were enough to turn the tide of the Horror Wars. The Shadowlands' forces were legion, their ranks filled with demons and other unspeakable monstrosities, but for every monster they wielded, Volkimir had a new trick or strategy. He turned their undead against them, lured them to their holy banes, or deceived demons into accepting self-defeating contracts, among many other unorthodox tactics.
The wars ended within a year, the monsters beaten back to their unholy hive, and peace had returned to Ansus. The vampires spurned Volkimir, calling him a betrayer of his kind, and branding him as "Mortifier." Some common folk and clergy saw him as a secret blessing of the gods, silently paying tribute to this "Dark Angel." Many of the nations who fought in the wars had united in face of a common enemy and become a single state, or merely absorbed lesser, defeated nations. In sight of this united Ansus, which he had commanded to victory, Volkimir saw his perfect opportunity to achieve ultimate honor and glory. He attempted to appoint himself as king over the united kingdoms of Ansus. However, this was far from a successful ploy; though he knew the minds of his enemy, he had grown too detached from men to know their minds. Commoners viewed him as yet another monster attempting to conquer them through underhanded means. The church saw him as demonspawn, utterly unfit to rule the lands the Forefather had conquered in the name of the gods. Indeed, the Grand Ecclesiarch himself claimed that his bronze cane would sooner blossom with flowers than the gods permit such a monstrosity to rule over their people. The myriad nations that had allowed Volkimir to save them and their people washed their hands of him, seeing him as a deniable asset not expended of use.
Rage and despair overcame Volkimir. He had given everything he had to these people, and yet they still spurned him. Only then, he realized, he had not truly given them everything. With a small host of loyal soldiers, Volkimir marched back into the Shadowlands, and was never seen again. It is said on that same day, the cane of the Ecclesiarch bloomed with beautiful, bronze flowers. In years after his disappearance, monsters ceased to emerge from the tainted forests, and the aura of darkness slowly faded from the land. Gradually the peasantry returned, and the land was resettled, its dark past was forgotten to the passage of time; merely a black page in the history of Ansus.
A P P E A R A N C E
As an ageless vampire, Volkimir is considered to be an avatar of dark and forbidden beauty. Seen usually as a tallish man with the well-balanced build of an experienced warrior, Volkimir Sturmkirk is a striking figure to behold. His features are sharp and angular, balanced by his masculine brow and strong jawline. His eyes are the most distinctive feature of his face; their black sclera and icy, luminous irises are distinctly inhuman, and Volkimir's gaze is piercing and predatory. Sharp, white fangs are revealed whenever he smiles or speaks, and his incisor teeth seem unnaturally sharp and jagged. His hair hangs to the top of his shoulderblades, and is so fair that in most lighting it seems completely white. Volkimir's skin, while usually so pale as to seem translucent, takes on a sickly, ashen hue when exposed to sunlight, stripping away his last disguise of humanity.
A B I L I T I E S / E Q U I P M E N T
As a vampire, Volkimir is at once much more and much less than a normal man. His strength and speed are both mythic; far greater than what can be attained by common men. He can see in darkness just as well as in light, can hear a heartbeat from across a full feasting hall, and can smell a living bloodscent from a league away. If he so chooses, he can move in complete silence, become invisible, or fly through the air like a phantom of night. Neither age nor disease blights him, and his half-living flesh is greatly resistant to cold and poison. However, he is cursed to feed upon the lifeblood of mortals, requiring at least a human body's worth of blood every turn of the moon. Sunlight is his bane, searing his skin and punishing him with migraines should he come in direct contact with it. Silver nauseates him, and the sight of his own reflection fills him with delirium. Moonlight reflected in water or by a silver mirror inflicts Volkimir with temporary blindness, should it meet his eyes. Though he can recover from wounds faster than most mortal men, any wound inflicted by silver or living wood festers rather than heal cleanly.
Most mortals have but a few decades to practice their skills, whereas Volkimir has had thousands of years to perfect his own. He is a swordsman
par excellence, wielding a bastard sword with inhuman power and grace. His skill as a statesman and general are both profound, and he speaks many tongues both living and dead. A master manipulator, Volkimir is able to turn both common men and entire nations to his will. These are merely his mortal skills, as his magical arts are far more profound. By plumbing ancient ruins in distant corners of the world, Volkimir is master of many magical practices forgotten by mankind. His favored spells fall under the domain of "sangromancy," a rare and secretive school of black magic that specializes in manipulating flesh, bones and blood. Volkimir's most infamous techniques are to painfully disintegrate flesh to ash, or to manipulate the matter of still-living bodies, turning his enemies and prey into puppets.
Almost as famous as the man himself is his legendary sword, Elbrus, the Bound Blade. While ornate in design and flawless in construction, Elbrus is quite unusual in having been forged of a metal not known to earthly smiths. The blade is seemingly unbreakable, with an edge as sharp as winter, and so dark in color that it appears to consume light rather than reflect it. Intensely magical, the sword absorbs the life-force of those it wounds, giving Volkimir a considerable advantage in lengthy duels. However, this is not a mere enchantment; Elbrus has bound within it a powerful demon, sealed within the sword countless ages ago by a holy warrior that gave his own life to contain the monster. The sword has an unspeakably unholy aura to those sensitive to such matters, and the demon whispers foul promises and fouler threats to anyone weak of will that comes to wield Elbrus.
In his travels Volkimir acquired many other trappings and trinkets, relics of bygone eras. Remarkable is that the man left behind almost no artifacts of his own; having "borrowed" his material strength from more ancient heroes, his ancestors and forebears. Such "reappropriated" relics include the Helvault, a mysterious meteorite said to imprison 108 different demons, and the spear Encarmine, said to have been wielded by a dragon-slaying angel of ages past.
A G E O F L E G E N D
The Horror Wars were roughly 2,000 years ago, though Volkimir was born an indeterminate number of millennia before.
