- Messages
- 9
- Character Biography
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He lay dying on the ground. And though it seemed so distant to him, the thudding footfalls and knucklefalls of the creature--that beast, that grinning thing--as well as the shouts and battlecries of his fellow Guardsmen came from further inside the interior courtyard of the fort.
His name was Tartus Albright. An Anirian Guardsmen serving in the Army of the East, stationed at Fort Endurance for three years now, and tonight would be his last night of service. Debris from the fort's gates was strewn about him, and among this rubble was Tartus's sword.
He reached for it.
("Daddy, why do you have to go?")
He stretched. His fingers just out of reach of the hilt. Yet his training would not allow him to quit.
("I'm going to protect our home. You and mommy and everyone else. Because that's what daddies do.")
Tartus's hand dropped to the ground.
Falling short of his weapon.
Hours prior to the attack on Fort Endurance, hours just before nightfall, King Jürgen Kaiser was pleased. Enthusiastic for something, and had it not been a truly long while since he felt this way?
Down in a hollowed out cavern beneath the ground, the place where he decided to allow Lord Mulder and his beastshapers and fleshcrafters to work, it was finally done. And tonight Jürgen would see. The Mulder vampires had been brought into the Slaughtern host alongside the Mistweaver clan, and while they were few in number and lacking in strength themselves, their specialty was this: the creation of vampiric beasts and creatures to do their bidding. Lord Mulder had promised Jürgen a new breed, a masterwork exceeding the scale of vitality, ferocity, and might of what had been crafted before. And with the aid of Jürgen's Bloodstone, this promise had come to fruition.
The Wargheit. A portmanteau derived from the old tongue from the lands of Reikhurst. Fear in the night, indeed.
But the mere sight of Lord Mulder's success was not enough. A test was in order. There was a reason Jürgen had bid the Lord Mulder and his clan to travel all the way to Liadain, all the way to the giant shadow of Vel Anir itself, before they began their work. Not only were they a continent away from Reikhurst, but here could be found the so-called finest military in the world: the Anirian Guard. Jürgen desired to test the strength of this new breed of monster not against some hapless town or city with poor defenses and fighting men of low quality, no. If Wargheits were to be all that Lord Mulder said they could be, then an appropriate target was needed. A hard target. And Mistweaver spies had found just such a one.
Fort Endurance.
The test: to break in, fight through the defending soldiers, and find and kill the fort's Commander. A suitable challenge for Lord Mulder to prove his clan's worth to the Slaughtern host.
Perhaps, Jürgen mused, all of this would have been unnecessary if the rising of the Great Ones Drakormir and Neha was not so poorly timed for him. Or if they had bothered to live for more than a single day and keep the world occupied with their presence. Such would have kept attention far from Reikhurst, far from the coming Ritual. But, as it was, Jürgen needed to prepare to defend himself and the Bloodstone within his possession from any and all who might interfere. He needed to keep setting fires across Arethil to keep eyes and efforts away from Reikhurst. And this matter with Fort Endurance satisfied both of these needs.
Hm. Fort Endurance.
That would be seen.
Night seized hold of Arethil, and the Guardsmen on watch along the walls of Fort Endurance stared out at that tenebrous land. Thick clouds choked the sky. On occasion the silvery light of the moon would be freed and made to spill across the rough undulations of the grassland, and even the dark silhouette of Falwood to the east became visible. There had been some recent tensions with the denizens of Falwood (and truly, when was there not?) involving House Virak, so the soldiers were indeed on alert. Night watches were fully half of the fort's garrison. Thus far Fort Endurance suffered no assault, but The Homeguard stood ready all the same--even if a pronounced weariness from their prolonged vigilance strained them from time to time.
It was heard before it was seen. Tiny thumps at first, made quiet by distance but carried by the stillness of the night. A certain rhythm to them: thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-THUMP.
The men in the gatehouse, high above the sturdy gates sealing shut the interior of the fort, were the first to see it. The black clouds had parted, the light of the full moon shined down, and there was something moving.
Something right there. A fiendish creature of enormous size, grinning wickedly, eyes glinting with a near manic glee and ferocity and hunger, its face with the shriveled and grotesque features of some kind of twisted bat, its arms huge and its legs squat by comparison, its gait like those of the jungle gorillas on the other side of the world, its speed terrifying for its size, its whole existence a seething embodiment of the feral, unquenchable, vampiric lust for blood.
And it was charging right for the gates.
"HOMEGUARD, TO ARMS!" Tartus Albright yelled, and these would be his last words.
The Slaughtern Wargheit slammed into the mighty gates like a living battering ram, its shoulder bursting through first. Broken wood and twisted metal and shattered stone exploded inward in a spray of debris into the interior courtyard. Gallons of blood within the Wargheit had been burned to power such strength, and it left the Wargheit that much more ravenous. The beast lifted its grinning face and manic eyes to leer down at the hastily assembling Guardsmen in the courtyard.
The Homeguard had their mission, and the Wargheit had its own.
The attack had begun.
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The Slaughtern Wargheit
• Retains the powerful magic dampening from the Slaughtern strain, but is still weak to fire/light-based magic.
• Has a dulled sense of pain, but is an unnatural creature powered by blood. It will slow and weaken as it loses this blood. Every hit counts.
• Is being given direction and thus increased combat proficiency by a Mulder-vampire handler. The handler is nearby. Exact location unknown.
• Has a surprise deep inside its massive body.
His name was Tartus Albright. An Anirian Guardsmen serving in the Army of the East, stationed at Fort Endurance for three years now, and tonight would be his last night of service. Debris from the fort's gates was strewn about him, and among this rubble was Tartus's sword.
He reached for it.
("Daddy, why do you have to go?")
He stretched. His fingers just out of reach of the hilt. Yet his training would not allow him to quit.
("I'm going to protect our home. You and mommy and everyone else. Because that's what daddies do.")
Tartus's hand dropped to the ground.
Falling short of his weapon.
* * * * *
Hours prior to the attack on Fort Endurance, hours just before nightfall, King Jürgen Kaiser was pleased. Enthusiastic for something, and had it not been a truly long while since he felt this way?
Down in a hollowed out cavern beneath the ground, the place where he decided to allow Lord Mulder and his beastshapers and fleshcrafters to work, it was finally done. And tonight Jürgen would see. The Mulder vampires had been brought into the Slaughtern host alongside the Mistweaver clan, and while they were few in number and lacking in strength themselves, their specialty was this: the creation of vampiric beasts and creatures to do their bidding. Lord Mulder had promised Jürgen a new breed, a masterwork exceeding the scale of vitality, ferocity, and might of what had been crafted before. And with the aid of Jürgen's Bloodstone, this promise had come to fruition.
The Wargheit. A portmanteau derived from the old tongue from the lands of Reikhurst. Fear in the night, indeed.
But the mere sight of Lord Mulder's success was not enough. A test was in order. There was a reason Jürgen had bid the Lord Mulder and his clan to travel all the way to Liadain, all the way to the giant shadow of Vel Anir itself, before they began their work. Not only were they a continent away from Reikhurst, but here could be found the so-called finest military in the world: the Anirian Guard. Jürgen desired to test the strength of this new breed of monster not against some hapless town or city with poor defenses and fighting men of low quality, no. If Wargheits were to be all that Lord Mulder said they could be, then an appropriate target was needed. A hard target. And Mistweaver spies had found just such a one.
Fort Endurance.
The test: to break in, fight through the defending soldiers, and find and kill the fort's Commander. A suitable challenge for Lord Mulder to prove his clan's worth to the Slaughtern host.
Perhaps, Jürgen mused, all of this would have been unnecessary if the rising of the Great Ones Drakormir and Neha was not so poorly timed for him. Or if they had bothered to live for more than a single day and keep the world occupied with their presence. Such would have kept attention far from Reikhurst, far from the coming Ritual. But, as it was, Jürgen needed to prepare to defend himself and the Bloodstone within his possession from any and all who might interfere. He needed to keep setting fires across Arethil to keep eyes and efforts away from Reikhurst. And this matter with Fort Endurance satisfied both of these needs.
Hm. Fort Endurance.
That would be seen.
* * * * *
THE ATTACK
THE ATTACK
Night seized hold of Arethil, and the Guardsmen on watch along the walls of Fort Endurance stared out at that tenebrous land. Thick clouds choked the sky. On occasion the silvery light of the moon would be freed and made to spill across the rough undulations of the grassland, and even the dark silhouette of Falwood to the east became visible. There had been some recent tensions with the denizens of Falwood (and truly, when was there not?) involving House Virak, so the soldiers were indeed on alert. Night watches were fully half of the fort's garrison. Thus far Fort Endurance suffered no assault, but The Homeguard stood ready all the same--even if a pronounced weariness from their prolonged vigilance strained them from time to time.
It was heard before it was seen. Tiny thumps at first, made quiet by distance but carried by the stillness of the night. A certain rhythm to them: thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-THUMP.
The men in the gatehouse, high above the sturdy gates sealing shut the interior of the fort, were the first to see it. The black clouds had parted, the light of the full moon shined down, and there was something moving.
Something right there. A fiendish creature of enormous size, grinning wickedly, eyes glinting with a near manic glee and ferocity and hunger, its face with the shriveled and grotesque features of some kind of twisted bat, its arms huge and its legs squat by comparison, its gait like those of the jungle gorillas on the other side of the world, its speed terrifying for its size, its whole existence a seething embodiment of the feral, unquenchable, vampiric lust for blood.
And it was charging right for the gates.
"HOMEGUARD, TO ARMS!" Tartus Albright yelled, and these would be his last words.
The Slaughtern Wargheit slammed into the mighty gates like a living battering ram, its shoulder bursting through first. Broken wood and twisted metal and shattered stone exploded inward in a spray of debris into the interior courtyard. Gallons of blood within the Wargheit had been burned to power such strength, and it left the Wargheit that much more ravenous. The beast lifted its grinning face and manic eyes to leer down at the hastily assembling Guardsmen in the courtyard.
The Homeguard had their mission, and the Wargheit had its own.
The attack had begun.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Slaughtern Wargheit
• Retains the powerful magic dampening from the Slaughtern strain, but is still weak to fire/light-based magic.
• Has a dulled sense of pain, but is an unnatural creature powered by blood. It will slow and weaken as it loses this blood. Every hit counts.
• Is being given direction and thus increased combat proficiency by a Mulder-vampire handler. The handler is nearby. Exact location unknown.
• Has a surprise deep inside its massive body.