Sunday, October 26, 2014

Progress Journal- Countdown to Halloween!

With luck to finish the profile by Halloweeen and thus, to save time, I will be limiting my previews to only this one, of the legendary villain Drachenfels!

10/26- In midst of incorporating TK and VC profile. Heldenhammer almost finished (kindle died) while Drachenfels is finished. Von Carstein series, Tomb of the Serpent Queen and (optional) Zombieslayer, Cure of the Necrarchs and Ancient Blood are left.
The Nameless ( Constant Drachenfels)

Mobility: 8 (Flying, ethereal spirit)
Training: 6 (Amnesia) ; 10 (Memory restored)
Max Range: Dozens of Kilometers
Preferred Range: ^^^
“'I am like that girl in many ways. I need to take from others to continue. But she can merely take a little new blood. Her kind are short-lived. A few thousand years, and they grow brittle. I can renew myself eternally, taking the stuff of life from those I conquer. You are privileged, boy. I'm going to let you look at my face.'
He took off his mask. Oswald forced himself to look. The prince screamed at the top of his lungs, disturbing the dead and the dying of the fortress, and the Great Enchanter laughed.
'Not so pretty, eh? It's just another lump of rotten meat. It is I, Drachenfels, who am eternal. I who am Constant. Do you recognize your own nose, my prince? The hooked, noble nose of the von Konigswalds. I took it from your ancestor, the loathesomely honourable Schlichter. It's worn through. This whole carcass is nearly at its end. You must understand all this, my prince, because you must understand why I intend to let you kill me.'
 Of all the Motrarchs the Nameless may be both the most mysterious and the most powerful. Its name and its identity are a mystery to it, forgotten thanks to a recent defeat. Out of desperation to be remembered it has joined Nagash on the sole condition its identity is restored. Now, along with Vlad von Carstein, it leads the Undead Legion’s effort to styme the advance of Chaos in the North.

Yet, although it has no knowledge of its identity, others (and the reader) does. Known as the Great Enchanter of the Misty Mountains, the being known as Drachenfels was born 15,000 years ago in the midst of a great Ice Age. It was the Warhammer equivalent of a Neanderthal and lived its first incarnation as a primitive nomad in the days before either the Old Ones or Chaos had come to the planet.  However after becoming sick while in old age he was left out in the wilderness to die by his tribe. He feigned death by exposure, and when one of his tribe came close him somehow (unknown even to himself) managed to kill the man and absorbed his life energy. Ever since then Drachenfel has found that when his physical body decays he can regenerate by absorbing the life of another.
Drachenfels has lived now for 15,000 years. His goals seem to be motivated by boredom rather than anything else .  Each time he attacks the outside world, he does so merely out of boredom. He usually takes plenty of captives back, which he tortures or otherwise "plays with" in abominable ways before consuming their souls and using their flesh to keep himself spry.  Cities, nations and countless lives have perished to his whims. Since he tends to completely destroy anything he attacks, the only recorded incidents involving him in history are times that he was beaten or for some reason chose to spare the conquered. Indeed, so far it seems Sigmar is the only being who has beaten his armies in combat thus far. It took Drachenfels 1000 years to regenerate from this defeat.

When he came back he continued his dickish shenanigans, sacking cities  such as Parravon and then faking his repentance.   He put on an elaborate PR campaign of using the wealth from Parravon to pay reparations to the victims that had escaped his castle, and plead for forgiveness at the graves of those whose bodies had been recovered. After the dimwitted public accepted that he'd turned to good he invited the entire court of the Emperor to a feast at his castle. He served them wine laced with paralyzing poison, then laid an elaborate feast out in front of them which he ate very slowly to the sounds of their children as they were tortured to death just below.
“Oswald glanced at the central panels of the hanging and slashed out with his sword. The entire dusty tapestry fell and lay on the floor like a fen-worm's cast-off skin. Menesh touched his torch to it and in an instant the fire spread along its length. The next tapestry, a group portrait of the certain dreaded gods, caught too.
'Very clever, stunted lackwit,' spat Veidt. 'Burning us up now, is it? That makes a change from the traditional dwarfish knife in the small of the back.'
The dwarf pulled his knife and held it up. Veidt had his dart pistol out. There were fires all around them.
'A traitor, eh? Like dead-and-damned Ueli?'
'I'll give you dead-and-damned, scavenger!'
Menesh stabbed up, but Veidt stepped out of the way. Flames reflected in the bounty hunter's dark eyes. He took careful aim.
'Enough!' Oswald cried. 'We've not come this far to fall out now.'
'Veidt cries Ñtraitor' too much,' Rudi said sourly. 'I trust no one who can be bought as easily.'
The outlaw heaved his sword up and Veidt turned again.
'Ethics from a bandit, that's rich-'
'Better a bandit than a trader of corpses!'
'Your corpse is hardly worth the seventy-five gold crowns the Empire has offered for it.'
The pistol came up. The sword wavered in the air.
'Kill him and be done with it,' said Menesh.
This was like Veidt, and like the hot-tempered Rudi. But Menesh had been quiet until now, dodging Veidt's taunts with good humour. Something was working on them. Something unnatural. Genevieve staggered forward as someone landed on her back, pushing her face to the floor.
'Hah! Dead bitch!'
Erzbet's noose was about her neck and drawing in. She had taken her by surprise. Genevieve had to struggle to brace her hands against the flagstones, to give herself the leverage to heave Erzbet off her. The wire constricted. The assassin knew her business: beheading would work, all right. Immortality is so fragile: beheading, the hawthorn, silver, too much sunÅ
Genevieve got her hand under her, palm flat against the stone and pushed herself up. Erzbet tried to ride her like an unbroken pony, her knees digging into the ribs. Genevieve corded her neck muscles and forced breath down her windpipe.
She heard the wire snap and felt Erzbet tumble from her seat. She stood and struck out. The other woman took the blow heavily and fell. Erzbet rolled on the floor and came up, a knife in her hand. Did it gleam silver like Ueli's?
'The dead can die, leech woman!'
Genevieve felt the urge to kill. Kill the stinking living slut! Kill all these warmblood bastard vermin! Kill, kill, KILL!
'Fight it,' shouted Oswald. 'It's an attack, an enchantment!'
She turned to the prince. Whoreson noble! Sister-raping, wealth-besotted scum! Drenched in perfume to cover the stench of his own ordure!
Oswald held her, shaking her by the shoulders.
Blood! Royal blood! Rich, spiced, hot-on-the-tongue, youthfully-gushing blood!
The vein throbbed in his throat. She took his wrists in her strong hands, feeling their pulses. She heard his heart beating like a steady drum and saw him as a student of anatomy might a dissected corpse. Veins and arteries laid through flesh and over bone. The blood called to her.
How long since she had fed? Properly?” –Drachenfels illusions
A descendent of one of these children let go to spread the news would later hire a bunch of mercenaries to kill him. This failed, with most members dying cruel and spectacular deaths. Eventually only Oswald, the descendent, and the Vampire Genève remained. Genève was knocked out and the terrified Oswald was led into a deal with Drachenfels, who had decided he wanted to screw over the entire Empire. Drachenfels would allow Oswald to kill him, and in return Oswald 
would become a hero and put on a paly a couple decades later, inviting every elector count to it.

The most important individuals in the Empire attended, as well as the newly crowned Karl Franz and his son Luitpold II. The production was hindered by many spooky incidents, not the least of which was the eccentric behavior of the actors. As would be expected, Drachenfels returned to life during the play and slaughtered a fair number of the audience and cast. Genevieve and the director of the play, Detlef Sierck, were blessed by Sigmar and dealt a killing blow to Drachenfels . They thought they killed him for good, however, as it turned out, Drachenfel’s identy was lost and he was reduced to a bodiless spirit. When Nagash made a deal, Drachenfels was desperate enough to accept.

In combat the Nameless specializes in mind controlling large groups of living  people.  However unlike other, traditional forms of mind control Drachenfels only seizes the physical aspects of the brain- mentally, the victims are fully aware of what is going on only unable to stop it. Given that Drachenfels still has the same personality as before, he then precedes to do horrible things to them. One day he might decide he wants his army to march under flesh banners, and thus skins alive dozens to create enough. The next day he decides he wants bone banners, and thus has his men pull out their own bones to create one.Other acts of dickery include forcing troops to fight to the death for his amusement and having them cannibalize themselves because Drachenfels wanted to experience the sensation.


Offensive: Drachenfels in his current incarnation can take control of hundreds, potentially thousands of people at once and force them to serve as soldiers. These soldiers are described as moving awkwardly and are described as puppets, being less skilled in combat then if they could move themselves. The strong of mind, like Vlad and Gelt, can resist this.
“Captain Driest staggered to his feet. He made no conscious effort to do so, for his thoughts were still frozen in terror, but he rose all the same, jerky and uncoordinated. All around him he could see other men rising and through his haze of panic noted their confused expressions matched his own. He heard whispers in his mind, the commands of a sonorous voice whose will would not be denied. Unbidden Driest’s legs stumbled forward, carrying him back to Auric Bastion. Others came with him, their movements  as clumsy as his own, their actions guided by a creature no longer used to the limitations of physical form.”
Prior to his memory loss he was a master daemonologist(capable of rivaling even Greater Daemons with his mastery of control), master necromancer and enchanter. He specialized in driving enemies insane and getting them to kill each other, and in addition his enchantments lasted after death, ensuring he could torture his foes for hundreds of years.  Any he consumes he can gain knowledge from.
Defense: Is an ethereal spirit of immense power and has defensive spells.
====ADDITIONAL FACTORS===

Drachenfels is a bored sadist who believes the Chaos Gods are insufficiently evil for his tastes. He is a master of psychological warfare and torture, and his fellow Mortrarchs do not trust him (for good reason) yet are wary as his power dwarfs any save Nagash. Only time will tell what will happen if the Nameless discovers his former identity…..

No comments:

Post a Comment