I promised you fluff didn't I? That was daft of me... okay, I'll write some...
Fragments from the unfinished manuscript "Oral Histories of the Wood Elves", by Johann Greenmantle of the Jade Order
...in the Elder Days, the Asrai wandered far and wide across Elthin-Arvan. Amongst one of the many kinbands there was a sorceress named Orelinde, who was as beautiful as she was talented. All year she was devoted to her folk. every winter she would spend deep in the study of her arts. but when spring came she would leave her work and wander far and wide, taking a child-like delight in the season of regrowth. She would be gone for weeks or a month, dancing in glades where no-one had ever stood, picking flowers unseen by elf or man, and singing to trees that had never before heard a voice. And her kin did not seek to restrain her, for no beast would harm her, no berry could ail her, and no accidental wound was beyond her power to heal. And in those days there was far less evil in the woods. As the days lengthened into summer, they would wait for her return, and she would come back to them with new songs, new plants and renewed vigour for her responsibilities. And her kin loved her, and they called her The Rose of Spring, and for many, many years they flourished together.
And then, one spring, as she dallied in a sunny glade, she was set upon by horned beasts. At first, she sought to merely scare them away, and then to just fend them off, thinking them to be just some strange and starving animal. But she was soon aware of the taint of Chaos in these strange man-beasts, and threw her sorcery into slaying them outright. And still she felt in little danger, protected from their teeth and claws by coiling vine and thorny branch which she commanded from the ground and woods around her.
But then she felt a new, dark presence, and the man-beasts withdrew, and a new foe came upon her. And she could feel the power of dark magic as the skull-crowned aberration turned its hate against her. Decay and death and strangely twisted, writhing growths spewed from it, and she had to redouble her defences as the plants withered and died almost as fast as she could bring them to life.
And so they struggled and fought. Spell against spell. Vine and thorn and staff and blade against tentacle and tooth and claw and horn. The power of life and light against the power of death and chaos. And they each were stabbed and torn and cut, but their magic healed their wounds anew. And such was the magic of their battle that where drops of Orelinde's blood fell amongst the plants and soil, red roses budded and bloomed, and where her adversary bled coloured flame erupted and the ground writhed and shifted as if in pain.
Slowly at first, and then ever more quickly, Orelinde realised she would not prevail, for rather than just destroying her plants, the beast-thing was warping them and taking them over. The very earth on which she stood and from where her power flowed was being injured and corrupted by its power and its blood, so that it was harder and harder for her to renew her spells. And beyond the battle, a ring of beastmen gathered baying and braying in the fading daylight, blocking her escape.
Summoning her whole strength, she unleashed a final spell. Green fire bathed the clearing in emerald light as a searing ray flew from her, blasting clean through her enemy and across the glade, leaving scorch marks on a mighty tree there. With a howl, the beast disintegrated into nothingness. Dismayed and angered, its followers rushed at Orelinde, tearing through the walls of thorns to reach her. But she was already dead, and her spirit flown away.
When midsummer came, her kinband came looking for her. The Nymraif tracked her through the forests, and finally found her body lying amongst a thicket of red roses. And they wept for her death, and they wept for their loss, and they wept in anger and disgust at the horrors visited upon her body by the beastmen. And so they left the glade never to return, and took her back to her kin, and their mourning was long, and their vengeances bloody....
What's that? You wanted Vampire Counts fluff? Oh, sorry....
I might have to come back and edit this, as I've just written it on the fly!
Comments, criticisms, speculations, all welcome...
Still, all female vampy group sounds great! What bloodline will they be again? x)
erv:
Neat job! It's nice ( and bit rare) to see so much fluff to go with someones army.