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Dragos The Black
Full Name: Dragos Von Schatten
Age: 1085
Associated Names: The Vermillion Rider
Wargear: Wraithtear, heavily ornamented plate mail
Description:
Height: 6'4
Build: Slender but muscular
Eyes: Red
Hair: Long and white
His is the visage of a bloody and brutal death. He stands, shod in the blackest of armor, drinking in the silver luster of the moon and reflecting naught but a foreboding resonance of bitter hatred. The trim of his hauberk, while once may have been luminous and alive with the argent, iridescent smile of mithril, now grins maliciously, encrusted with rust and old blood. Crooked beneath a plated left arm rests his helm, the sinister countenance of an ebony wrought skull, fibred with steepled, skeletal finger bones hewn of the darkest iron, seethes with a lust to taste the ebbing pulses of countless, chilling corpses. His face, a stark contrast to his maleficent armor, is wreathed in long, sallow, spindly locks that hang lifelessly from his pallid scalp. His sharp, gaunt features seem eternally contorted in the hatred he so willingly shares with his victims and his burning, red eyes gleam with a life as cursed as those unfortunate enough to see them.
History:
Once an avid pupil of The Red Duke, Dragos lived the hard life of a soldier, pushing, in the name of honor, from battle to battle, holding tight the reigns of his hunger to maintain his claim at glory. In life, he was Bretonnian nobility, a Questing Knight in search of his fortune. He rode with the Duke of Aquitaine during the crusades that turned the lord into a vampire and swore his fealty to the creature when he turned. Believed slain with his lord at Aquitaine, Dragos slept for centuries. When the Red Duke returned, however, Dragos rode at his right hand.
The second defeat of his lord both enraged and destroyed Dragos. He broke his oaths of allegiance, believing his master to be a fraud and a weakling. Upon escaping that final battle, Dragos swore to serve only himself and the pursuit of strength and power. He threw himself into the study of the Blood Dragon line and that of their founder, Abhorash. Valuing martial prowess above all things, he came to venerate Abhorash as a messiah of blood and war, the pinnacle of vampiric accomplishment. He began to train, obsessively, for the day when he might rival the legend of the first Blood Dragon, retreating into seclusion deep within the Hunger Wood of Sylvania. There, he built himself a lair beneath the twisted trees, a labyrinth, riddled with pitfalls, traps, and all manner of summoned beasts and daemons upon which he could practice his skill in battle. When Vlad Von Carstein made war with the Empire, Dragos joined him. When Konrad raged across Sylvania, so too did Dragos ride, and when Mannfred failed, Dragos endured. He is a warrior without peer and a necromancer of no limited skill. He keeps his lair peopled with any number of vicious daemons and barbarous beasts, summoned forth or captured by his servants. His reputation has been earned in centuries of warfare, where his bloodlust dances unbridled with his fathomless rage and few are the battles where his pale flesh and dark armor are not bathed in the hot blood of his enemies.
The Labyrinth Sanguinary:
Set below the gnarled trees of the Hunger Wood, the Labyrinth Sanguinary covers an unknown span of subterranean acreage, though some say there is an exit buried somewhere within the ruins of Dread Mordheim and another somewhere in the Vale of Darkness. Those that find themselves within generally belong to one of two demographics, servants and training meat, the latter ranging from scores of bloodletters to huddled hordes of frightened villagers, with little more than sticks and rocks to use as makeshift weaponry. The labyrinth itself is rife with explosives, pitfalls, pendulum traps, hidden crossbows, acid flasks, spinning blades, and a menagerie of other, stranger death traps; and while the original maze was planned and constructed by Dragos and his slaves, the myriad enchantments and hexes on the passageways have left it an ever changing, blood drenched complex of insanity and peril.
Quirks:
When not training or in battle, which tends to be very rarely, Dragos lets his anger abate to enjoy his immortality. He has been known to be well versed in the history of the world and enjoys reading of places he has not had the chance to travel. He has a particular affinity for young, red haired women and will not harm them, for some unknown reason.
Pros:
Warrior of Ages - Dragos knows how to kill and how to survive the tumultuous maelstrom of combat. He trains incessantly and to him, every battle is a training exercise as he awaits the day when he will fight his own dragon, wrestle it to the ground, and drain it dry. He spits at those still loyal to the Red Duke and chuckles at the self important Blood Dragons, confident in his own abilities. Abhorash forged his own way and so will Dragos.
Wraithtear - Wraithtear was the greatsword of a Slaaneshi Champion under the banner of Vardek Crom that Dragos bested in single combat during the recent Chaos incursion into Sylvania. After the battle's conclusion, both body and blade were pulled into the chambers of Dragos' necromancers, where they used the soul of the north man to bind the daemon weapon to the vampire's will. Wraithtear is a bastard sword that, when used by Dragos, makes him a faster and more deadly opponent. The blade will supplement the already deadly warrior's skill with its own foul magic, seeking the most painful places to inflict injury, that it might sing with the pleasure of its victim's agony.
Cons:
Rage: Centuries of defeat and straining under the yoke of the incompetent have made Dragos is dangerously easy to anger. He views most with an arrogant disdain and revels in his power. Anything that would dare threaten that power is received with brutal hostility. He will not foolishly jump into combat against an impossible opponent, but once one has made an enemy of Dragos the Black, he is an enemy unto death.
Lady in Red: There is a popular ghost story in Bretonia regarding a young Lord of the Manor on his wedding day. He ruled over a small hamlet on the coast. Legend has it that his mentor, an accomplished Bretonian Knight, gave the Lord his daughter's hand in marriage, only to betray they both for his hidden masters, the Ruinous Powers, killing the Lord after selling his own daughter to the Druuchi flesh market. It is said that the Lord returned from the grave and enacted a terrible vengeance on his former mentor. No one knows the truth of any of it, but the tale coincides, loosely, with the time when young Lord Dragos Von Schatten left to crusade alongside the Duke of Aquitaine. The knight's daughter was said to have fiery red hair and to this day, Dragos the Black will not so much as scratch a red haired woman.
Mediocre Necromancer - Dragos has studied the gift of Vampirism for centuries, honing his knowledge as well as his fighting skill, though his necromantic wisdom is dwarfed by his martial prowess and easily outmatched by more reclusive and studious vampires, which is something he seeks to remedy. (The focus has always been more on combat than spell casting, though he does study Necromancy when allowing himself respite from his training.)
