Baron of Ruin

As the principal foe of The Blood Hunt, the Baron of Ruin is a foe with whom one doesn't want to trifle, with vampiric strength and centuries of experience.

History
No-one knows how the Baron came to ruin but there are many ideas. All that is known is that he’s been there longer than most people alive’s grandfathers. There are plenty of stories, the most likely explanation is that he was a farmer who grew tired of his position in life but like most people couldn’t do anything about it and just became more and more angry and irritable. However, one night that changed, he was fed on but something went wrong and he woke up, he was recruited by the vampire who was scared of detection.

This, was quickly realised to be a mistake, the vampire was dead and within a day so were most of the town. The baron had taken over the castle overnight, starting his army of ghouls. Within a week the whole town was dead, those humans who hadn’t been killed were taken to the castle and were used as a food source for the newly named “Baron of Ruin” he named the town to reflect further ambitions and it stuck even though for years he never made a move. He just watched, seemingly content with the land he had.

A few years ago stories of villagers mysteriously disappearing from the  area around Ruin, no-one noticed for a while, it was chalked up to animals, but then, whole villages began disappearing, the whole population seeming to up and leave in the middle of whatever they were doing. This was when reports started coming in. The men sent to investigate didn’t return.

Months passed before scouts reported the baron was on the march, his army marched through the swamps towards the city, every village he defeated just added to his seemingly endless ranks.

The Testament of Matthias Mordvaal
“I was always destined to be great. It was inevitable. The desire, the ambition, was uncontainable from a young age. I have manage to realise that ambition, to achieve my rightful place in the annals of history. Despite this world's attempts to keep me small, I have defied the rudimentary confines of reality and become something more. By my own hand.

The Sons of Mordvaal
“I was born the thirteenth son of Baron Mordvaal and a peasant woman whose name I cannot remember. I have few memories of my first years. The stink of dung; the humidity of animal breath; a pale, dark haired woman of the plains singing me lullabies in an unknown tongue. They are hazy, shadowy things and they did little to shape me other than by their absence later in my life. I have never gotten rid of a certain cold bitterness I attributed to her when she gave me up so easily. The Baron came to fetch his bastard when I was three years of age, and I never saw my mother again. I do not remember my actual name. The Baron named me Matthias, after his grandfather. It was the only time he would ever really acknowledge our blood tie.

“In my early years at Castle Mordvaal, I was something of an enigma to those around me. I was not to be treated as a commoner, but the dishonour of my birth meant I was rarely treated as a noble. I was prevented from joining in the normal courtly activities of my twelve other brothers. I could not joust. I was never handed a sword, nor a bow. I could not attend balls or banquets, at least, not in any official capacity. Yet the Baron must have taken some kind of pity on me, that or felt a keen embarrassment at my existence, for he made sure I was always kept occupied. He gave me administration jobs – the collection of taxes, the planning of new roads, the negotiation of trade deals. I was less of a son, more of a clerk or monk who he could toss the duties that his other spawn were too proud to engage in. They received the praise and I received the paperwork. It was monotonous, but it honed my mind. It showed me the barony as it was; a network of numbers and lines that stretched as far as the eye could see. Whilst the rest of the 'family' were charging full tilt at each other in the yards below my window, I was running the Mordvaal estate. I was ruling it. But I did not intend to remain a simple civil servant my entire life. I fully intended to realise my true birth right. A bastard could never inherit under the normal law. But it needed to be done. Who else but I knew how to command?

“The Poor Baron was so distraught by the death of his first son. The eldest of the Mordvaal line drowned off the cliffs to the West and his body was never recovered. All they could bury was his helmet and horse. The Baron wore black even after the funeral. It was a good thing he had many suits of black, for it was soon after that the second sun was assassinated whilst on a hunt. By the time his third had perished from a particularly virulent strain of the Pox, he remained in a permanent grief for the days to come. When the fourth and fifth perished simultaneously, he was so desperate that the procession of mortality might end that he came to me, his forgotten bastard, and asked for help. I promised him that I would use all my mental faculties to investigate these mysterious deaths and save the Mordvaal line. Pathetic old fool. He couldn't see that it was I who was pruning the family tree, and clearing the path to my rightful inheritance. After that first shove off the precipice, everything else became so much easier, so much clearer. A few coins exchanged here, a vial of ichor there, and the future was so much less fogged.

“He caught me eventually of course, in the rather compromising position of standing over his ninth son holding the poisoned blade used to slay him. I shall not be so careless in the future. He looked at me aghast and made a wheezing call for his guards, but I had spoken to them already. The seeds of rebellion had been planted against the ailing Mordvaal line, and half the castle retinue was loyal to me. What followed was a messy and cramped battle inside the corridors of Castle Mordvaal. There would come stories later of how the steps of the turrets were transformed into waterfalls of blood, and the cries of the three sons who were slain there echo through its halls to this day. Such embellishment does not matter. What matters is that I failed. The Baron overpowered my own cowardly guards in the throne room and defeated me in single combat. Yet even as I lay crippled on the fallen tapestries of our ancestors, he could not bring himself to kill me. It seemed my bastard status had saved me. Instead, he slew my men and had me imprisoned in the lowest depths of the Basalt Shard. It was only once I had been taken off to my exile that he began to weep.

The Basalt Shard
“The locals say that the Basalt Shard was once a single lump of black rock, jutting out of the sea like a bruised knuckle. Over time, the prison that was built into the stone extended its cells into the isle itself. Now, the entire island was a single, colossal dungeon lying several leagues from the coast, and it was in the very heart of this dungeon that I was to be kept like an animal. I starved. I froze. I could not sleep for the echo of the tide and the constant shriek of other inmates. But I did have one advantage; the prisoner next to me was not all that he seemed. Oh, Silerius. What a nasty creature you were. An eyeless, emaciated thing who had been locked in the Shard for many years. He may have hidden it from the guards, but I could see his ghoulish nature immediately. We would talk for many hours through the wall; I of the wondrous riches of the Mordvaal realm and he of secret lores of Necromancy and the time he had spent serving the Right Hand herself. We struck up a friendship and then a bargain. We could only meet in person when the guards took us out for labour. Prisoners were forced to chip away new tunnels and expand the growing labyrinth deeper into the island. Here, he would whisper arcane secrets into my ears and blindly chipped away dark runes into the walls of the mine. And I, in return, would shed a few drops of blood onto his rancid tongue for each new spell. A small price to pay; blood was the one resource of which I possessed an abundance.

“He taught me everything he knew. In time, we started to concoct a plan of escape. The runes we carved into the walls were more deliberate, and on each one Silerius left a drop of my blood for each three drops he drank. The Shard itself would become a temple to the dark lore. When we had completed as much as we could, and I was almost bone dry, Silerius said he could give me the final key to our escape, but to do so he would need to be at his full strength. I told him to do whatever was required and he sank his yellowing fangs into my neck. I suspect he intended to drink until I was dead and then escape himself. But I had prepared. Before the last of my blood was gone, I sank the sharpened handle of my pick-axe into his withered heart. His jaws released me as he screamed and melted into a stinking pile of sludge on the cave floor. With Silerius' death, I felt the vigour of his vampiric curse come upon me. The guards who had noticed his death came to beat me, but I tossed them against the wall with ease. With the guards gone, the prisoners broke their chains and began an orgy of violence throughout the shard as guards and prisoners fought in bloody riot. This was the last piece of the ritual; a sacrifice befitting of the creatures of the Outside. The veil between planes was ripped asunder and demonic creatures flooded into the passages of the dungeon, devouring all they came across. When they asked who had called them, the master of the ritual would respond with their name and, henceforth, those demons would be under his command. They would be commanded by me.

Homecoming
“When I returned to the Barony of Mordvaal, I came with a new army at my back. The Undead remains of all those who had inhabited the Basalt Shard marched across the ocean floor. My demonic allies skimmed the waves and bayed for new sacrifices. Nothing could stand in our way. All resistance as we made our way into the province only served to swell our ranks further. It was all rather disappointing really. During my absence, the Baron had grown old and feeble. He had had no more children, and sat alone on his throne, afraid of his own shadow. His soldiers were ill-equipped and unprepared. The one true battle that was fought was more of a rout. Some tried to surrender, but no mercy was shown. All was offered to my pets. Even the walls of Castle Mordvaal were demolished by my might. As I stalked through its halls, I came upon the Baron sitting on his throne, sword in lap. When he looked at me, he recognised my face immediately, pale and twisted as it was. He cast his sword down in front of him and sighed. Sighed! Can you imagine a more worthless response? I have rarely felt so much pleasure in my kills as when I tore that man's worthless head from his shoulders.

“They call my land Ruin now. So be it. It is a name whispered with fear amongst the inhabitants of the Baronies, and I am glad I have had such a dramatic effect upon them. They should fear me. I was satisfied for the moment; watching my demonic legions dance as I told them, feeding off the remaining stragglers and resistors of my realm. But satisfaction is the enemy of greatness; I shall never be satisfied with being as small as a single Baron. Let the world know that Matthias Mordvaal, Matthias the Great, is coming. And he is so very thirsty.”