Velkaarn

Velkaarn, by Talon Dunning

Description

Velkaarn is the central antagonist of Castle of the Undead and the vampire darklord of Maridrar. The Bloodknife was forged in order to slay him and despite the deaths of the princes that sought his demise, the blade drifts to their reincarnations and still operates as a Death Bane Weapon against him.

Evil virtually oozes from this man, this lord of vampires. His nose is long and pointed, and his coal-black hair is swept straight back from the widow's peak on his forehead to spill down his shoulders. He has a cruel-looking mustache and pointed beard. His black eyes glimmer dully with the fires of the Abyss, and his silken, hissing voice insinuates itself into your brain, coiling around your mind like a deadly snake. He wears dark robes and a cape.

History

Early life

Ridiculed, and an outcast of his own village, Velkaarn eventually left to seek power to fuel his revenge for his mistreatment. By the time he was in a position of power, he knew his plans would not come to fruition unless he found a way to extend his life. Through dark bargaining he became a vampire lord but by the time he returned to the village it was already gone. Unable to get his revenge, he secluded himself and seethed for centuries as he worked out a grand scheme to prove to everyone how powerful he was when he decided to return. He fueled his energy to use a prince, who was a mere puppet ruler of a small fiefdom, to conquer nearby kingdoms. He used his vampire spawn to conquer the lands surrounding the Howling Hills in the late three hundreds, common year, on Oerth.

Velkaarn wanted to replace the prince, once he secured all the territories. The last kingdom was Maridrar, where Queen Velina, a Wolf Nomad by birth, and Milarnus a Rhennee (Oerth's gypsies, possibly related to the Vistani) ruled. Milarnus was determined not to let his land fall to the evil one. Milarnus was wise; he knew that Velkaarn and his armies of thirsty undead couldn't be beaten by them alone. He summoned the land's most powerful wizards and directed them to create a weapon that would not only destroy the vampire lord but also the evil he had placed on the land. The mage Rustanglius and Vistani seeress Magda, mustered the power of the magical planes and imbued a weapon with such abilities as to destroy Velkaarn's evil. Milarnus summoned the wolf tribes of the land to give part of themselves to the cause.

The mage and the seeress crafted a powerful spell. The wolf tribe sacrificed their mythical powers to imbue the weapon. and the Bloodknife was born. They knew their kingdom was fated to fall, so the blade was linked to Milarnus' two sons who were chosen to leave that world and then to someday save it.

When Velkaarn finally reached his goal of conquering Maridrar, his victory was cut short as he soon found the kingdom to cut off from the rest of Oerth by mist and that the land itself had changed.

Darklord's Curse

Curse of the Darklord Velkaarn cannot be truly killed except through the power of the Bloodknife being united with the diamond of the sun. So paranoid about the knife, he has consumed his mind with it so much that he cannot enjoy the kingdom that is now only his. No matter how powerful he has become, he is still powerless to the knife and its prophecy, which infuriates him. Velkaarn rarely leaves his castle due to fear for his own safety.

Border Closure

Velkaarn cannot close his borders but he can command all undead creatures in his domain to stop intruders or keep within the borders.

Appearances

Netbooks

Quoth the Raven Issue 22: Domains that Came Before

The Kara's Daughters campaign has added the following:

Velkaarn was once a proud and loyal general of Maridrar, the finest in the field. When word came back to King Jhandar that Velkaarn had fallen while defending the kingdom, he was truly grieved. But shortly a messenger arrived: Velkaarn returned as a bloodthirsty horror, his loyalty to the crown forgotten. The king sent his family into hiding, but the retainers betrayed them into the hands of the treacherous vampire. Held captive while the vampire's undead army grew from the ranks of their own servants, Queen Icanthe (a mortu Vistani) managed to help her children escape. The vampire tortured her for her insolence, but her final breath was a defiant curse: that his dearly bought immortality earned him only an eternity of hunger, until the day her sons returned to destroy him and retake the throne.