Emil Bollenbach

Emil Bollenbach is the premier crafter of golems in the Land of Mists. He is also among the maddest of medical researchers in the known world. He is statted as an expert of a level that belies his many accomplishments.

His native language is Darkonese so he is presumably Darkonian. He probably learned Lamordian at a young age and also commands Balok, Mordentish, and Zherisian.

Emil seems to never want for money yet he has none of the manners of nobility. A fairly wealthy middle class background is conceivable.

Background

Emil was a gifted young medical student studying in Darkon when, in 734 BC, he attended a lecture by the visiting Dr. Rudolph Van Richten on the question of golems. Fascinated, Emil volunteered to help the doctor and divided his time for the next two years between the good fight and his studies. In 736 BC, Emil was driven mad when a murderous golem was tracked back to his medical school, one of his professors proved to be its creator, and the golem's head turned out to be that of a close friend who had gone missing. The confrontation between the golem and van Richten in the professor's laboratory touched off an explosion that not only covered the maddened flight of Emil into the night, but invited the conclusion that he had been wholly consumed by it.

The Super-Golem

The gifted but now insane medical student put his skills to work on a project of utter folly. He would rid the world of golems by building golems, or more precisely, a super-golem. The Dark Powers were impressed and have underwritten his efforts ever since. It is dark desire rewarded, far more than medical talent, that accounts for the results he has been able to produce.

By 738 BC, Emil was performing successful cross-species transplantations and fleshcrafting the likes of which would make Easan the Mad proud. He had managed to invent an electrical generator that was a significant advance on Mordenheim's lightning box. And he had built a cadre of flesh golems. His crowning achievement and the completion of his life's work, however, was to be the animation of his super-golem, which wanted only for a suitably intelligent brain. That of Rudolph van Richten was chosen and the doctor was duly kidnapped. Fortunately, recent acquaintances of the good doctor intervened, saved his life, and put Bollenbach to flight from his lair near Neufurchtenburg in Lamordia.

Subsequent Efforts

Employment was found, at least for a time, with Strahd von Zarovich, culminating in the 750 BC poisoning of Lyssa von Zarovich. A convincingly human seeming golem by the name of Tom was created and pumped full of an alchemical poison for Strahd's wayward grandniece to sample.

By 752 BC, Emil had decided on a slightly different approach to the matter of ridding the world of golems. Making his super-golem more intelligent than other golems was less useful than giving it the ability to make the strength of its enemies its own. His super-golem would be a doppelganger golem. Remarkably, he found a band of doppelgangers who were willing to hunt down their own to supply the raw materials. Heroes once again arrived at the crucial moment and were able to prevail, the doctor fleeing for parts initially unknown.

Shadow of the Knife

In 753 BC, Emil Bollenbach was lured to Paridon and recruited by Sodo. Indeed, the previous doppelgangers were probably his agents. The darklord offered the doctor the alchemical, technological and physical resources of Paridon for the construction of the perfect golem in return for its use for one week. Emil agreed and, perhaps feeling inspired by his doppelganger allies, needlessly infiltrated the City Guard as its new coroner. He proved to be brilliant, if disconcerting, in the job, at least to the extent that his duties concerned forensic pathology.

When 755 BC arrived, it was time for the 14th killing spree of Bloody Jack. The doppelganger golem that Emil was constructing was to be borrowed for one week to play the part of Bloody Jack. Sodo had made security arrangements by this point to assure that Emil was in no position to disagree. In particular, he had placed over the mad scientist's heart a timed scarab of death. Adventurers eventually confronted Emil with evidence of his involvement in the killing spree and he confessed all, hoping to be brought to, and saved by, his golem. At the decisive moment, he made use of an obscure wild talent to switch his mind with that of his creation and battled the adventurers in the body of the golem. It is possible, but not certain, that he escaped with his life, as both his and his golem's bodies vanished from the morgue.

Mangrum's Timeline

734 Emil Bollenbach, a young medical student, attends a lecture by Dr. Van Richten on the topic of golems, and volunteers to aid the good doctor. [CotN:C pg. 49]

736 Dr. Van Richten & Emil Bollenbach track down the murderous creator of a flesh golem; the horrors Emil witnesses drive him mad. Although Emil is thought to have died in the fiery destruction of the golem creator’s lab, he survives, dedicated to the insane goal of creating a “super-golem” to destroy all Created. [CotN:C pp. 49-50]

738 Emil Bollenbach creates his first “super-golem,” but fortunately his attempt to tranplant Dr. Van Richten’s brain into his creation is thwarted by adventurers. Emil escapes death, but keeps a low profile for more than a decade. (Chilling Tales: “The Surgeon’s Blade”) [CotN:C pg. 50; CT pg. 32 places this adventure 8 years after Emil’s disappearance (i.e., 746), but the dating used in CotN:C fits VR’s chronology better.]

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Children of the Night: Vampires Children of the Night: The Created Chilling Tales
		Children of the Night: The Created - p49 Chilling Tales - p 38
		Children of the Night: The Created - pp49-50 Chilling Tales - inside cover, p 38
		Children of the Night: Vampires - p21 Children of the Night: The Created - pp49-50 Chilling Tales - p 38