Gunther Ereben

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Gunther Ereben
Gunther Ereben.jpg
CreatorXero
Information
TitleThe Dollmaker
RaceFordun
GenderMale
Height212cm
AffiliationN/A
OccupationBusinessman
Engineer
StatusActive
RelativesCamilla Ereben (Wife)
Ave Ereben (Daughter)

Gunther Ereben is a brilliant, albeit prideful tinker who has mastered the manipulation of life and death.

Gunther the Human

Over 700 years ago Gunther Ereben would be known as a mere Human in the Luxfordian army as an engineering's specialist, helping research the ever-advancing technologies of foreign nations in order to develop counter-measures for them. He would be a brilliant mind, but one that would often be pushed to the ground by his low rank and unrecognition, often overshadowed by Artificer Elizabeth Von Herstel, Chief Engineer and highest authority in Luxfordian engineering. Next to being a mechanic, Gunther was also a married man and a loving father, living with his wife Camilla and their daughter Ave in the city of Neverwind.

The year 2360 would come around and Gunther, among many other mechanics for the kingdom, were conscripted to manage the Luxfordian Royal Fleet. By then, Gunther had risen to a higher standing among his peers, earning himself some respect but not enough in the man's egoistic mindscape. Spending the nights in the machinerooms of the Crown Duskbloom vessel, Gunther counted the hours away scheming his big break from irrelevancy - a full-body suit of mechanical armour that could mechanise the infantry of Luxfordia and push them to new heights. Sadly, fate would take a turn for the worst and the entire star fleet would be hit by a surprise attack from Avari defenders, pushing the fleet, with Gunther aboard, into the raging vortex of Voi'Runil.

As the remnants of the army scattered to survive in the hellscape that they found themselves in, Gunther was quick to join Elizabeth's Artificers in order to make resolute a countermeasure for the poisonous land that sought to consume their living cells. A faction war would ignite between those who sought to fight to their last breath, those that sought to pray to the gods for salvation and those who sought a way out and as Gunther watched his fellow kind rapidly decay in corrosive soil, he began to theorise... and go to Elizabeth with a potential solution - create metallic exoskeletons to support and protect their increasingly decaying bodies.

Humoured by the thought and impressed by the blueprints he had to back himself up, Elizabeth took Gunther under her wing as second-in-command of her Artificers. Having found the validation he had been looking for all his life, his focus shifted fully to the development of new mechanical bodies for them to protect themselves in, all while his mind raced to the thought of never seeing Camilla and Ave ever again. Experiment after experiment would fail to bring result and as their numbers dwindled in war and decay, so did the people's collective hope... all of theirs, expect for Gunther who continued to fight on, losing sleep over his tireless work in the shop to find success.

Inspiration would strike him one night when he was passed out sprawled across his desk - a floating forlorn spirit lost to the vortex of Voi'Runil. It echoed with screams for freedom, for release, but it was muffled by the dense air of demon magics afloat. A soul... of a living being now deceased, their body most likely gone to ash and rot but their spirit, while tainted, surviving... He knew what he had to do now, create not a device that can house a physical body but an ethereal one! He called for Elizabeth and shared with her his idea.

With a nod of her head and grasps to their tools, the two came together to build a mechanical doll out of Voi'Runil metals, the finest there ever was - the Ave1.0 Model, named after Gunther's own daughter, his shining light of hope. With the doll finished, they now needed a way to import a soul into it and for that they would be able to craft a tool, an Arcatech Stave that was able to manipulate the concentrated ether of a soul and shove it into the doll like a battery. It had been a year of torment, to Gunther it had felt like a century, but now it all looked hopeful once more...

The Ave1.0 Model would become a success and the cornerstone of the Artificer's designs. One by one Elizabeth and Gunther raised their own into a state of mechanical undeath until only they themselves remained. Nodding assuredly to one another, the two would take their own lives in order to let the machine they had created do the rest.

Gunther the Fordun

Now a mechanical doll, Gunther would feel no sensation more strongly than happiness. He had done it, an established dominion over the cycle of life and death... because of him, the Artificers would live to see another day... and one day, a way off this blasted world. With the faces of Camilla and Ave in his mindscape, Gunther sought to begin work building a Skyship capable of piercing the skies of Voi'Runil so that he could return home, yet his progress would be hindered by constant in-fighting between the Artificers and the Royal Executioners. Month after month, year after year, a war that never saw an end drove Gunther further and further into a state of desperation - he had all the time in the world now... but did he really? How long did his wife have? His child? How long has it been since he arrived on this planet, he had lost count... no clock could tell the time accurately anymore, all sciences abandoned them in this dark place.

He had grown into a broken man as none of his attempts ever bore fruit. He had toiled his springs and gears to a breaking point only for his ships to fall apart or be destroyed in the line of fire... and worst of all - Elizabeth had claimed the success of the dolls her own. Her's! Not theirs, not Gunther's, her's! At first he was adamant, determined to focus on one thing and that is to return home,... but over time the repeated words of Elizabeth would get to him. "My dolls are our future." "My creations will be your salvation." "My brilliance means hope" He heard time and time again over the radio that was meant to rally the splintered forces to the Artificers... a well-meaning message that translated in his mind as her taking all the credit. It would distract him from his goal and that would frustrate him ever-so, to the point that the two would be drawn to a fight. It would be then, through a duel in which the man and woman fought, that Elizabeth revealed a tool Gunther had overlooked before - a sort of kill-switch, built into the frame of the Ave1.0 Model that, when pressed, would deactivate the body and leave the soul inside imprisoned. She would use it on him, to turn the wild man off, but promised him that she'll awaken him when he is back home.

Years would go by in that blasted suit of mechanics and metal, Gunther's soul screaming for release but getting none of it. The Artificers had won thanks to Elizabeth's leadership and the dollfolk now called themselves Fordun. Generation after generation of model evolutions would occur, the idea of a kill switch in Fordun bodies deemed inhumane and vanishing over time and with that Gunther would be forgotten, a relic of the past that sat hidden away in the Von Herstel Manor of Ashbourne city.

An undefined period of time would pass when Elizabeth would come to Gunther once more and awaken the imprisoned sod. She had built herself a new body, a shining sleek one far more advanced than the springs and gears that suited Gunther. With his freedom given back to him, Gunther raised his eyes up at Elizabeth, seeking an answer to her actions - why has she released him?

"It is a most unexpected turn of events, Gunther. The Avari have come bearing a light that pierces the dark clouds... they have a means of letting us leave."

Those words lit the spark of hope in Gunther's eyes but that same light wasn't seen in Elizabeth.

"But our kind isn't ready to leave just yet... neither are the Avari ready for helping in a mass exodus... but I know just how much you, and some others, want to go home."

It didn't take much to convince Gunther to go, he had waited for this day ever since he crash landed into this world as a Human, but before he could leave, he was given one final parting gift from Elizabeth - a new body, updated and sleeker, with no more kill switches - the Ave34.5 Model.

Returning Home

Gunther would be one of a handful of Fordun to board the Avari ship and be taken off of the planet he had damned. They would be taken to Luxfordia where familiar lands brought artificial tears to the man's eyes. He had almost forgotten the rolling fields of Agrimar and the grand sight of New Luxford... everything was the same, yet still different, like time had not stopped when he was away... but what he never realised was how much time had actually passed.

He hurried onto the next carriage to Neverwind, his old home, to see his family only to meet the realisation head-on - It had been four hundred years since the fall of the fleet. -His- family was long gone, his wife dead from heartache and daughter turned to a life of crime as an instigator for uprising in the capital, her life ended with an execution. He felt the hopelessness rise in him once more, had it all been for nothing? He was too late... far too late...

Gunther would do the one thing he knew he could still do - mechanical necromancy. He will build new dolls with the knowledge stored in his circuits and resurrect his dead family, to make it all count for something. For a task so grim, he would employ the help of dark figures who'd use necromancy to pluck the spirits of his wife and daughter out of the afterlife and into their new bodies, returning them to life but at what cost? Their souls were now scarred, marked by the taint of necromancy, their mental states unstable and nothing resembling the loving wife and cheerful daughter he once had...

... but at least he -had- them now.

Gunther would continue to exist on with his resurrected family, moving together to Steamgear where their mechanical selves did not stick out too much. They would live secluded lives in an upper class status conducting a business in mechanical engineering. Though he had his family again, he was still bitter towards Elizabeth and wanted to best her in a competition of engineering excellency. Using his leftover stock of Cosmobane Alloy and spare parts from his time in Voi'Runil, Gunther began to prowl for clients in the black markets of Steamgear looking for those who would seek to resurrect their dead loved ones and strike with them an expensive deal of a lifetime, building their lost ones new dollbodies in exchange for funds that would only help to supply his machinations further.

His work would be at its apex during the Grand War after Steamgear fell to Luxfordian occupation. Chaos would run amok in the streets and Gunther would use lifeless dolls to begin taking control of parts of the lower city, establishing himself as one of a handful of dangerous criminal leaders controlling the splintered city. When the Liberation Front arrived and took back control, Gunther would be forced to retreat to evade the law, bring him and his mechanical family far away. To this day, his whereabouts are a mystery though his business continues through a dark network.

Powers and Abilities

The brilliant mind of Gunther Ereben makes him a genius inventor and a powerful wielder of Arcatech. In cases of direct confrontation, Gunther has turned his body into a weapon he can deploy for quick and easy elimination via concentrated beams for physical harm and his Arcatech Stave for mental and ethereal damage. He commands a small legion of servant bots that do the brunt of his responsibilities, protecting him and his family from harm.

Gunther is capable of reproducing the designs of the Fordun to a tee, even if it is costly to him.

Physical Appearance

Physically Gunther Ereben has a stained silvery body with orange highlights and eyes. He wears a blue fabric cloak and carries with him his Arcatech Stave at all times.