Vandrash Aspectum Luxford
Vandrash Aspectum Luxford | |
---|---|
Creator | Xero |
Information | |
Title | Phantom King |
Race | Phantom Human (In Life) |
Gender | Male |
Height | 450cm 202cm (In Life) |
Age | ??? |
Affiliation | Old Luxfordia |
Occupation | King |
Status | Undead |
Relatives | Andrash Luxford (Son) |
"If Humankind is meant to survive in this world, they must assert themselves as the rulers of this world! They must unify in a force no other and crush those that stand in their way! They must be conquerors without relent!" -Vandrash Aspectum Luxford, the first King of Luxfordia
In the early ages of Human civilisation, many a clan would settle in the frostbitten lands of Ischyros for reasons still unknown to this day. Though they often saw cooperation between clans when a greater threat emerged, the Human clans were quick to turn on one another through distrust and hatred in differing ideologies. Only one clanless man, who brandished the name "Vandrash" like a blade of dread, could eventually unify them through a display of heroism and power, challenging the other clanlords to competitions of valour and strength and besting each one by one, yet never delivering a killing blow to those he claimed victory over to show them mercy. Thus he came to be the first King of the Humans and begin a rapid expansion of his newborn nation of Luxfordia not only in the icy wastes but also across the Exodus Sea. The Keklar and the Meesin of the western continent were the first to experience the full might of Vandrash's power. In his campaign to become the ruler of Imperia, the Thane of Mor Durin also swore an alliance with Luxfordia, bestowing to the victor King a name originating from their chronicles of an age long past - Aspectum.
The Age of Triumph
With the Humans willing to follow under his rule and those that tried to defy him crushed under his army, Vandrash set out to build a mighty fortress known as Ischyros Pinnacle in the northern most tip of the continent, a fortress which would serve as his seat of command. After the construction of the pinnacle, a city was also built in the heart of the lands for those that followed the warlord, its size rivaled only by the newly-founded capital of the Senkh in the south-eastern desert. As the kingdom of Vandrash grew, so did rivalries and competitions with other mortal species that shared the land with them. The Meesin to the east would quickly turn hostile to the growing empire of the warlord, constantly launching attacks on their caravans and farmlands while the Keklar feasted on their camps in Azura like parasites which would leave them in shackles and used as servants by the men and women of the kingdom.
In a unified kingdom, the Humans only sang praise for their benevolent king, telling heroic tales of how his influences and efforts would bring a new dawn for their people and that their kingdom would grow to becoming powerful for history to behold. In the streets of their city many attended carnivals that celebrated the birth of their kingdom but high atop the towering castle that sat in the middle of the city Vandrash set his eyes in erasing any potential threats to his kingdom, wish not to have anything undo what he had been able to create.
With their influence spreading to the grasslands of Azura, the next logical step for Vandrash was to conquer the harsh wastelands of Livanin where the growing Senkh empire laid in prosperous but there he would encounter something that he had not had the displeasure of encountering before - an equal force. The Senkh Empire had already amassed a populous greater and more skilled in combat than that of the Humans and Dwarves and being allowed to fight on their own homelands meant the snake people were easily able to counter-offend any attempts of their lands being taken from them.
Having failed to take the desert in a surprise invasion, Vandrash had his armies retreat and recuperate but knowing the might of the Senkh only drove the king paranoid. For once he knew that there existed a force that could actually rival his own and he wished not to risk losing everything to them. Not only that, but upon returning home Vandrash discovered a plague of undeath spreading in the hills of Ischyros, causing misfortune and disease to creep through his populations. In the coming years the city he established would be shut off from all sides, forcing those inside to work tirelessly in amassing an army so big not even the Senkh could hold it back but in doing so the king shut his heart off from his people. In the hard times that followed, the horrible sickness plagued the streets of the city with its inhabitants dying slow painful deaths without a cure in sight and those that were still healthy were unable to flee the contaminated city while the King watched from above. The burning of not only corpses but afflicted individuals became a regular sight by that point which would later devolve further into the frantic killings of anyone thought to bear the disease - whether or not they were really sick.
Fearful of losing everything that he had built up in his long years of living, Vandrash, or as he was now known by his people - the Phantom King, ordered higher production rates from his people and forced even the sick to work in preparing their defences and armories for a possible attack. As a result, a civil war would break out between the King's Guard and the common folk causing production to begin to halt and the death toll to rise into the thousands. The city would fall into chaos and calamity with the military soon scattering into parties of those that support the king and those that defy him.
This war would last for years to come with no end in sight.
The Age of Darkness
Years down the line, king Vandrash's fears of an enemy attacking his city would come to pass but it would not be the Senkh that he expected. From the darkest depths of the unknown, a being known as Archlich Arusk'Orun emerged. For years she posed as one of Vandrash's own personal guards, even exploiting his paranoia to gain his trust through hearsay and affection. Arusk'Orun would ultimately drive an accursed blade through the heart of the Phantom King to fulfil the destiny that the Lich had spun.
Vandrash would become a Phantom, the greatest Auria would known, but the light of the King's final defiance would seal him to his throne so he may sleep in dormancy rather than be used as a weapon of destruction. In the absence of their King and his guard, those disloyal to the kingdom could finally rebel and escape while others who swore their lives to the Phantom King remained to be butchered by the armies of the undead beating down their walls.
Arusk'Orun wanted the Humans to suffer an eternity as foul undead, raising the strongest among them into Phantoms and the rest into spectral Ghosts or Zombies that wander the ruined castle to this day. Not only did the Archlich raise those that fell by her magic, she also raised the ancestral spirits of Humans buried in the burial grounds upon which the citadel was built upon, bringing forth an influx of tormented and angered spirits seeking eternal rest.