Yanric Haimelheim

♦ Youth

Yanric is the eldest born into the sixth generation of the Haimelheim bloodline. Born during a time of peace within the nation, he is unaffected by the wars his ancestors had waged. As Yanric reached infancy, it was clear that he was the only living being within Inkirh able to cast arcane magic, a first for many generations. Veric, his father, saw this as a sign of divination from the goddess Ilmah herself. This once again made Haimelheim a formidable kingdom, and the other lords grew wary of the previously quiet capital. Seizing the opportunity, Veric ultimately made Yanric a pawn in his goal; claim Inkirh as human territory once and for all. Starting this path of bloodshed would majorly disrupt the peacetime that had been upheld for so long… still, Veric continued to mould Yanric into the perfect sorcerer.

Often described as a "conduit" for the power that slept beneath Haimelheim, Veric did not much care for how Yanric was able to cast, only that it was possible at all. It was a slow process; always pushing Yanric to learn how to deepen his arcane knowledge further and further, only with the end goal in mind. This process was not free of evil – Veric would bring Yanric several living creatures to practice his malevolent magic on, often resulting in their deaths or hideous maladies. Glorious. Violence was no stranger in Inkirh, and Veric had the perfect vessel of violence right within his grasp.

As time bore on, Veric cared less and less for the source that Yanric drew from, only that it bore results – and that it did. By his tenth birthday, Yanric was extremely proficient in the arcane arts. However, Veric sought total dominion; the humans could no longer risk another failed war. His father only wanted assured victory, to the point where it drove him mad. He sought a way to preserve his son, scrawled on parchment in old Inkirhian tongue in the depths of their library; The Curse of Un-Life.

The Curse of Un-Life, Veric learned, granted immortality for its caster through soul sacrifice. To Yanric, Father had said it was just another soul sacrifice, for he had done so to other creatures many times before… but why had Father been so secretive leading up to his tenth birthday? On the night of, Yanric had been gifted with the family heirloom – a carefully crafted claymore that breathed the same red glow as Inkirh’s skies themselves, passed down through his predecessors – “But why must I carry this sword down all of these steps, Father?” little Yanric would ask, the scrape of metal not far behind his own footsteps.

Within the crypts, its dark corners illuminated by a pillar of red moonlight cascading down from the sky high above, Yanric was ordered by Father to bind his soul to the sword , an act which only confused him; soul-binding was only for the dead, to stop the soul passing over…? Little Yanric was then presented with a bottled liquid of unknown qualities (arsenic, belladonna, mythic beast blood, a human heart, and countless venoms) – “It smells very strange,” little Yanric would complain, handing it back to Veric reluctantly. It was met with an anger he had never seen before from his stern-faced father, almost desperate but ultimately dangerous. Fearful of his father’s wrath, Yanric drank the concoction with naught but a whimper.

♦ Lichdom

It goes without saying that little Yanric died that night, thus ending his mortal life. What came next was a string of events that unravelled all too quickly; suspended between the Plane of Living and the Plane of the Dead, Yanric became undead. His body decayed before his father’s eyes, and yet he lived. His new life had begun as an undead spellcaster, and thus Veric’s plan had succeeded…

more tba.

Inkirh is a subterranean territory within the realm of Aecita. Dug deep into the earth itself, Inkirh houses thirteen kingdoms (comprised of orcs, imps, demons, shades, banshees, allips and the like), with Haimelheim as its capital. Its inhabitants believe in the goddess, Ilmah, who slumbers deeper still in the ground below them. They say her power is attainable if only they could awaken her but more curiously, legends say Haimelheim is where she was laid to rest. It is for this reason that humans first settled here, and like the other kingdoms, have continued to dig for centuries. The truth of Inkirh’s bloody history has been lost to time itself, buried away in dead languages and poorly maintained scripture within Haimelheim’s great library.

The landscape is mostly stone, easily carved, but scarred with molten core, and the very atmosphere is as red as its skies. Without natural light, Inkirh is a difficult place to live for most living creatures, and some may even find comfort betwixt the impossibly tall buildings, built so tall to support the very ground above them. Sunlight seldom reaches the depths of Inkirh, but when it does, its inhabitants scurry like rats to bathe in its light.

Close to the southern walls awaits Haimelheim; a keep fit for a king, or five. It stretches most of the southern border, encasing its people deep inside its walls. At its heart sits the throne, where Yanric spends most of his time. Lounging, legs cast over the side arm and head laid back over the other. A picture of leisure at its finest. He is not a cruel king, but is is an eccentric one; will not cast out a merchant for providing him with subpar silks, but will cast out a merchant for not bringing him a good joke alongside. His throne room is littered with keepsakes of his travels across Inkirh: an ancient tablet that should not have been removed, scripture of a dead language that no one speaks, a tapestry pilfered from one of his grandfather's many tirades, the skull of his prized demon pet - the list goes on.

Inside his private chambers, a similar story is told but much more intimate. The king hoards keepsakes - a lock of his late mother's hair, his grandfather's helmet, his own brother's baby blanket, and dozens upon dozens of tattered books. Books tattered from a love of reading them, a love of the tales they tell, the titbits of information they share, the omens they abide against. And finally, an ornately framed mirror upon a vanity. Its a shrine to himself, housing a jewel encrusted hairbrush for his crimson tresses, vials of expensive rose oils, and of course, the Hellscape Greatsword placed proudly above. Yanric's private chambers are off limits to all but himself, of course.