DISCLAIMER: I don't own Warhammer or Elder scrolls or their characters.
AN: That right baby another Warhammer cross (if you couldn't tell I love Warhammer), this time it's time to observe possibly one of my favourite old-world characters, (Daddy) Vlad Von Carstein.
Let us watch as one of the greatest (and most stable) vampire's make a life for himself in the desolate wastes of Skyrim. Note that Vlad won't be the last dragonborn and this will mostly focus around the Dawnguard DLC but I'm not forsaking the main Skyrim story. So let us begin the story of the founder of the midnight aristocracy.
The Von Carstein Wake's
Chapter 1: New, Ancient Blood
The darkness that surrounded his vision was nothing new to Vlad. This was the dark of the limbo after death, something Vlad had much experience with thanks to his ring, but this time there was no returning to the material world. The reason was that he gave up the ring for his beloved Isabella, cursed as she was to lead hordes of Nurgle daemons to wipe out the undead during what mortals had called the 'End Times'. His last death had come when he hurled himself and his wife from the battlements of Middenheim, killing them both, as well as the daemon infecting Isabella before the Von Carstein ring brought her back free of the taint.
He had watched from the limbo as his first wife Neferata, first of the vampires, had found Isabella and had taken her to Sylvania to await the result of Middenheim. But now, with the world naught but dust and debris, Vlad would forever be lost in this dark space with nothing but his thoughts as he slowly drifted through the emptiness. Or so he thought.
An unseen force suddenly gripped his soul and began to drag him through the darkness, soon a light started to form in the distance. Eventually he flew through the light and onto the ground. Slowly Vlad oriented himself and began to push his body up, which he now noticed was returned to him complete with his armour, varghulf cloak, and his faithful blade Blood Drinker at his hip, but most surprising was upon his right ring finger, was the Von Carstein ring. As Vlad finally stood up strait and looked to where he had landed.
Vlad found himself within a great throne room, though he believes that whoever had designed the place may have had a mental affliction of some kind, for it appeared like the entire room had been split in half. Each side had its own design ranging from the colours of the fabrics used to even the small decorative object.
At the end of the room was a great tree that seemed to have sprouted from the floor, and what appeared to be a throne that had been turned around for whatever reason. Before Vlad could continue his musing into the design of this room, he heard footsteps coming up behind him. Quickly, Vlad spun round while brandishing Blood Drinker, he also gathered the winds of vampires to his free hand.
What met his eyes was in his opinion, quite underwhelming. What appeared to be a mortal man was walking up to him, the man was dressed in black, almost skin tight suit, with what appeared to be a red under suit that appeared to split into a star pattern at the neck where a gold pendant hung, he also wore skin tight black leggings and a pair of black shoes. He had a frown upon his face with a balding head. He seemed utterly unfazed by the Counts display.
"It appears the Lord finally did it, *sigh* this is going to cause a mighty reaction from the other princes. It may even bring the Divine's eyes here. Oh well, the lord has acted and now we must live with the consequences." Vlad's mind was working as fast as it could to make sense of the man's word.
"What does thou speak of?" Asked Vlad, feeling he was missing some major context to be able to make sense of what the man had just said.
"Oh, just that your mere presence here may invoke the attention, or anger in some cases, of powerful beings that could end up storming this realm in order to put this act right, in their view. Either way you should probably meet with the one who brought you here. Follow me." The man began walking up towards the reversed throne, Vlad coming into step beside him.
"Might I Inquire thy name, sir." Asked Vlad, unlike the vast majority of the vampires of the world held no disdain towards mortals, this was probably what made him such a good leader of Sylvania before the first vampire war started.
"My name is Haskill, and you need not refer to me as sir, I am but the chamberlain to the Lord." Responded Haskill. By now they had made it to the throne, Haskill moved and stood at the side of the throne, then whoever was sat in the throne spoke to Vlad.
"Welcome Mr Carstein." Suddenly the entire throne began to spin in place and the occupant came into view. He had the appearance of an aging man with silvery, white hair on his head with a full beard. He wore a suit that was split down the middle, the right side was a purple while the left was a dark orange. He sat with one leg crossed over his knee, in his lap was a 4 headed goose that he was carefully stroking. "I've been expecting you." Said the mystery man as he gave of a wicked grin and continued to pet the goose, which was now spewing fire out of its heads at random intervals.
Vlad was for once in his life completely speechless, he had seen many things in his near 3800 years of existence, but few things could compare to this being in front of him now. Within the eyes of this individual was a madness like no other, not even Konrad could compare. He would have to be extremely cautious about how he spoke.
"It appears thou knows of I, but I do not know thou. May haps thy can resolve this issue?" Vlad carefully studied the individual before him in an attempt to at least grasp a portion on how their mind functions, but alas nothing.
"Ha! You talk funny dead boy. But to answer your question." The individual got up out of his throne and promptly drops the goose as it continued to belch out fire. When the goose hits the ground there was a puff of smoke and in its place was what could be seen as a walking stick, though it was made completely if some kind of metal and at its top there 3 carved faces, each holding a different expression. The man then did an elaborate bow with the staff. "The names Sheogorath, Deadric Prince of madness. A pleasure." His voice took a sinister turn at the end.
"Why has thou brought me from the limbo Prince?"
"Why? Why!? Because your very existence upon Nirn has the potential for such madness and chaos, unheard of since Dagon tried to break in. Such a show would be a joy to watch." Responded Sheogorath as he kept waving his arms about in an exaggerated manner.
"So that is thou only reason for resurrecting me, mere entertainment?" Vlad did not like the idea of being the new toy of a mad god, a puppet dancing on the whims of an unstable, powerful being.
"Of course, a Prince could always do with another jester, but that's not all." Sheogorath's voice now took a more serious tone, catching Vlad off guard considering how the prince had been acting so far. "Something big is coming within the northern most country of Tamriel, Skyrim. I'm not certain what it is, but the big boss in Aetherius has had his eyes focused on the biggest mountain of Skyrim for a while now, that's cause for concern. Vampire attacks have been picking up their pace for the last few years there. Somethings coming. And I'm throwing you right in the middle of it!" And back to madness induced shouting.
"So, thou would have myself play a role in the events to come?" Asked Vlad just to confirm, feeling as if he needed an actual answer from this convoluted God.
"Exactly. Now we had best get you down to Skyrim, or else you'll miss your carriage." When Sheogorath finished that sentence there was a sudden clacking sound behind Vlad. When he turned around, he saw a great crack in the air with pure light streaming through.
"Ah, looks like Meridia was the first to make a move to stop you from getting down to Nirn. Too bad for her, you're ready to set off." Said Sheogorath as he conjured up a portal into a forested area near a road. Vlad began making his way to the portal but was stopped by the prince grabbing his arm to pull is close to whisper something in a serious tone.
"Last words before you go. Vampires work differently here than where you're from. The sun won't kill you, but it will weaken your abilities on a vast level. There won't be any issues with the magic your familiar with but it isn't the same as the magic the exists in Mundas. I tinkered with your mind a bit to solve the language barrier, so no worries in that department. And finally, if you can distract the other Deadric princes I could work on bringing a few old friends to aid you. Including the lost love." With the said the prince released Vlad's arm as the clack grew larger from another strike. Vlad gave a thankful nod before stepping through the portal.
The moment Vlad stepped through the portal and into the sunlight, rather than burst into flames like he would have expected, his blood felt like his blood was boiling and a portion of his strength leave him. Unused to such a feeling Vlad began to make his way to the road, stumbling every now and then.
Eventually he began to hear the sound of marching men. As Vlad continued to focus upon keeping upright, he failed to see a root from a nearby tree that had grown on top of the ground.
{--}
Ulfric Stormcloak
Ulfric could say he was not having a good week.
The first issue was when they first arrived in Falkreath for a recruiting mission, he and his small bodyguard unit of 10 veterans had to dodge the eyes of several imperial patrols. Next came the recruiting job itself, almost all the candidates ended up being imperial spy's, this unveiled the setup and now he was making a rush towards the eastern border.
What made the week worse still was the 2 uninvited guest. Both came out of the treeline stumbling from exhaustion, on his left was a Nord dressed in rags, he must have been walking for days in the forest, no weapon in sight and covered in cuts. The significantly worse of the 2 though, was the vampire.
Dressed in a set of black and gold armour, upon his left shoulder was a golden pauldron with a great horn sticking up, one clawed gauntlet upon his left hand with the right left bare to accommodate a golden ring holding a green gemstone. Behind the beasts head the armour rose up and ended in 3 golden spikes, forming an unholy halo. It wore a cloak of the fur of some kind of creature. His armour was decorated with a multitude of bat related images, ranging from wings to full heads of gold with maws of sharp fangs. At his hip was the sheath of a longsword. But most disturbing of all was his face, the skin was stretched thin across the bone, and there were several holes, along with a missing nose.
Ulfric drew his weapon along with the rest of his Stormcloak's, as they honed in upon the blood-sucker. But rather than draw its own weapon, it chose to begin speaking to them.
"I hold no quarrel with thou contingent mortal. Simple allow me to pass, and we can forget this encounter ever occurred." Before Ulfric could respond one of his bodyguards spoke up.
"And let a blood-sucker like you just stroll away and feast upon a village, I think not." While Ulfric did agree with the man, something felt off about this vampire. He had encountered them before but they had all felt different to this one. The one before him didn't seem to care to uphold any illusion that he was a normal person, and the only explanation for that was, this vampire had the confidence that no matter the situation his nature got him into, he could get out of it. And his eyes, he had heard people say 'the eyes are the gateway to the soul', and Ulfric believed that, so when he looked into this vampire eyes, he was worried by the truly ancient look they had to them.
"If thou wish an early grave, then thou can attempt to send me to mine. Or you can let me pass, and no blood will be spilled here this day." This vampire had a way with words that seemed to compel you to follow. But all that stopped when his head shot to the trees as he grabbed his sword, when it came from the sheath the metal began to glow with an ethereal green glow.
{--}
General Tullius
Tullius had believe this whole operation was going perfectly. Ulfric plan had been leaked to him by his spy's, his operation in Falkreath had been completely foiled, and now they were in the perfect position to ambush and capture the rebel leader. All this long planning had been thrown off by the arrival of what appeared to be a vampire lord.
He had faced a few vampire lords in his time as an Imperial general, and they were by far one of the deadliest combatants to face on the field. Capable of leading entire hordes of undead alone, as well as masters of magic and experts at martial combat and tactics. And all this only improved with the age of the lord. He didn't have nearly enough men to bring the fiend down along with the rebels in a straight fight.
60 men and 10 battle mages split on both sides of the road. But the main issue was the lord could just bring back any of the casualties to fight for him. The only saving grace was that the lord was weak from the sun and what appeared to be a lack of blood, but this would make them desperate, which could end up worsening the situation. Quickly rearranging the lines with a series of hand signal, so the legionaries would subdue the rebels while the mages would focus all their efforts upon the vampire.
But then the worst possible thing happened, one of the soldiers broke a branch, and just at a moment that the rebels had stopped talking to the vampire. The vampire immediately drew his weapon at the unlucky soldier's direction.
{--}
Vlad Von Carstein
Vlad heard the branch break thanks to his enhanced senses, those same sense allowed his eyes to focus upon the distinctly human shapes that had frozen in the shadow of the trees. Drawing Blood Drinker with such speed the mortal in the road flinched back, in his empty hand vampiric magic began to gather as a gaze of Nagash took form, further unnerving all present. He honed in on where the noise came from.
"AMBUSH!" After shout this Vlad launched the spell into the forest. After the sound of some small explosion's several voices cried out in pain before going silent. A few moments went by where everyone just stood still. The first to recover was Tullius.
"Soldiers take the rebels! Mages kill the vampire!" The entire area exploded to life as 56 legionnaires charged out of the forest at the rebels, at the same time the remaining 8 mages began launching a multitude of fire spells at Vlad.
The Stormcloak's were quickly being overwhelmed with them fighting nearly 6 to 1 and were incapacitated, along with the ragged Nord that had tried to flee when the fighting started. With this done the Imperials then turned their attention to the vampire, who had in the 5 minutes it took to defeat the rebels, killed another 5 of the mages with both spell and sword.
Vlad felt the flesh blood upon his blade get absorbed into himself and his strength beginning to return. Another fireball struck his back, turning to face the mage responsible, he launched another Gaze of Nagash, but failed to notice from the noise of the spell a lone spearman sneaking up behind him.
The other soldiers seeing this as their only opportunity, worked to hold Vlad's attention forwards with a mix of spell, arrow and blade, though they paid the price with another 23 legionnaires dying. When the lone Imperial finally got close enough, he quickly thrust the spear head into the gap at the armpit and into the heart. Vlad's body shook violently but didn't immediately go down. In response the spear was twisted within the wound while being pushed deeper in. Cold blood came out of the would chilling the man's hand before Vlad collapsed to the ground dead.
Seeing this Tullius gave a sigh of relief at the vampire's early defeat. He then focused back upon their new prisoners.
"Allright men, bring up the carriage's, we make for Helgen." A minute later three carriages came round a bend with their horsebound escort, the end carriage already having a thief that was caught earlier. The prisoners were loaded on them. Before the convoy could begin marching the man who had struck down the vampire came rushing over to Tullius.
"General Tullius, sir!" There was urgence and fear in the soldier's voice.
"What is it soldier?"
"The vampire sir, its wound is regenerating, at its rate it'll be up in a few minutes." This troubled Tullius immensely, that thing had received a killing blow to kill any vampire. It also brought down most of his mages alone, he didn't want to fight it again.
"Bind its arms and legs, mages, I want enchantments to resist magic and force on the ropes." The men got to work as fast as they could on the bindings, the mages used up all 4 of their grand soul gems upon the enchantments.
"What shall we do with it sir?" Tullius considered his options, he could just leave it to starve out here. But there was a chance it could still get away and a vampire of that calibre on the loose was a terrifying thought. No, he had to kill it, which mean he would most likely need a priest of some kind.
"We won't leave it out here just to escape. Stick into the end carriage with Ulfric and the other unaffiliated prisoners." Tullius commanded with finality. Looking to the bound vampire, Tullius spied its weapon off to the side still glowing, the blade that seemed to heal and invigorate whenever the metal drew blood. Reaching down he grabbed the blade and put it in its sheath after it was removed from the body.
"Yes sir." They dragged the body to the carriage and sat him down opposite Ulfric next to the thief, who began vocalising his displeasure.
"Hey, why are you sticking an old corpse by me?" Ulfric gaged as he was, eyed the body warily and moved as far from it as he could with the unconscious Nord in his way. Ralof on the other had had full liberty of his voice.
"Keep away from that one, watched it butcher 29 of the Imperials before it went down." Ralof himself was edging his way from the body as well.
"It?"
"Vampire. An old one too, I'd bet."
"Then why haven't they killed it." The thief asked as he was quickly giving the body a wide birth.
"My guess, they couldn't. So, try not to antagonise it when they wake up. After all you are the one in biting distance, and the sloppy Imperials forgot to put a muzzle on it." The thief was now sweating intensely, this action was then occurring for the other conscious occupants as the body began to twitch. After a few more moments the head rose up and opened their eyes only to squint and hiss at the sun's rays. After struggling for a few moments with his bindings and realising it was a fruitless effort, he simple stopped and observed his surroundings. As the silence grew more uneasy for the other occupants, Ralof chose this moment to break it.
"Hey, vampire. You got a name." Ralof regretted asking for the stare he received in turn could only be described as soul piercing.
"And why dost the mortal, wish the title of the undying?" Vlad attempted to discern the intentions of the man before him.
"Immortal or not, we're all brothers and sisters in chains now. And I'd prefer to meet my end in good company. I'll even start, I am Ralof of Riverwood." Seeing no harm in playing this game Vlad responded.
"I am Vlad Von Carstein, blood-sire of the Von Carstein line, first of the Vampire Counts."
A/N 2: Right, now this is to test the waters for a story like this, if the response is good, I'll keep going, if not, oh well I tried. If this does get a good response the updates will be slow due to me wanting longer chapters for a story like this and I have 2 others to manage at the same time. So, I hope you enjoyed.