Klendohept

Background/History: Klendo Hepton was born into the family of a religious Damascus merchant in the year 2854 BC. He was a troublemaker from an early age and as such did not fit into the ideal proper society family to which his father aspired His parents participated much in the local temple where his father was their tailor. Klendo wanted no part of the "ziggurat scene" or the family business. As he got older he went from defiant child to dedicated deviant. He drank, brawled in the streets, neglected his education, and failed miserably at life in most every conceivable way. Eventually, his father gave up on him ;telling him that he was destined for the slave galleys. His mother still held out some hope for him, as mothers so often do despite all evidence to the contrary. She always told him that he would have a chance to redeem himself if he would just take it.

His father's predictions followed Klendo throughout his natural life and beyond. At seventeen, Klendo killed a man whose roosters bested all of his in a cockfight. For his father this was the final insult. He disowned Klendo, telling him never to return, though he could not bring himself to turn Klendo in to the authorities. Klendo's mother found enough money to help him escape to Macedonia, though she told him that she would never be able to look him in the eyes again knowing what he had done.

Klendo, like many men in ancient times headed out on the Mediterranean seeking fortune. He felt that he had always been too hemmed in by life “amongst the primitives”, and he relished the freedom that travel would afford him. He soon found himself in need of money without a lot of useful skills to fall back on, so he joined mercenaries. He served with distinction in many battles during the Greek Wars and stayed alive. However, the humdrum of military life didn't really sit well with him. He frequently grumbled at his superiors decisions and came to disapprove of the way the campaign against the Scythians was being waged. His commander sent him over to the mage-guards, since this assignment was for the crazy or suicidal.

The leader of the band of wizards actually took a liking to him during a magery combat in Cappadocia, and Klendo ended up working with that Wizard for several years. He developed a reputation as a good hand with a sword and an all around rough customer. His conversion to magic happened in a battle where a ballista bolt took out a thrall wizard just on the last sentence of a ritual. Klendo had heard it a dozen times, so he shouted out the last line. The spell worked, and notice was taken. From then on he hung on the sorcerers’ every words, lusting after their powers. Previous he had felt it was just a necessary evil.

However, he eventually fell out with his masters over a botched raid in which a Turkish female was accidentally injured. He insisted on taking the noble-looking woman to a nearby city for treatment despite the risk of capture and quartering for being with the Greeks. His superiors thought him bizarre and stupid and shot lightning at him as he rode away without his share of the loot. He kept muttering a rhyme of dissolution, and he escaped unscathed. He did manage to save the woman's life. It turned out that the woman had a powerful friend in town. A man he was destined to meet from even before Klendo and the mages had planned the attack.

An odd person of indeterminate gender named Somnaziark was waiting for Klendo as if they knew he was coming. He took the woman to the home at his/her request. Somnaziark assured Klendo that “I am capable of tending to the woman's wounds, seen and unseen” The person told Klendo that he would eventually need to seek redemption. Somnaziark went on to explain that he knew everything Klendo had ever done, adding that Klendo owed quite a karmic debt for his deeds and lifestyle. Just when Klendo was preparing to laugh this off , Somnaziark surprised him. He told Klendo that he was needed in this, his unrepentant state, adding that he would serve some purposes well. Never one to be dictated to, Klendo offered to end Somnaziarch’s life on the spot, and would he/she prefer head or gut ?. They merely smiled at Klendo asking that was Klendo really as cold-blooded as he pretended to be ?

When Klendo looked into Som's eyes, he was suddenly transfixed. He saw every moment of his foolish youth replayed in his mind's eye. He saw that man lying dead in the fighting ring all those years ago. He saw his father's anguish and his mother's tears. He saw all the people he and the mages had killed in the name of the war, but some was really just for greed and lust. The visions were so vivid that he could taste all the blood and smell the sulphur smoke of wizardry. When these visions passed, he found himself kneeling on the floor with his sword crammed uselessly into the sand. Nowrom behind him, Som explained that he had the power to make Klendo relive those moments again and again…. In this first moment of empathy in his cold life , Klendo called out to the gods for mercy.

Somnaziark wryly replied that the heavens would not be able to help him just yet. At that moment in his life the philosophical forces were grievously unbalanced within him, and that balance was all important. Klendo , who really didn't believed in Hell any more than he believed in Heaven, continued to doubt what was happening. Now that as the shaking of the visions faded, he remembered seeing his former ally magicians also screw with the minds of their enemies. He would not be cowed by Somnaziarch’s silly phantasms! He was gonna be a mage, he couldn’t be toyed with like this, he would do the toying, dammit!

Using his immense selfishness as a kind of shield, he crawled out of Som’s home, out into the street. He was babbling, dazed and struggling with the visions, but had convinced himself it was all untrue, just a parlor trick. No one took mercy on him, thinking him either drunk, stupid, or worse, a damn foreigner. As if adding to his ridicule, the horse slowly tagged along behind him. The only person who helped him was a doxy named Asherah, who took him to her brothel. Even she just wanted to get his pay, really, but she had washed him up and let him rest next to her through the night. In the morning when her madam demanded to know “who was this lout stinking up the joint?!“ they had a fight which ended with a huge urn being smashed onto Klendohept.

Unable to breathe, he died cursing Somnaziarch and his father’s stupid gods.

Seven nights later, when he finally dug his way up to the surface, Somnaziarch was there waiting on him, with an amphora of wine, and a leather skirt nearby. “The wine is for your thirst, which must be immense, and the kilt is for your nakedness” Utterly amazed and confused, Klendo dressed and drank the entire 5 gallons of wine in one go. The drink went away immediately, and was nothing, as if he had not swallowed a sip. “I still thirst”. “You always will” said Som; and then added: “You must come and see me someday, after you learn some wisdom. If that takes a while, come see my descendants.” And then walked away. Klendo spent all night figuring out these undeath circumstances. In the morning he walked to Som’s house, full of more questions. The servants said Som was not home. As he stood there, Asherah came by, and seeing Klendo, ran in fear. But the memory of her pretty face now marred by the terror of him stung Klendo, and he left.

Eventually he found what he sought, scrolls of lore, and magical knowledge. He’s lived several lives since then, being a hermit, a tyrant, been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a lich, poet, a pawn or a king. Sometimes he would get bored with his duchies or baronies and leave them for adventures, sometimes he was burned at the stake by the peasant mobs he had ruled. In various lives he's been a serial killer, a kingmaker, the boogie-man, or just the warlock that lived in the tower up the hill who wanted to be left alone with his books. He’s been everywhere from Cordoba to Constantinople to Kazakhstan.

Personality/Motivation: Ungraved is essentially a powerful autonomous spirit. As a revenant, a soul brought back from the dead, he cannot and will not rest until he has completed whatever unbalances his soul. Despite the considerable mystical energies he wields, he would rather be released to go on to the afterlife. In quiet moments, he is tortured by memories of his life and the knowledge that his soul still hangs on the balance. Somnaziark’s great-great grand-descendant (again with the indeterminate) has explained that he must earn his freedom. Klen has no idea what this means.

Quote: Struggle is the mother of all things. Man does not truly live by the principles of humanity, nor can he preserve himself by his reason above the animal world, but solely does a man arrive on top by grips of the most brutal struggles.

Powers/Tactics: The Ungraved's life has been extended indefinitely by powerful magics. He is dead, yet he isn't. He does not age or decay (any more), and his body has become remarkably durable, so much so that he cannot killed by conventional means. Though he is not invulnerable, he will heal from almost any wound he sustains . His physical toughness and immortality allow him to ignore most attacks and focus on offense. Sometimes his invulnerability (in a long-view sense) makes him reckless, but depending on how his plans needs to be guided, he is cautious)

Appearance: Klendo Hepton the Ungraved started life as a tall, wiry middle eastern man with dark hair. He can still contrive that basic appearance, but usually it is obvious to anyone who looks at him that he is unnatural and quite powerful. His pallor is usually corpse-like, and his skin has become exceedingly weathered over the years. His eyes glow with a dim reddish light at times, especially at night, indicating the powerful forces at his command. He wears medieval clothing from ancient days, particularly a leather skirt that often hangs about his hips like a funeral shroud. His bronze-colored breastplate is decorated with a grinning demon's skull. These faces on his boots and costume are actual souls of wizards and kings he conquered long ago, but no-one else knows this really. They would be of great value to two types of people. Firstly those seeking karma by releasing the dead to actual rest, or secondly to ancient historians who would like to question them.

Campaign Use: Note his Convert-Item-to-Tattoo spell. The GM should have 10 random things on his body, picking these out at the start of the campaign. They should be important things, like missing persons, barrels of nerve gas, a humvee, gold bars, etc. At least one of the things should be a disgusting booby trap, like a water balloon heavily laced with ricin oil.

The Ungraved is not the sort to take being stymied lightly, but he does not have time for formal rivalries.

Plus he rises from the dead. To really kill him, campaign-wise, the heroes will have to help him notice the futility of his life, and convince him to look higher. The players will have no clue of this of course. He should not be a one shot villain, who gets caught robbing a bank and gets tossed in the slammer.