Heinrich the Mad Lich

Heinrich, usually called the Mad Lich (Euluska: Ainrih) was a notable and storied mortal who rose to lichdom. He became a minor deity of undeath and madness. He was famously known for living multiple times in his mortal life, before he was enshrined to godhood.
 For a more messy, confusing, old, out of date chronicle of his life, see the page Heinrich.
== Domain and Following ==
Heinrich was a minor eldritch deity who had ascended through lichdom - sacrificing his humanity bit by bit through his multiple deaths and rebirths until he was more an idea than a man of flesh and blood. He performed dark and terrible rituals to enshrine himself in the darkness, in the space between stars, in the shadows where there was no light. From his dark deeds, he gained several cult-like followings in dark corners of the world. 
Heinrich's divine domain was undeath and madness. He was able to unleash gibbering madness, fear, necrosis, rotting flesh, and skeletons with a thought. Necromancers and those who studied the magic of the mind prayed to him in hushed tones, for it was just as bad as devil worship to revere him, if not worse.
In dreams or visions, he appeared with the figure of a man, broad at the shoulder and shy of six feet tall. Yet, instead of a face, he only had a skull, with deep pits for eyes, and sometimes jewels adorning his skull. Over it was draped a tight black-violet shroud, which stuck as though sodden and wet. 
His symbols were those of death and bone, of blood and darkness. He could grant his followers boons, or take them away just as easily. His followers would often adorn themselves with bones and bone imagery, for Heinrich was a skeleton. His colours were bone-white, black, and deep, deep, dark purple.
One of his worshippers' main symbols was an imitation of his Violet Shroud. This veil was said to have been worn by Heinrich as a scarf or bandana during the Violet Catastrophe. It was said the white translucent cloth turned a deep purple-black as it drank in the screams and the sounds of death on that night, where a hundred thousand people lost their lives between dusk and dawn - the largest loss of life in one day in history. His followers wore deep black-violet shrouds over their faces, thin enough to see through, or they carried them on their person where discretion was necessary. They carried bones engraved with runes and affirmations or wishes, perhaps fashioning necklaces or trinkets of bones.
His followers often whipped themselves into trancelike frenzies to see haunting visions, and perform grave acts under the influence of a grasping and puppeteering madness. Speaking in tongues, acting erratically, and depersonalisation were key parts of rituals to the Mad Lich.
== His Name ==
The in-universe Euluska form of his name, which gets translated into English as Heinrich, would have been Ainrih /'aɪn.ɾix/.
The name Ainrih was cognate with some other common Euluska names: Arik/Erik (ainuk->aduk->arik); Enryk e.g. Lord Henrick Brazensow; and even distantly, Anaïs (ainuk->anyuk->anayuh->anayis) e.g Anaïs Disforza.
These names were derived distantly from the Proto-Gildegran name Ainuk /ɪːnʊk/ (e.g Ainuk of Anoq), which itself was ultimately derived from the proto-Tarkassic inuq /i.nuqʰ/ meaning 'wise' or 'clever'.
Some other names also derived from this root - (inuq->iduh->irus->eros OR irus->ilrus) - in modern times like Erros or Helrus.
== His Life and History ==
=== Heinrich Tarquinson, Mountebank ===
In his natural life, Heinrich was an elf and a gentleman thief from Datria, who had grown up a street orphan (born 1468 TE). He became one of the foremost members of the Datrian Thieves Guild, and he specialised in highwaymanship, safe-cracking, burglary, forgery, and subterfuge. He trained as an assassin too, and he was a crack shot with his twin pistol-crossbows; he became infamous for allegedly never missing. He also carried a cane, and dressed in dark but smart clothes even during the lowest of crimes. He went by the callsign Mountebank during this time. Datria was a bustling and booming city of shipbuilding, maritime trade, and burgeoning industry, and Heinrich made his living through thievery.
During his time in Datria, he was beaten to several scores by a cat burglar named Erla Fivewind (born 1468 too). Eventually, he and Erla joined forces for several scores, and formed a closer bond. They became romantically involved. When both Erla and Heinrich were seventeen, she became pregnant with his child. In order to gain better legal protections for their child and hopefully a better life, they married, and eased off the thievery. Their son, born 1485, was named Rufus Tarquinson. 
=== Thief and Pariah ===
In the year 1490, the Danderillonian ranger Praelus introduced his friend Heinrich to several heroes that had helped him earlier on his travels, these being Kessar Truespear, Dain Axehelm (the famous!) and Balgolor. Heinrich, Dain, Kessar, Balgolor, and the leader of the Datrian Thieves, the drow Crow, were given a mission by a contact to break into the Datrian University Laboratory to steal large quantities of powerful nerve gas. The nerve gas, W.R.W.L., was being mixed with white phosphorous to use as a chemical weapon of war. They snuck in alongside several other Datrian Thieves under cover of darkness. However, one of the thieves, named Takuro, betrayed the party and released the nerve gas by candle flame. Heinrich and his compatriots fought off the Datrian Guardia and just barely hid in the sewers as Takuro set the building to blow. This incident caused nerve agents and neurotoxins to spread throughout the air and water of the city, leading to the deaths of thousands, as well as a large uncontrolled great fire that burned many of the clustered slums. It is known now as the Violet Catastrophe, and Heinrich witnessed it firsthand, one of only a few people to know what truly happened inside that laboratory that led to the deaths of c. 100,000 people (almost a quarter of the city's population, from the nerve gas and the ensuing fires and shortages). Heinrich, Crow, Dain, Kessar, and Balgolor fled Datria northwards during the destruction, making up the coast. 
They first came to Kol Darim in winter 1490. Here, Heinrich defended his friend Dain on several occassions. It was here he also revealed to his companions that he had managed to pocket 2 vials of WRWL, which had been thought lost and destroyed. He held a weapon of mass destruction - no, two - in his lapel pocket. He sadistically used small doses of this purple gas to send his poor victims into fits of crying, laughing, and eventually death of exhaustion - first displaying his true secretive psychopathic tendencies. He and his friends then fled Kol Darim when an impending attack by a united Vreigardt (native orc/goblinoid) army approached. During their flight, they met two more companions - Lucky Jorlen (a halfling gambler) and Kellen Brownwater (a gnome conman).
In the ensuing weeks, Heinrich, Dain, Crow, Balgolor, Jorlen, Kellen, and Kessar forged a path over the dire sub-zero Delling Mountains. On several occasions they almost died of exposure. Jorlen was killed by bounty hunters led by none other than Praelus, their old friend, who was hunting them for causing the tragedy in Datria. Heinrich and Balgolor mortally wounded Praelus and left him in the snow to die a painful frostbitten death. It was later said by Balgolor that Heinrich was such a good shot, he must have deliberately intended to maim, not kill.
=== Enforcer, and Death 1 - Betrayal ===
When Heinrich and his entourage arrived in the free city of Bracken, Kessar and Kellen began plotting to politically enshrine themselves. Those two dealt with complex plots involving the warring mafias and gangs and nobility of the city. Heinrich acted as their enforcer and hitman, assassinating targets as they demanded. Within months, Kessar and Kellen (the latter now falsely styling himself as the exotic nobleman Lord Altor Mazander from a made-up country) had orchestrated the gangs of Bracken to be at one another's throats. This culminated in the Battle of Bracken, where several gangs and the nobility warred until being wiped out or fleeing. 
At the climax of the battle of Bracken, Heinrich, Kellen/Altor, and Kessar fought shoulder to shoulder against the Di Lamendolio mafia family lightning-mages who managed to cover the matriarch Kelita di Lamendolio's retreat. Kessar was almost killed by the final blast from the last dying mage, who Heinrich killed. Heinrich helped Kessar up and tended to her wounds. As he was doing so, Kellen grabbed him around the waist whilst Kessar stabbed him in the neck from where she lay on the ground, then they forced him to the ground and stabbed him again and again as he gurgled and gasped for breath. Earlier, Kessar and Kellen/Altor had agreed amongst the two of them that whilst Heinrich was a powerful tool, he was a wildcard. They could not risk his skills being used by the enemy. So, they killed him once they knew he was no longer useful. In the coming months, Kessar became head of the city's largest gang, and Altor was crowned King Altor Mazander of Bracken, the first king of the city in a millennium. 
Kessar and Altor buried Heinrich in a cemetery on the southern slopes facing east. They opened the Heinrich Tarquinson School of Athletic Excellence for orphans to become warriors, in his name. Life went on.
=== The Bracken Ripper, and Death 2 ===
The betrayal was Kessar's idea, not Altor's. Altor felt guilt hanging over him for the first three years of his reign. Now as king and with the power to do anything, he finally gave in. In 1493, he had a powerful cleric come from the lands to the north, and dig up Heinrich's body to revive him. The cleric began the ritual, but something went horribly wrong and was botched. Heinrich rose incomplete, smoking with shadows, and with a revenant's vengeance. He fled into the city in the night, with only one memory in his mind - that of Altor and Kessar killing him. He wanted revenge. From 1493 to 1497, he murdered 23 high-ranking gang members and government officials who physically bore a resemblance to Kessar (for the gang members) and Altor (for the government officials). His signature style was fast recognised, gunning his foes down in a hail of thorned crossbow bolts. His reign of terror came to a sudden and silent end when he tried to carry out his 24th murder in late 1497 and a nearby knight, the red-haired Isabelle Lionheart of the Gauntlet, smote him down with holy fire. Isabelle and Altor buried him again in the same grave with a leaden slab over it. 
=== Aric ===
In 1513, a tiefling priestess named Augustin dug his body up and used a scroll to raise him from the dead. The woman who ordered Augustin to do it was Kelita di Lamendolio, the matriarch of the Di Lamendolio family who fled during the Battle of Bracken - Kelita wanted to unleash Heinrich upon the people who had robbed her of her city, namely Altor and Kessar - it would be sweet irony indeed! It didn't go to plan, though. Heinrich rose and killed Augustin with a shovel, before fleeing, entirely lost of his memories. He invented and took the name Aric. At this point his skin was almost gone, and his bones showed beneath his rotten flesh. He hid his face in bandages, and joined two heroes on a pilgrimage to Rakkimar - them being the lightning priest Lyslen MacEoin and the native knight Thomas Tonrartok. The trio adventured for a few months, fighting werewolves, ice-fae, and ancient living trees which killed Tonrartok. During a fight against a ice-witch, Aric was almost killed, and this triggered visions. He researched in the library in Hjarofjall and learnt who he was - the revenant of Heinrich. Lyslen tried to stop him from returning home to Bracken. He alerted the authorities to the fact she was a wanted criminal. On one night in Winter 1513, bounty hunters led by Aric stormed into her bedroom at night, and took turns shooting and stabbing her until she was dead. Free of his companions, Aric returned to Bracken. He vowed revenge on Altor and Kessar.
=== Defessus ===
Aric, or Heinrich, renamed himself as Defessus when he returned to Bracken. However, news had reached King Altor that Heinrich was 'alive' and hunting for him. Altor ordered all mountain mining crews to start capturing lone travellers and interrogate them. Defessus was captured in a large crew, but the prisoners revolted before they could be interrogated. The other prisoners included Lewis Trajanson, Taf, Brynn, Big Tree, and - as fate would have it - Heinrich's own son, Rufus. Rufus and Defessus did not recognise one another - Defessus was a twisted mockery of Heinrich now, covered in bandages and robes to hide his skeleton.
Defessus, Lewis, and Taf teamed up with the pirate Navassa, the guard Thomson, the flumph Badboy, and the head of the bounty hunters that Heinrich had led to kill Lyslen, named Jezibel. Their group, known as the The Independent Contractors, tried to cause chaos in Bracken to try to get close to King Altor. In a fun twist of fate, they fought several times against another group who was trying to serve the king and protect order - made mostly up of the other prisoners! Those being Brynn, Big Tree, Rufus, the robot JAM, Jezibel's estranged wife Tanis, and the urchin boy Toby Trouble - known altogether as the Union Hacks. 
Heinrich's group caused multiple disasters, including ramming a ship full of gunpowder into a busy dock. In addition, Heinrich, Taf, and Lewis killed Jara Kheriþe - a knight who had been the ex-partner of Lyslen MacEoin, and Heinrich and Lewis also killed Sir Jason Greysword, a highly famous and successful mercenary, and one of the richest and most infamous adventurers of the era! As his group prepared for their final attack, Heinrich took on one last moniker.
=== Wolfgang ===
Donning the golden sun-mask and flowing robes of a sun-reveller in worship, Heinrich self-styled as Wolfgang. He and Lewis killed several guards and Harper knights to acquire a magical device called the Vortex Translocator, capable of opening a portal to another planet. Then, Heinrich and his group faced off against all their mortal enemies at the Battle of Pier No3, one rainy night in Bracken. Heinrich killed Tanis, and several footsoldiers. His side were victorious, with the others fleeing or dying. finally, it was time to unleash their plan. Heinrich led the group to the palace, and used the device to teleport a large, ravenous xenomorph-like alien called a Maw into the throne room. The alien began slaughtering the inhabitants, killing Altor and Kessar as well as Isabelle (the knight who killed Heinrich on his 2nd death), Isabelle's partner who was the enemy groups' handler, and others. Heinrich got to meet the eyes of Altor and Kessar as they died. Finally, none stood before him, and his revenge was complete. 
=== Kingslayer ===
Now with access to the throne of Bracken, the wealth of millions, and free of the fear of death, Heinrich studied for tens of years on how to become a lich. He performed dark and profane rituals in several distant sites in the furthest corners of the world, and finally was able to attain lichdom, and minor godhood due to a small but zealous following. His cult-like members worshipped him for his power over undeath and madness. They self-styled in black suits and robes, and donned shrouds like his Violet Veil that was said to have drank in the nerve gas and the essence of death that day in Datria. Where Heinrich was, no one knew, but he had become a minor deity, and he still held his weapon of mass destruction, the vial of purple liquid.
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