Valravn

* Weakened
* Heartstealer
* Raven Knight

M81: Valravn is a unique S-Class Tainted monster. He is also one of The Chosen and commands the respect, fear, and obedience of lesser monsters across the various lineages.

## Background

### Appearance and Behaviors

Valravn's base form is a roughly 7 1/2 foot tall birdlike creature covered in black feathers. He has two glowing eyes, one of which has multiple pupils within it. In his knight form he grows to over 8 feet tall and gains the appearance of a human knight in black armor, although his proportions are vastly different from an actual human.

Valravn is a unique and highly intelligent monster. He is capable of both human and monster speech and can converse fluently with humans and superhumans. He feasts on the hearts of the young and innocent to empower himself.

Valravn behaves like a twisted reflection of a stereotypical medieval knight; he values chivalry and bravery in combat and disdains cowardice and underhanded tactics. He has a long history with the supernatural world and is highly knowledgeable but slightly myopic due to his obsessive focus on his "Lord".

### Early Life

Valravn began his existence as an ordinary raven who was shot from the sky by a pair of knights looking for food. Before the knights could clean him, they were killed by the freshly manifested avatar of the Lord of Dark. The apostle takes pity on the bird and revives him as a spawn. Arisen anew, Valravn pledges his fealty to the "Lord".

### Modern day

Valravn would continue to serve his lord until the modern day. Before the story begins, Ella and several of her wards attacked him to steal his "Heart" - a heart-shaped stone artifact that empowered him. They tried to convince him to join their side, but Valravn refused and attacked them. The fight went quite poorly for Ella's wards since Valravn was immune to both Zara and Charlie's powers. He ended up being defeated by Ella, but the "Heart" they were fighting for was lost. Ella would then bind him underneath the Diamond Mountains alongside the Goliath.

### Release

While excavating underneath the Diamond Mountains, Ella freed Valravn so that he could be a distraction for H.E.R.O. while she conducted her monster artifact retrieval operations. Having lost much of his former strength in captivity, Valravn set about eating as many young people's hearts as possible to regain his strength, quickly gaining notoriety in human media as a supposed serial killer nicknamed: "Heart-stealer". He was hunted by Nico during this time, but she failed to catch him due to his immunity to her powers and his ability to teleport through shadows. During one of his more brazen hunts, he was confronted by Lochan Deus who returned his heart to him, significantly speeding his recovery.

### Encounters with MC

The MC first encounters Valravn following his escape from the mall after his identity was revealed. After a brief clash, Valravn flees upon sensing the 2nd manifesting to empower Michael Carlowe.

On the night the MC joins H.E.R.O, Valravn ends up in a standoff with the police while feeding in public and then attempting to attack an orphanage. While the police posed little threat to him, the army and the heavier weapons they brought forced him assume his knight form. He proceeds to destroy most of the military detachment sent after him. Sensing both a propaganda and research opportunity, H.E.R.O sends the MC to fight Valravn. This fight- H.E.R.O reasons - would both win the MC points with the public and degrade Valravn's protective field enough so that Nico could capture him. They correctly assumed that Valravn wouldn't flee from the MC since the MC possessed less power than it. Depending on the player's choices, Valravn either finds the MC to be a worthy foe or a lacking one. Regardless, the MC is able to defeat him, enabling Nico to portal him into a power suppressing cell.

#### Dead Ends 23 and 25

* If MC fails to do all of the training missions before the mall, Valravn will kill him by consuming his heart repeatedly.
* If MC fails to earn at least 3 Valravn win points during the second fight he will be unable to resist the Black Night attack and will die.

### Imprisonment by H.E.R.O.

After being captured, Valravn is locked in a power suppressing cell and tortured for information, however he appears immune to pain and tells his interrogators nothing. After the Battle of Diamonds the MC gets an opportunity to talk to him. If Valravn considers him a worthy foe he will engage with the MC and provide useful and interesting lore.

## Powers and Abilities

### Heart-stealer Form

In his standard bird-like form Valravn possesses all the standard attributes of a powerful C to B rank monster. Its body is extremely durable with nothing short of very high caliber weapons even able to penetrate his skin. Valravn is also extremely strong, able to casually puncture people's chest cavities to tear out their hearts with little or no effort. His senses are also highly tuned, able to sense the movements of superhumans and monsters from great distances.

Valravn possesses power over the dark, both as a concept and as a physical weapon. The supernatural properties of this darkness rejects any interference from the more intangible properties of the world including light, sounds, and most supernatural abilities possessed by monsters and superhumans. This effect makes Valravn particularly difficult for all but the most physically focused superhumans and monsters to deal with. The core ability this manifests as is "Dark Matter": the ability to manipulate the concentrated and condensed immaterial content of the universe. Offensively these manifests as blasts of dark energy. He can use this the darkness to manifest a second ability: "Enter the Shadows". This allows Valravn to merge with the shadows, allowing near instantaneous transport between shadowed locations. This instant movement combined with his natural disruption of most "Supernatural" powers makes him a frustrating opponent to deal with.

After devouring dozens of hearts, he was able to restore another of his original powers: "Black Night". This power envelopes a space in pure 'darkness', absorbing all light and sounds and binding victims in place.

### Raven Knight

After receiving his "Heart" artifact back from Lochan Deus and devouring even more of hearts, Valravn was able to restore a small measure of his original powers. He is now able to assume his "Raven Knight" form. Valravn is able to drag shadows into reality to form a supernatural suit of mighty black steel armor and a sword of darkness. The armor becomes his flesh itself, alive, connected and maintained though his heart. In this form Valravn is a fortress, able to shrug off tank rounds and the MC's gorilla arms empowered strikes. He is also able to take on his "Dark Stance", a style of swordsmanship he's developed that combines his body's strength with dark matter manipulation. These dark matter empowered slashes can carve through the toughest defenses and give him options for a mid-ranged offense. He can still use his shadow teleportation and other darkness-based skills.

In this form Valravn's only real weakness is that his armor is his flesh. Sufficiently powerful impacts to his chest will damage his heart - the source of his power and the supernatural darkness miasma that disrupts other supernatural powers. Should that miasma go down, he can be affected by Supernatural powers - removing his greatest defense.

## Relationships

#### MC

Depending on the player's choices, Valravn will either view MC as a worthy and honorable or cowardly and dishonorable foe. He wishes to face the MC in combat again once his powers have returned and is willing to share information about the monsters and other useful lore.

#### Aglaecwif

Aglaecwif and Valravn know each other. The specific nature of their relationship is unclear, but Valravn hates her so much that the mere mention of her name is enough to drive him into a violent rage. He also scoffs at the idea that there are ancient rituals "too evil" for her to attempt.

## Trivia

* The Valravn is a monster from Danish folklore.
* Valravn can fully pass on the untainted trait of the 7th Apostle, as if its "Lord" had chosen to do so itself. Though it will only consider doing it for the bravest and most worthy of souls.