Lord Ankev

CEO of Ankev Industries and King of the undead kingdom of Tramilaine, Lord Ankev was once an elf from the elven city of Llayath. Though elves are long lived and rarely concern themselves about their mortality, Ankev was obsessed it. He spent much of his life researching magics that could ultimately provide him with eternal life. As is the case with many powerful wizards, his search eventually led him down the path of lichdom.

He crafted seven phylacteries and hid them across the world, each one containing a portion of his soul so that unless each one was destroyed, he would never die. The phylacteries themselves took the form of useful magic items in the hopes that should anyone happen across one, they would be more tempted to make use of it than to destroy it.

During his research, he came to meet a young woman who would later become the much feared Baba Yaga. She fell in love with him and when he hid his phylacteries, he entrusted one of them to her in the form of a necklace, swearing that he would always be by her side. The pair founded the magical city of Moonshade, where mages from around the world could gather to research and experiment with all forms of magic. It was a golden age of magic.

Unfortunately, the high elven council of Llayath learned of Ankev's corruption of life and immediately sought to destroy him as they viewed lichdom as an abomination to nature. Ankev responded by raising an army of mages from his city and a great war was fought. Though Ankev's numbers were few, his mastery of necromancy allowed him to raise fallen soldiers on both sides of the war to join his cause and his power grew. In the end, there was a stalemate between the two warring factions, for the elves could not destroy Ankev and his undead minions without his phylacteries and Ankev didn't quite have the power to take on the entire elven council as well as the elven army on his own.

The war was decided on a hot summer day in the year 800. The elven council decided to give up their lives to fuel a ritual that would seal away Ankev in a tomb hidden deep beneath Moonshade. The thought was that if they bought enough time, the elven nation could find Ankev's phylacteries and destroy them. A thousand years passed and though the elves did find a few of Ankev's phylacteries, some were also unaccounted for, including the necklace Baba Yaga was entrusted with. The threat of Ankev was forgotten and the tomb was sealed away until it was lost to time.

That is until the year 1999. A group of adventurers were exploring the areas beneath the city and broke into the tomb. In their looting, they broke the seal and released Ankev who proceeded to retake Moonshade, and later, the rest of Tramilar. This was one of the events that sparked the beginning of the Great Magic War which would one day cement Ankev's position as king of Tramilar.

Ankev never forgot his goal of eternal life, and now he had a country of people who could help him realize that goal. He founded Ankev Industries and gathered all the best and brightest minds to research life extension. This research proved quite profitable and has brought great wealth and prosperity to his country, as well as establishing Ankev Industries as a AAA corporation.