| Count Krüger | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Race |
Vampire |
|
Gender |
Male |
|
Height |
6'6 |
|
Weight |
450 lbs |
|
Hair |
Black |
|
Eyes |
Blood Red |
|
Alignment |
Lawful Evil |
|
Likes |
Blood, Violence, Death, Oblivion |
|
Dislikes |
Sunlight, Garlic, "Common Trash" |
Also known as the Vampire King, the Night Lord, the Dark Stalker, Kruger is one of the most dangerous beings to threaten the Universe in the modern age. In life, Krüger was known as Count Victor Krüger, a Jehdan Noble and a mutant who was the most powerful Jehdan who ever existed. Born with psychic powers far exceeding the average Jehdan and a superhuman physique, he made numerous attempts to wrest control of the Imperium from the Washai Royal Family. However, he never succeeded thanks to the efforts of a group of heroes known as the Unforgiven. Krüger died in the final conflict with them, and his body was entombed in the city of Sirius and sealed by the Order of White Monks where he remained for 3000 years. Following instructions given to him by Lilith, the Necromancer Frett hired a saran Deathwalk to kill everyone in the city (including the Monks whose powers made them powerful against the undead Horde) so he could recover the corpse. Using his magics, he reanimated Krüger as a Vampire. As hoped, his altered state not only significantly increased his powers, but wiped his memory of his previous life, ensuring his loyalty to the Horde.
As a high level Vampire, Krüger possesses incredible strength, speed, and fortitude as well as psychic powers of telepathy, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis that rival those of King Rao. He has the ability to suck the blood from any weak or wounded opponents within a given distance, absorbing their power, knowledge and experience. After absorbing Frett’s and the Horde Nobles’ powers, he gained a colossal boost of his existing abilities as well as several new ones. Significant among these were his abilities to turn into mist also or a flock of bats and transport enormous distances. After drinking Frett’s blood and gaining his mastery of Necromancy, Krüger gained complete control over all other undead able to force them to do his bidding (as he did with the rest of the Horde) or summon other lesser undead to protect him as demonstrated during his fight with Johnny Duke.
Like other powerful forms of undead, Krüger has unnatural powers owing to his state. For example, he can put mortals in a paralyzed state of hibernation with a touch, making them seem dead to others, and can radiate an aura of horror which can send weak-willed would-be foes to flight. Krüger is capable of sustaining tremendous physical damage, and is immune to disease, poison, fatigue and other effects that affect only the living. After becoming a complete vampire Krüger becomes so strong that he is immune to almost all vampiric weaknesses, with even sunlight ineffective against him. He is extremely difficult to permanently damage, and can regenerate from any damage so long as there is blood around to reconstitute himself from.
Even before his memory was restored by Lilith, Krüger had a superior air about himself and referred to himself as the Ultimate Being. After his past as a Noble was returned to him, he began carrying himself with his regal bearing and making a big deal about honorable behavior. For instance, he generally shows great enthusiasm in fighting Cain, who was Prince of the sarans, but is uninterested in fighting the others who he regards as “common trash.” In life, Krüger was master of a Jehdan Martial Art called Black Hand which relied on deep stances and rapid movement to overwhelm the opponent and destroy their ability to fight. He is extremely powerful and very bright, but has a strong tendency for temper tantrums when things aren’t working out the way he wants. He is also very arrogant about his power, but becomes a terrible coward once he’s hurt or thinks he’s going to lose. In appearance, Krüger is of gigantic stature, standing over 7’ tall and heavily muscled with black, spiky hair shooting back from a pronounced widow’s peak. After being touched by Lilith and having his full vampiric powers activated, he assumed the form of a True Vampire, albeit much bulkier. His skin became pale green with a black carapace on the chest. Horned ridges appeared above his eyebrows, and his hands and feet became tridactyl talons. He has batlike wings on his back, which he does not need to fly but is rather able to control the shape of and use as shields or weapons.
Techniques and Abilities[]
Necromancy[]
As a vampire, all of Krüger's powers come from the magical sphere of Necromancy from which he draws his undead strength. Creatures resurrected through the use of Necromancy have the powers they possessed in life greatly enhanced and are granted a plethora of incredible horror themed powers.
Twilight: The trademark attack of high level vampires. It manifests as lasers fired from the eyes at a target and causes cutting damage upon making impact. Upon reaching his Perfect Vampire form, Krüger's Twilight is so powerful it can casually shear the tops off of mountains.
Mist Form: Krüger is able to turn into mist and render himself invulnerable to physical blows. He is vulnerable to being blown away by wind or being burned by flame.
Eclipse: A crescent shaped arc of Necromantic energy, which clears the area in front of its user.
Bat Form: Being a vampire, Krüger is able to teleport across large distances by breaking his body into bat shaped forms and vanishing.
Blood Memory: By drinking someone's blood, Krüger is able to steal their memories and powers.
Telekinesis: Krüger is able to move matter with his mind. He generally uses this technique to cut open the skin of victims and draw their blood into his mouth from a distance.
Desecrate: This ability allows Krüger to change the nature of a person, place or thing or even create new effects out of thin air. Using this ability, he was able to twist the Antioch from a giant palatial spaceship into a twisted castle. It was also using this method that he forcibly evolved his henchmen into True Vampires, giving them all massive power increases. He was also able to enforce a never ending night on Earth to allow vampires and other monsters to run free. The effects of Krüger's desecrate ability end only when he chooses to undo them or if he is killed.
New Moon: He summons Necromantic energy into his palm and fires it at his target.
Undead Summoning: The ability to summon familiars, the souls of those whose blood he has sucked in a variety of forms that either sprout from his body or swarm around him as an army numbering in the millions. These familiars can also include animals such as horses and the weapons and abilities that the familiars possessed in life. The familiars can come in two ways, one is similar to a ghoul, mindless and constantly moaning in pain, while the other is the soul manifesting exactly how it was when it was alive, personality, powers, and all, but completely under the control of the vampire who summoned it.
Ultimate[]
Breaking Dawn: Krüger’s final attack. The Breaking Dawn is a huge bolt which decimates everything it touches.
Trivia[]
Krüger in his base form.
- As per the Jehdan naming convention Victor is the family name and Krüger was his given name. The Victor family were the hereditary rulers of duchy of Ortega and were rather infamous for their bloodthirst. Ortega's position on the far fringe of the Great Jehdan Imperium meant that they were looked at more as a buffer state with the Zohan and in turn the Victor Dukes often gave only nominal loyalty to the Jehdan Emperor while trying to maintain a fragile truce with their Zohani neighbors.
- Victor Krüger was born at a time when the Great Jehdan Imperium was at war with a neighboring state called the Zohan Empire. In his youth he and his brother were prisoners of the Zohan Sultan who subjected them to incredible brutality. Where Krüger's younger brother broke under the strain of this torture and became a slave to the Sultan, it bred in Krüger a hate that steeled him and made him stronger. As the years passed he became more violent and bloodthirsty than his captors, and they in turn began to fear him. When he finally escaped, he seized the throne of Ortega from his Uncle, who had killed the true born Count and sold Krüger and his brother to the Sultan. In the years that followed Victor Krüger consolidated his power with ruthless efficiency. He ruled Ortega with an iron fist, crushing the populace under his boot as he pressed all able bodied men into his army and forced others to work to support them. Krüger casually slaughtered any who defied him and took any woman who caught his eye. He turned his armies against the Zohan and achieved great victories through a combination of tactical brilliance and murderous brutality. Any enemies who were captured by Krüger's forces could expect no mercy and were often flayed alive with their corpses put up on crosses as a warning to all who would oppose him. After driving the Zohan from the Imperium's borders, Krüger decided that he would seize the Throne from the Imperial Family. He proved largely unbeatable in battle and it was only through selective engagements and numerical superiority that the Imperial Guard were able to keep Krüger away from Jehda. It was only through the actions of Gideon (who was actually his bastard son by one of his conquests) and the Unforgiven that he finally met his end.
- In life, Kruger had a wife named Valeria. Often referred to as Lady V, she was also called the Red Witch. As her name suggests, she was a witch and a devotee of Lilith. It was said that it was her influence that first lead Kruger to the cult. According to his own memoirs, he would have visions of her as a child and finally met her in the wilderness on one of his campaigns. Afterwards she was brought to his palace where she became his wife and one of his chief advisors.
She believed it was her destiny to groom Kruger into a Champion of Lilith. Completely seduced by her and the world she offered, he took to her lessons with aplomb. When he later turned on the Jehdan Emperor, she used her spellcraft to keep him safe and help him in his endeavors. When the Unforgiven eventually came after him, she initially wrote them off until her visions told her that their leader Gideon was Kruger’s bastard son. When Gideon eventually succeeded in killing his father, Valeria killed herself by falling to her death from his fortress walls.
Physically, Lady Valeria was the spitting image of June Hammer. When Kruger first encountered the Magnificent 7, he became obsessed with her. Managing to enrapture her, he was unable to convince her that she was his reborn wife but did seduce her by tricking her into thinking he was her husband Johnny Duke. When a portal to Hell was opened and Lilith needed a vessel to allow her entry into the Midplane, Kruger offered up June. Unfortunately for him, Johnny was successful in rescuing her and she was forced to possess the saran Kara instead. Because of Kara’s demonic nature, it took Lilith far longer to assert her personality and it was 5 years before she was able to possess Kara’s body.
- Krüger was famous as an unmatched warrior during his day who would effortlessly obliterate any Zohani and later Jehdan champion sent against him. While his armies were occasionally outmaneuvered, he himself was undefeated in battle. During his final battle with the Unforgiven, even their combined might could not bring him down and it was only by falling victim to a trap devised by Gideon that required the sacrifice of all members of his team, including himself, that Krüger's mortal life finally came to an end.
- While he was the ruler of the realm of Ortega, Krüger was buried on the planet Sirius where he met his end at the hands of the Unforgiven. Krüger was looked at as a brutal tyrant by his native Ortegans and they did not want his remains returned to them.
- Krüger was crafted from a young age to be Lilith's champion and the lynchpin in her plan to re-emerge into the Midplane. A mutant who possessed a superhuman body and the most powerful psychic abilities of his day, the mortal Krüger was able to contact beings in other planes. He was quickly noticed by Lilith, who shaped the boy into her ultimate warrior and inspired him to conquer the Universe. He was stopped in life and killed in battle by a band of Knights known as the Unforgiven, but even this was always part of Lilith's plan. She managed to resurrect him as a vampire, further increasing her influence on him, and inspired him to overthrow Frett. Throughout his life and unlife, Lilith would appear to Krüger as a spectre that only he could see, leading others to believe he was insane. He was madly in love with her, and freeing his "Queen" so she could rule the Universe at his side was his greatest ambition.
- The original vampires were a race of bat-like humanoids with remarkably powerful Auras who Lilith enslaved and converted into her undead army. With their new necromantic nature, Lilith had a race of powerful servants who could rival the gods but were completely under her thrall. After her defeat at Adam's hands the original Vampires began dying off though, but not before passing a diluted form of their gift to a tribe of humans. These new vampires would find themselves gaining more and more of the attributes of the original vampires as they progressed in age and power, but when Lilith unlocked the full potential of the vampiric gift in Krüger he completed converted to that form.