Name: Ansgar Staudinger
Age: 58
Sex: Male
Race: Human
Allegiance: Ferelden Crown
Class/Sub-class: Warrior | Reaver
Appearance:
Abilities:
Devour - "It is a thirst that cannot be slaked. Each enemy dead, another few moments onto my life in the heat of battle. A curse, or a blessing. Decide for yourself." - Ansgar feasts upon the souls of slain foes, their lingering energy revitalizing him, closing wounds and staving off death for another battle. It only takes him a few moments concentration before the dead spirits energy is stolen away from the dead, creating an unsettling wind centering on Ansgar before his wounds close.
Frightening Appearance - "Darkspawn, men, elves, dwarves, it matters not. The mind is fragile, the flesh weak, and flees what it cannot comprehend. I am the sum of what all fear, a nightmare upon the field of battle, devouring the souls of mortal beings. A glimpse can send the greatest warrior fleeing for his life. And a new pair of trousers." - Focusing his unsettling, faceless gaze upon a foe in the battle, such a single person will feel the full weight of the damned Reaver's ire and all that is wrong with such an imposing figure at that moment. Most beings break under such a gaze, lost in unspeakable terror.
Blood Frenzy - "I have memories, vague, in crimson tints. Of a warrior lost in battle, demons possessing his form, the closer to death's sweet release, the greater his mad fury. Then I awake, in cold sweats, and a somber, chilling thought rings clear in the doubt and despair. Those aren't always my memories, yet they fit the thinker perfectly..." - The pain of each wound landed against him only increases his fury and prowess in combat, when he releases the demons within him. While in this form, the demons prevent the natural healing of his body as the vessel is imperfect, yet the closer to expiring the vessel gets, the more extreme the damage he can deal.
Two Handed Mastery - "The longer I live, the better I have gotten with my accursed blade. It's power has long since left it, I am the new vessel, but it is far better than your average steel blade. Those who would cross blades with me will regret it, even without the demons, I am no target to attack lightly..." - Ansgar has focused all his combat training onto the use of his greatsword, a nameless blade that once bore great corruption, and even before that point when he served as a regular soldier.
Powerful - "Bearing the burden I carry, both physical and mental, has made me stronger. Armor is lighter, and I can stay longer under the destructive power of the demons within. A necessity of life, or death would have found me far sooner..." - Having spent his entire life training and fighting, his vitality and endurance have both increased drastically. Armor and weapons weigh upon him far less, and he is naturally more able to fight for longer, more effectively, as a result.
Death Blow - "Each fallen foe restores my vitality, each fallen foe restores my hope that a blessed end to combat is one step closer. I cannot fail, cannot falter, not until I have finally been slain. Then I can rest in whatever Hell the Maker sees fit to place me in for my transgressions." - Each enemy that Ansgar fells restores part of his stamina, increasing how long he can fight all out. Coupled with drawing in the life force of fallen enemies, it makes him a terror on the battlefield.
Reaving Storm - "Subtle isn't a strong point of mine, in a fight, to begin with. When faced with masses of enemies, mortal or darkspawn, I cannot afford the luxury of single blows, and the demons will not afford the luxury to me. Numbers will not save them." - Each mighty swing of Ansgar's dark blade can claim numerous heads with one mighty cleave, which can be taxing on the stamina of the warrior without some method of keeping his stamina up. Ansgar, however, does and in the right situation, he is a juggernaut on the field.
Personality: Ansgar has a split personality, to put it bluntly, which can be shocking to people who only see him on the battlefield, or off of it, how drastic a change these two men are. When not in a combat situation, the warrior is quiet and contemplative, speaking in a highly intelligent manner that is often accented with polite manners of speech and a steadfast refusal to ever become offended or angered. He tends towards a loner mentality, finding a secluded part of a camp to meditate and center himself, and as far as most people are typically aware, he is merely doing this for the sake of some martial tradition, as it is typically how he explains it away. He isn't lying, but he certainly is not telling the truth either. He isolates himself for the safety of others, and seems unusually loyal to anyone who insists in getting to know the warrior, as they are a rare few and far between.
In combat, one can be forgiven for not recognizing Ansgar at all. Once a battle breaks out, the demons inside the tortured man surge forward, and it is all that Ansgar can do to not lash out at allies, barely controlling the demonic fury to kill everything as he guides his body towards the enemy. He shows a blatent disregard for any and all self preservation, seeming solely focused on one very clear goal. Slaughter anything that stands against him and anyone lucky, or unlucky, enough to not be in his definition of enemy at the time. Ansgar fights with a wild abandon seen only in those with nothing left to lose, and facing certain death, with every battle. Even his fighting style in combat reflects his possessed status. Eyes burning with red fury, abyss black blade drenched in blood, each swing aiming for maximum damage with no care for his own survival, and its with amazement spirit healers and field surgeons look upon him coming back, unwilling to believe he had survived in the state he marches back in.
History: Ansgar Staudinger was born to a family of military lifers, veterans who chose to stay in until they were too old to fight, and would proceed to train oncoming generations of soldiers instead. His mother was an archer that died in child birth, and before he ever met his father, a bold knight that defended his brothers and sisters with shield and blade, the man met his end upon the blades of brigands in ambush. Raised by his father's fellow knights, he was raised solely to fight against any and all who would turn out to be hostile to the realm of Ferelden. He proved a natural with a great two handed sword, and he was taught well in such a manner that, at 9.18 Dragon when his birthday came to, the knights that had befriended his father gave him the fallen man's armor and had reforged his equipment to fit the young man's tastes. It was a grand day for him, and for twelve years he would serve within the Ferelden army as a brave, loyal soldier who enjoyed learning and bettering himself through any means offered to him, something looked upon favorably as he rose in rank.
That all changed after the Fifth Blight broke out, and Ansgar was among the forces who would march to Ostagar and fight the Darkspawn there. It was expected to be an easy breaking of the Darkspawn horde, no suspicion that there was indeed an Archdemon in their ranks, and this was a full blown Blight after all. History took its course, and while Ansgar fought bravely with his brothers to hold off the Darkspawn, a mighty blow from an Ogre cast him from the ramparts, and all would assume the veteran warrior had been slain, either from the ogre or the fall. And to be fair, Ansgar was near death when he came to, with countless broken bones, his blade shattered, and his armor damaged. But he was yet alive, and breathing, the darkspawn and fighting forces gone. Ostagar had fallen, he could tell, which meant that things had not gone as planned. He was, at the time, unaware that King Theirin was slain and betrayed, and only a handful of other survivors, Grey Wardens included, had escaped. But his wounds were bad, and he had a broken greatsword and damaged armor to protect him in these no doubt infested woods. It was a miracle, or a curse, that he managed to survive long enough to stumble upon a long forgotten fort.
It was a small place, old and clearly forboding. Most would have known better and turned away, but a dying warrior cared little for such things. So Ansgar entered the place, descending to the deepest part of the fort, torches lighting of their own volition as he dragged himself along, unable to collapse and give up now. Before long he found a shrine, with a black, abyssial blade on an alter, with a flask of crimson fluid on top of it. Countless dead surrounded the alter, all recently slain despite how old the place was, and the scroll of stone above the makeshift alter spoke of great power, even above death, for those that would imbibe the blood of Dragons. Ansgar would normally not put credence in such myths and heresay, but the mind of a dying man will reach for any reason to exist, especially since he knew the Darkspawn were yet to be halted. So he drank the flask's contents in full, feeling a fire in his belly and something
else inside his mind, fighting him for control. The blood was indeed of a Dragon, but had been cursed with the spirit of a Demon. The blood power of a Reaver was all that saved him from succumbing as the others had and falling upon his own ruined blade.
Taking up the blade on the alter, Ansgar shut out the whispers and ragings of the voices that now were in his head, feeling his wounds close as the spirits of the dead around him drew close, binding his wounds and making his bones whole again. He would make his way out of the fort, surrounded by a band of Darkspawn that had found the human's bloody trail. He doesn't readily remember what happened after that, but in a bloody fury he had cut down the band of Darkspawn, nearly tearing himself apart in the process, and he would come to properly in a tavern bed days later, his armor mended and the black blade, gleaming with a silver edge, and with a look in the mirror he was shocked to be missing an eye, a mess of scar tissue remaining in its place. His armor remained as it had been, and as he pulled the helm and sheathed the blade, the voices came back in a torrent, threatening to lose all control at that moment in time. But he was able to resist, slipping out of the tavern and heading for wherever the Darkspawn congregated the thickest. During the year of the Fifth Blight, stories of this warrior would arise, a voiceless figure of death and rage, cleaving grand paths through the Darkspawn forces wherever they reared their ugly heads.
With the Warden slaying the Archdemon, the Darkspawn fled, but Ansgar was still left with his Reaver blood, and the voices in his head that grew loud without their thirst being slaked. He would seek out Apostate mages, as he couldn't trust the mage circles, in the hopes of freeing himself from the demonic voices in his head. He would spend his time unaware of the goings on in Kirkwall, but when rebellion broke out he would find himself protecting the very same Apostate mages, and circle mages as they rose up, that had at least tried to help him and gave him means of controlling the corrupting influence. Templars would speak of the figure with fear and revulsion, the bloody demon of a warrior often times arriving without a word, engaging in wholesale slaughter of any Templars that attempted to strike against the rebel mages. Even the mages he protected would be cautious and frightened of the forboding figure, a man of black armor swathed with azure cloth with a midnight black blade with silver lining, eyes of glowing red evil under his armored hood as he made slaughter a sport upon the Templar.
When the Conclave would explode, instead of fighting Templars, Ansgar would turn his blade upon the demons and invading forces from the rifts. Still claiming loyalty to the Ferelden crown, but serving in no official capacity, he would go wherever the demons invaded, regardless of Inquisition interference or not. He could not close the demonic gateways, but he could kill enough of them to hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Eventually even those demons would be gone, leaving the unholy swordsman without a cause again. Ansgar would roam wherever his feet took him, keeping an eye on the world while remaining as isolated as he could be to prevent his addled mind from snapping somewhere he would cause harm to others. The sheer amount of blood and suffering, both his and others, that had been spilled had satiated the voices for some time, only rising up in times of combat at this point to take charge if they could. When the Darkspawn rose again, driving the Qunari into invading Tevinter territory and a call to arms being sent out, one of the first to answer was Ansgar Staudinger, called many things by many people, and would throw himself into combat against any Darkspawn that attempted to go after those who stood against them. When the call rose for a task force led by Grey Wardens, he would report without delay. Either they would have him, or he would make a bloody path to the Archdemon and fight it by himself. He was increasingly tired of living in a constant struggle for his life and sanity, and fully intended to finally die stopping this rising Sixth Blight.
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