Vorhein, Of the Endless Hunger (Vor-hein)

Summary

As the Traitors' War began, the land of Fornaldom rebelled against the Aerthen Imperial Federation. Of Fornaldom, there were three sister cities: Argen, Froda, and Sella. While Argen and Sella committed fully to rebellion, Froda split in half between loyalists and rebels. When the loyalists secured the city from rebel forces, the rebels decided to besiege and isolate it in return. By breaking the honorable rules of war and forbidding civilian supplies, they hoped to starve the city into submission. Froda, a place of hardship and hardy people, wouldn't bow down to such an act.   Months dragged by and supplies dwindled, and their resolve became tested. Starvation set in, and little by little, Froda began miserably dying off. Such conditions were ripe for Forsaken Undead to begin emerging, becoming an even worse complication. The rebels didn't relent in their siege, content to let starvation and the undead both break Froda's stubborn resistance. The leaders of Froda feared what would happen if they truly did surrender after seeing such a response.   It would be then, unknown to them all, the horrific being known as Vorhein would emerge.   A newly formed Grave Queen, her first memories were that of a sewer, eating the remains of a small family. Whether it was hers or not, she neither knew nor cared; they were food all the same. Devouring them and then dragging herself along the cold, slimy stone, she sought out one body after another. Some even still lived, moaning pathetically as they met their end at her slavering maw. With flesh came strength, her own body growing grotesquely. Her broken legs fused together into one slithering, serpentine mass, and her dessicated husk bulged with meat and muscle.   Those doomed souls who ended up in the sewers, too, returned as undead, fit to serve her. The mere presence of a Grave Queen disturbs the dead, and even the most righteous of souls may return vengefully. Born from starvation, those who died like she did also hungered insatiably to fill themselves. But, Vorhein was smart. Knowing how weak she was to take on an entire city, she bid her time in the sewers. Corpses would invariably flow to her, disappearing into the mouths of her growing swarm.   When she had too many to feed and not enough bodies, she sent raiding groups to the surface. By striking at the poor and infirm, her scattered attacks looked like small, incidental flashes of undead activity. She even sacrificed some groups to appease the city guard, and massage them into complacency. They had no choice but to take such victories, for the ongoing siege battered Froda still. Many weeks later, Vorhein grew strong and ravenous enough caution fled from her mind.   With Froda's very dead at her command, she knew every road, every secret route, and every weakness the city possessed. Her swarm erupted from the sewers in the dead of night, striking at the guard posts and military barracks. Unprepared for the coordinated assault and incredible amount of undead, they fell within hours. Those who wouldn't return to serve Vorhein simply became food for the rest, not even bones being left behind.   Over the next 48 hours, Froda collapsed from within. Ramshackle barricades, desperate efforts, and final stands were the last chapters in its peoples' lives. Despair and rage alike flowed over them, fueling even more to return with ravenous hatred. Vorhein spared nothing and no one, be they the tiniest of vermin or some haughty noble lady who ruled. Yet even as she succeeded in devouring Froda, her evil gaze drifted abroad, taking aim at the ignorant rebels around Froda. The very next night, she swarmed and devoured them enmasse.   Freed of the city, she struck out, spreading her swarm throughout the wilds. In a growing tide of teeth and hunger they swallowed everything edible in their path: fruits, vegetables, animals, vermin, insects, people, and more. Some even tried eating the bark of treets and dirt itself. The ravenous dead were compelled by the single desire of filling the emptiness inside them, however they could. Everything would be consumed.   Gorging on rich foods, Vorhein and her swarm grew mightier. The likes of ghouls and nekrokin began emerging alongside nascent raveners. She took aim at the nearest and biggest meal source next: Sella. So the swarm went, leaving a desolate and empty landscape in their wake, deprived of anything living except for the trees.   Among the rebel dead that rose to serve her, there were native peoples of Sella and Argen. They told to their new queen in hateful voices all the secrets of those cities they knew, and how unguarded they were. Compared to Froda, Sella had no resistance save its walls and some paltry defenders. Striking with a speed and ferocity they couldn't have prepared for, Sella fell even faster than Froda did. Vorhein continued on, letting her fledgling lieutenants gorge on Sella as she took down Argen next. In the span of less than a month since her first attack, she devoured three entire city-states and most of Fornaldom's wildernesses.   Splitting her swarm, Vorhein ventured west, to the foreign city-states on the edge of Aerthen. She sent her favored lieutenant, a nekrokin named Heartkill Fleshtearer, to the east. Heartkill would devour the unsuspecting rebel and Federation armies fighting each other, while Vorhein gorged on more valuable targets. For, as ever, the dead who served her spoke freely, and she discovered the plot that accidentally led to her own creation. The irony of devouring such people proved far too entertaining to her to not do.   Imenia, Roulau, Bendu, and Coral Port were her targets, and she struck them as swiftly and furiously as Sella and Argen. Even split in half, her swarm measured in unfathomable thousands. Advance ghoul scouts killed the sentries that would've warned the cities, paving a clean path to a surprise invasion. The likes of necromages and raveners provided the battering rams she needed to get through the gates. Or, in the case of the necromages, catapulting her undead over the walls with wind magic. Either way, once she got inside, slaughter followed.   By the fourth city she'd knocked down, a dilemma posed itself before Vorhein. The nearby cities had caught wind of her presence, and rapidly coordinated their armies together to repel her. Worse, Heartkill apparently died in her eastward advance. Recognizing the anvil-and-hammer situation awaiting her, Vorhein redirected her swarm toward the east. A single army's resistance would be far more surmountable than multiple cities that'd banded together.   On her great, ravenous tide did Vorhein go east, sweeping toward the Federation trade-city of Jalken. There, Corentine Durand, Alexandre, and Duchess Amelia Louva awaited her. Garrisoned by an Imperial Army, the Storm Lances, Jalken posed the most formidable challenge yet in Vorhein's less-than-year-old unlife. She sieged endlessly for days, throwing mountains of bodies at Jalken's defenses again and again. Amidst that frustrating stall, she noticed something else. Intrepid adventurers led by Alexandre that were seemingly flanking her tide.   When even her nekrokin lieutenants failed to stop them, Vorhein finally spared her attention. She collided with the adventurers in a bloody battle of carnage, undead might and numbers pitched against their unbelievable skill. It astonished her so much that just a handful of people could even do so much damage. Realizing all too late how outmatched she was, Vorhein took a fatal blow from Alexandre himself. With her gone, the ravenous tide fell apart as no singular binding will could control their all-consuming hunger. They tore into each other in a mindless frenzy, eating and gorging freely.   While Jalken cleaned up the tide and took their hard won victory, they never paid real attention to what had happened.   Vorhein slipped away.   Her immense, grotesque body was just a shell to her 'real' self, the maggot-like serpent that first grew in Froda's sewers. Understanding she had no means of winning against Alexandre, or overcoming Jalken, she chose to sacrifice her tide to disguise her retreat. Vorhein hurried northward, past Froda, and to the western side of the great mountains of northwestern Aerthen. Lands yet ignorant of her presence, and full of life to consume, would be ripe for her to grow from again.   At least, that'd been her plan.   A vampire mistress by the name of Herala Nightblood captured her. Possessed of such incredible magic power Vorhein couldn't win, the dethroned Grave Queen would become Herala's prisoner. Stowed in the depths of the Nightblood Palace, Vorhein had no other choice than to obey Herala's demands, or be destroyed. Hateful beyond measure, and hungrier than even that, Vorhein nonetheless bit her lip and bid her time. One day, Herala would slip up, and like any other, Vorhein would devour her whole.   Until then, her undead serve at Herala's bidding, and Vorhein has ever been the vampire mistress' favorite tool of destruction.