After Jakz asked about my fluff in the Black Coach thread, it got me thinking about what you lot use to justify your Vampires existance! We have a lot of good writers on this forum, so it should make an interesting read. I'll get the ball rolling by sneakily copy-pasting my fluff from the other thread. Do feel free to comment, but above all please add your own fluff!

It was a dark stormy night on the Sea of Claws. The ship was tossed about from foamy peak to shadowy trough as the very elements sought to destroy the vessel. It was here that the Dark Elves struck. Merciless Corsairs boarded the ship, sharp blades held menacingly as they took control. The deck was slick with the blood of those who resisted, but only for a moment, as it was washed away by the pounding waves as soon as it could pool from the bleeding corpses of the crew. Only one did not struggle: the wizened necromancer, Khryss. Taking this unfortunate prisoner, the Druchii took all that was on board the now-abandoned ship, which included a three curious sarcophagi....
Records of what happened after the ship put in at one of the Nagarrothian raider ports are somewhat sketchy: mainly because not one Dark Elf dwelling at the port lived for more than a day after the Corsairs arrived. It seems that Janus Turkov, a Vampire of most hideous potency, his unholy wife Jain and his vile offspring Rahvin, awoke to find themselves in the hands of the Druchii. In an insane, brutal rage, the three Strigoi slaughtered every living member of the settlement, torching the boats, desecrating their evil temples and making the streets run more crimson than the deck on that first fateful night.
Raising up the butchered populace into a mighty horde of undeath, Janus is now slowly making his way back to the lost city of Strigos, along with his family. He wll let none stand in his way, and has left a trail of death and destruction in his wake.

See, its not too difficult to justify even the most outrageous models in your army! Doesn't have to be an essay either ^_^

Cheers,
DLJ

I've got two theory armies drawn up- one Necrarch and one the new Von Carstein list.

Unfortunately, I do my fluff on a character-by-character, unit-by-unit basis, so the best I can do is show you the specific fluff for the Vampire Counts that lead the armies:

Zmar, Bringer of Death

A name cursed by those in the northern Empire and certain reaches of Kislev, the Vampire Zmar is known as the Bringer of Death. The few scattered reports that exist of his activities indicate that the creature believes what he is doing is right; that he is bringing order to the world. Known to have once tutored beneath Nagash and Wsoran, Zmar is believed to be continuing the work of those unholy lords of the undead, doing what he can to destroy the life force of the northlands. Twisted creatures of Chaos are corrupted into his armies, as are Kislev and Imperial soldiery. This creature will stop at nothing to carve himself a new realm of death, one where order and law rules supreme with no room to change or adapt.

Zmar is a corrupted form of the Polish for Death. :) The army will be made up mostly of zombies, a few skeletons and black knights, all formed of twisted, nightmarish creatures. Giant bloated flesh-things which 'count as' zombies; goblin-wolf hybrids, centigors and knights fused with their steeds in death counting as Black Knights; a bunch of insane stuff, basically.

-------------

Wolfric von Carstein

A lesser lord among this noble house of vampires, Wolfric rules a collection of small villages on the northern side of the province, near the ruined keep of Waldenhoff. His loyalty is nominally to Mannfred von Carstein, and he’s served his lord for almost half a millennia- ever since his creator met his final demise during the battle of Hel Fenn. When trouble approaches the realm, Wolfric is named captain of the Waldenhoff guard, and ordered to defend the land from invaders. A skilled necromancer, Wolfric sees to it that the militia is quickly summoned for war.

This army I intend to build similar to an Empire army: regiments of Sylvanian Levy spearmen; crossbowmen support; greatsword and black knights to hold the centre and flank the enemy.

It will have a strong "lords of the foreboding mountains" theme. I'm looking forward to it, as I'm assisting my wife with her Lahmian undead army and it's inspiring me to begin my Sylvanian one. When we work out some fluff for it, I'll be sure to post it here.

... mine's long...

So long that I've been saying I'll get it up for like, centuries, and until now it's not done yet! I keep having to change the plot to take new things into account... Like, suddenly I have no Necromancers in my army... suddenly I'm serving or not serving Mannfred... Suddenly my Evangeline is a Sister of Sigmar, suddenly she's a Damsel, suddenly she's just a healer... Suddenly my Luna died when she was 16, suddenly she was abandoned at birth and raised by wolves... Suddenly I have the Carstein Ring, suddenly I don't...

It's actually not very fluffy to have the Carstein Ring. I mean it's such a unique artifact, if it ever turns up again I'd like to see it on a REAL special character, not a normal Vampire Lord like me.

But anyway... I was a former Brettonian Questing Knight who came to a town on the border of the Empire and Brettonia, called Colline Silenceuse (translates into Silent Hill). A ghoul attack on the band of pilgrims I'm escorting leaves me poisoned and unconscious, and I wake up in a healer's lodge within the town. The lodge is devoted to the Lady of the Lake, and Evangeline who nursed me back to health is not really a Damsel, but sort of blessed anyway with the purest of souls.

A Strigoi Vampire called Ghorak (one of your relations, Jim? :P) is terrorizing the town, having fled there after escaping from typical von Carstein persecution. I slay the Vampire for Evangeline's sake (he was wounded badly, so it's a bit cheesy how I killed him), and attract the attention of the von Carsteins pursuing him.

Evangeline and I give in to our attraction, and spend an illicitly blissful night together. However, upon waking up, I am consumed by guilt, and leave the safety of the lodge to wander the streets, despite Evangeline's pleas that her purity has not in fact been sullied by the honest love we have shared. I am a bit of an anal-retentive ass at this point, however.

Countess Viluchya von Carstein, a thrall of Mannfred's, Embraces me, acting on the advice of her advisor Kurtz Waldheim, a Necromancer, who tells her that if she doesn't Embrace me soon, sooner or later one of the other bloodlines will (slaying a Strigoi Lord is a pretty big thing).

Evangeline goes searching after me, after I go missing. She learns of my fate, and becomes embroiled in the power struggle in Silent Hill between the von Carsteins and the Necrarchs, whom Viluchya sets me to fighting. I do a lot of Necrarch slaying during this time. The Necrarchs are unable to harm her due to her purity, but they deceive her into thinking that the Necrarch Lord Emetrius knows of the secret to curing Vampirism, and so take her away to the Tower of Emetrius. Emetrius perhaps has the power to break her purity and corrupt her to his purpose. The breaking of such purity of spirit like hers would result in a flux of dark power that could be useful to practitioners of Dark Arts.

I find out that Evangeline has left the safety of the lodge. Viluchya, under constant questioning from me, finally caves in and updates me on Evangeline's fate. I curse and swear, and follow the Necrarchs north towards Marienburg. Viluchya sends her pet Wolves, Bats, and Thralls after me, to punish me for my disobedience. Along the way, an honourable Blood Dragon named Valeron tangles with one of her hunting parties by mistake, and after I go to his assistance, he joins up with me for the moment.

We travel to Marienburg and go to the largest local brothel, which is actually a cover for the lair of the Lahmian Countess Ethel Bathory, the most powerful Vampire in Marienburg. After completing a task for her and winning her favour, she provides assistance in locating the Tower of Emetrius. One of her Thralls, Marta (heehee) accompanies us as a guide.

Upon reaching the Tower, we realize a battle is ongoing. An Empire army led by the Warrior-Priest Benedictus (heeheehee) is assaulting the tower. Emetrius himself has emerged on his Zombie Dragon to defend his abode. The three of us sneak in and infiltrate his Tower, but we encounter his seneschal Razak. After a brief but furious melee, we defeat him and spring Evangeline from her prison.

However, Emetrius returns after driving off the intruders and a huge battle ensues. During the battle, Valeron is killed. The Warrior Priest Benedictus, who has not fled unlike the rest of his soldiers, breaks in at this point and lends a hand, allowing me to deal the mortal blow to Emetrius. However, as Emetrius collapses, he curses us for being fools. Silent Hill is an ancient site of great power, he claims, and he has been sending his Necrarch minions from a distance to try and prevent any bloodline from controlling the place and discovering its secret. Now that we have slain him, he claims, the balance is upset, and Viluchya has become the overwhelmingly dominant force in the region.

When pressed to reveal what secret it is that can make even a Necrarch reluctant to unleash it, he dies and crumbles to dust.

Evangeline was mortally wounded as well during the fight. Benedictus is unconscious and unable to help. I am urged by Marta to Embrace Evangeline quickly before she perishes. Evangeline does not resist, allowing me to actually perform the desperate act. Neither of us know that she is pregnant at this time...

So when Benedictus comes to, he finds himself surrounded by 3 Vampires! After a minor ruckus, Marta and Evangeline pin him down while I explain to him that firstly, we mean him no immediate harm, and secondly, we thank him for this timely intervention and thirdly, we need to rush back to Silent Hill straightaway to see what it is there that everyone is so interested in. Benedictus is a reasonable man, and so the coterie proceeds towards Silent Hill, Marta having decided to follow me rather than return to her mistress.

Upon reaching Silent Hill, we find that the place has changed. A thick blanket of fog now blankets the place, and there seem to be no living inhabitants left. The sun no longer seems to shine in this place. After fighting our way through Viluchya's minions, and all sorts of other strange and terrifying Daemons, into the deep catacombs beneath Silent Hill, we discover the Countess herself, about to complete some sort of ritual. Our interference causes the ritual to go wrong, and a vortex of chaos appears.

It seems that Silent Hill used to be the site of many, many atrocities. Millenia ago, before the time of Sigmar, the Asur used this location as the site of mass graves for the Druchii enemies they slew in a large battle, after the Druchii had tortured many Asur to death in the makeshift prison camp they had set up here. Later, after the withdrawal of the Elven race from the Old World, the Men of the various surrounding tribes fought many battles, and many warriors died in the vicinity. After the unification of Brettonia, a band of Grail Knights came here to root out a band of Chaos worshippers, but were defeated and slain. Centuries later, this town was a place of contention between Brettonia and the Empire, and for a time the Empire used the town as a prison camp for Brettonian prisoners. More atrocities were committed.

All this activity made Silent Hill a possible entrance point for one of the many minor Chaos Gods in existence. Viluchya was attempting to complete the ritual that would allow the Chaos Godling to enter this world and wreak havoc, but after our interference the ritual goes awry, causing the Chaos God to be trapped in limbo, able to exist only partially in our plane of existence, his influence extending only about as far as the town itself.

The underground complex collapses. Viluchya dies in a surge of chaotic energy. I am unable to escape in time, and am trapped under the deluge of falling rocks, sending me into deep Torpor. Benedictus, Marta and Evangeline manage to escape, but Evangeline is devastated at my apparent death.

Benedictus has realized that not all Undead are the ravenous slaughterers he had believed, and he wishes to keep company with the two females, but Marta refuses to allow him. Marta takes Evangeline to Marienburg, after telling Benedictus that where they are going, he has no possible way to follow. In other words, their paths will inevitably and rapidly diverge with the passage of time. They and he are of two different, incompatible worlds. Realizing this as well, he leaves them, and is never heard from again.


***

About 2 centuries later, circa present-day...

Evangeline has given birth to Luna, a strange, half-vampiric child, possibly the only one of her kind since usually vampires are unable to give birth the normal way. They place themselves under Ethel Bathory's wing, who allows them sanctuary with her.

Luna von Carstein was a strange child from the start, possessing an unusual affinity with the wolves of the wild. At the age of 15, Evangeline Embraces her daughter, and Luna comes into her own.

A foolhardy Necromancer Herdan Agonfal comes to Silent Hill, having heard of the history and reputation of the town and wishing to forge an army from its ruins. However, his powers inadvertently awaken ME.

*cue cinematic of a dark form striding out from the fog, and the increasingly uncertain look on the face of the Necromancer*

After killing the Necromancer - at heart I still despise Necromancers - I consider what to do next. I had managed to glean some information from Herdan Agonfal, and I have learnt that it has been about 200 years since I was last conscious.

Utilizing the unique link between Evangeline and I, compounded by the natural link between sire and thrall, I get a sense of her general location. Travelling alone and as stealthily as I can manage, I reach Marienburg one night and have a tearful reunion with my wife, and an emotional first meeting with my daughter Luna. Lady Ethel Bathory and Marta are also glad to see me up and around once more.

Who says Vampires are Immune to Psychology? Vlad and Isabella aren't the only ones with Undying Love. :P

***

Below is the fluff explanation for the various parts of my army.

Lefred von Carstein: GW, Earthbind (this is from being stuck underground for so long, haha), Aura, Walking Death, Ring of the Night

This is me!

Evangeline von Carstein: nightmare with barding, GW, hA, Earthbind, Spectral Attendants

My wife! My MUDwife actually... we used to date... online relationship... her name is actually Evangelin without the 'e'... but eventually... sigh...

Luna von Carstein: GW, hA, sh, Wolf Form, Summon Wolves (she's a really feral girl) (the armour and shield are to reflect how hard she is to be hit by missile fire, I don't use the shield in hth)

My daughter!

Luna's Hunting Pack - 5 Scouting Dire Wolves

My daughter's favoured pack of wolves. Her... erm... playmates.

2x 5 Dire Wolves

Generic Wolves.

2x3 Fell Bats

Generic Bats

15 Sylvanian Militia (FC): lA, sp, sh

After signing on with Mannfred's anti-Chaos forces, I get these footsoldiers. Gamewise, the regiment is this small because of the massive number of models the Grave Markers are able to raise. I don't think raising will be a problem.

19 Fallen Black Guard of Silent Hill (FC) (GG): shields

These are some of the remains of the ancient Druchii warriors in Silent Hill. They form my personal entourage.

3 Restless Dead of Silent Hill (Spirit Hosts)

These are Empire Militia models, converted to look ghostly and grisly (think headless, limbless, etc). These are some of the men who died in the town.

5 Black Grail Knights of Silent Hill (SB, Champion): barding, War Banner

The long-dead Grail Knights. Now raised into my service. No vestige of their spirits remain, they are essentially animated corpses... but powerful because they were Grail Knights, after all.

Black Coach

This used to be Viluchya's personal Coach. It's been reanimated by me for my own purposes. The coffins inside are for my family and I to sleep in when we travel; otherwise it's empty. The long-suffering wraith who drives it, he's our family chauffeur. I feel safe having him around, because NO WAY is my wife gonna fool around with him. One of these days we'll ask his name.

That's some pretty long fluff you have there, Derfel! But tis very well written, and nicely convoluted which is something we Strigoi appreciate. However, I feel the need to expand slightly on a certain issue you raised....

Gorin Turkov was the first of the Turkov Vampire family. Formerly a Kislevite noble, he was driven from his homeland by angry mobs of mustached warriors when it was discovered that he was in fact a Lord of the Night. Forced into hiding, Gorin roamed the countryside for many years, constantly being hunted by the zealous populace of his former homeland.

Slowly, he made his way to Sylvania: he had heard that the nobles there were also Vampires, and hoped that they would grant him aid. However, it was not to be: the Von Carstein's scorned the Kislevite, and hounded him halfway across their domain before Gorin finally managed to escape. More time passed, and Gorin became more bitter and twisted. His sanity finally broke, like so many others of his kind, to the extent that he could not even remember his own name, which became perverted to Ghorak.

Then the Von Carstein's discovered his lair. They came unexpectedly, catching the poor Turkov unawares. He was grieviously wounded by the Vampire Lieutenant leading the expedition, who in turn was bloodily ripped limb from limb by the angry Strigoi.

Furious at every living thing conspiring against him, Ghorak fled in a blinding rage and fell upon the nearest town. Terrorising the populace, Ghorak maimed and killed indiscriminantly. Also, in a moment of lucidness, he decided it would be fun (as only a maniac could) to have a son, so he took an unfortunate lad by the name of Janus and bestowed upon him the Blood Kiss. Ghorak planned to take the boy with him back to the fabled city of Strigos: they would be able to live peacefully there! However, his dream was cruelly cut short by the sword of a former Bretonnian Knight by the name of Lefred....

Ghorak's remains are now carried in a cauldron of blood, an artifact of great power (or so Janus has been told). Janus hopes that one day the power of the gory relic will be enough to revive his "father", that they may rule Strigos together....

Funny that. It turns out that Ghorak *is* a relative of mine, Derfel! :P
Hope I haven't overstepped my boundaries ;)

Cheers,
DLJ

My vamp's fluff is currently a work in progress. Check the link in my sig to the topic, and I intend to have it done by the 30th, in time for the contest at Ulkrik's site. Watch for periodic updates.

Derfel, you nasty, nasty boy! I take it you like the computer game Vampire the Masquerade as well, eh? Do you play the pen-and-paper as well? :)

I liked your story! All the more so because it included me and my wife (whose name is actually Marta, but close!). Well done.

:D

Benedictus: Of course I do!!! I see you know it as well! :) :) :)

I tried to plagiarize as much as I could, but I had to change so many things that didn't make sense. This story I think should be the final incarnation... after undergoing about 6 or 7 revisions. Would you believe, the first few versions had me trying to prevent Vlad's resurrection? And the next few had me eventually being corrupted by Tzeentch? And one of them had my poor Evangeline being tortured and tormented by Viluchya for 200 years, like poor Anezka was? Sigh.

And yes, I do play the tabletop version :)

I shall edit the Marta bits.

DLJ: ... What boundaries?? It's a seamless fit into my story! :) too bad we can't play out our armies' vendetta on the board...

Vriishnak: Nice! Very well written! Try writing some stuff on WPS... I'm sure Seth Garrick will like it :P

(For an alternative to "shamelessly", I humbly suggest "flagrantly".)

In the interest of keeping all of this wonderful fluff from sinking into the darkness, and getting more feedback on my own story (-_-), I'd like to point out that my story is now complete, and can still be found via the link in my sig.

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, I don't believe I've ever written an essay as long as my fluff, DLJ. :lol:

Kuten Ra was The High Priest of Blood at Lahmia, but once the armies destroyed Lahmia, Kuten fled with Ushoran to Strigos, but aftermath left Kuten Ra insane. He
eventually changed his name to Vincent to mislead his Von Carstien pursuers. Today he is known to be hidden in the forests of the Badlands and has killed all before him in his dammed path.