Rudolph VanRichten

My name is Dr. Rudolph Van Richten. I began my adult life as a doctor and scholar. Growing up in Darkon I wanted to heal people, to treat sickneses of the body with herbal cures.

Fate destroyed my beleifs however. My son, Erasmus, was taken from me after just fourteen summers by the vistani. I swore an otath to myself that I would never rest until Erasmus was freed from whatever unholy fate held him.

When I found the band of vistani my son was not with them. I extracted his location from the band's leader. I learned that they had sold my son to Baron Metus, a local landowner.

I found Metus's estate and prepared my camp for the night. Around midnight, Erasmus came to me. He had escaped from the Baron's minions. He had some terriable news for me. I think that I knew even before he spoke.

My son was dead!

Yet still he walked! Life in death, death in life - such was his destiny. The Baron was a vampire, and he had passed on that dark gift to my only son! I wept there in the night, cried the inconsolable tears of a terrified child.

The worst was yet to come, my son asked me to end his un-life. That very night I was asked to kill my only son, he even brought with him a sharpened wooden stake and a mallet with which to pound it through his chest.

After that fatefull night I felt that my life was at an end. When I arrived home however I found that Fate had once again layed Its horrible hand over my life. I arrived home to find my love wife dead. A note from Metus told me that matters where now in balance. At that moment my destiny was turned.

It has been almost three decades since that fateful day. Over the intervening years, I have learned much about my quarry, about the enemies that threaten us all.