The First Vampire

= Kanchelsis: The First Vampire =

In the early days after the Prime Pantheon's victory over the Elemental Titans, when the mortal races were new upon the world and a vibrant feeling of triumph still echoed through the air, many gods came from other worlds drawn by the promise of a brand new land to make their own. While some shaped the continents and filled the seas, created myriad forms of life and wove the tapestries of magic and fate, others chose to interact with the newly created mortal races and impart them their divine gifts.

From wisdom and diligence to courage and cunning, each deity fostered their portfolio upon the mortal masses. And because these were the glorious times before the Divine Compact, they could manifest physically upon the Material plane to do so. For the most part, the deities remained within their pantheons, avoiding contact outside them, since the Material plane and its planar neighbours had a certain fertility of belief that seemed eager to give life to new gods. Kord had had an impromptu celebration with either Auril or the Queen of Air and Darkness (sources are unclear) in the Feywild, and a new Archfey and Ice Sovereign, the Winter Warrior, was born as an adult from a snowstorm the next morning.

Yet two minor deities from different pantheons, Sharess and Alobal Lorfiril, disregarded the usual precautions and joined forces in the greatest celebration the world had ever seen. Both deities of hedonism and pleasure, one human and one elven, they gathered thousands of followers upon the moonlit praeries of Rakshavim, before the Leviathan War, the Spellplague, and the Everblight took their beauty, and feasted for an entire summer. From such revelry and abandon, a new god was born.

The handsome half-elven man that emerged from the red veils across the blooming cherry trees called himself Kanchelsis, and was at first a very weak demigod, associated with desire, hedonism and hunger. Having inherited some of Sharess's bestial nature but without her natural control over it, the fledgling demigod was wild and directionless. Seeing an opportunity to sate the void left by Shar's betrayal, Selune in her merciful grace offered to take Kanchelis under her wing and teach him, like she had done for the first lycanthropes. Kanchelsis accepted, and for a time he was happy, even amassing a modest number of followers among the half-elves that were beginning to appear as humans and elves intermarried, yet in time his hunger could not be sated with a mother's love and mediocrity.

During the Defining, the elemental titans had been defeated before some of their weapons had been allowed to fully come into fruition. Some of these weapons were relics of power such as the Spear of Silent Eternities or the Calimemnon Crystal, and some were elder evils like The Leviathan, who had to be chained beneath the ocean, or The World Serpent, entombed at the core of the world. One of these elder evils was Pandorym, a cunning and vile sentient crystal, born from the first strife between twin gods, Pandorym was trained to corrupt the divine and turn them against each other. It was a slayer of gods by the hands of gods, the seed of hatred grown full to bursting, and a cunning servant of the titans.

While the larger and more dangerous elder evils had been immediately dealt with, Pandorym had hid itself and waited for its opportunity to strike. It finally sensed an opportunity to deal tremendous harm to the Prime Pantheon in a way that would ripple out for millennia. And all Pandorym had to do was to prey on Selune's guilt.

While the Moonmaiden was stalwart and refused to let tragedy change her, she was still carrying the weight of what had happened with Tharizdun, Io and Shar. The victory of the Prime Pantheon had been hard-fought, and it had had many casualties. Selune attempted to move ever forward, to look upon the future with hope and keep the kindness and mercy alive in her heart despite it all. But deep down, she desperately craved for a sign that things would be fine, that the sacrifices would be worth it, that the future would indeed be brighter. And so Pandorym, in its cold, crystalline cruelty, deceived her with an illusion of one of her exarchs telling her everything she wanted to hear. And as proof, the illusion suggested, what better test than the young demigod? A child of the new world! The illusion proposed to place an innocent soul upon his path during his bestial control training, and then Selune would see with her own eyes that the new world was truly meant to be a better place, that everything had been worth it. Selune's compassionate nature instinctively recoiled at the idea of placing an innocent in danger, but the illusion preyed upon her guilt. She would never know for sure unless the test had real stakes.

When Kanchelsis, struggling to control his bestial side, chanced upon one of Selune's own acolytes, who gladly volunteered for the task for his Lady of Silver, he saw the young man baring his neck—tempting him—and that's when Pandorym won. Kanchelsis killed for the first time, biting the acolyte's neck open and drinking deeply of the blood gushing forth. When the bloodlust cleared, Kanchelsis realized in horror what he had done and attempted to fix it, to infuse the recently dead body with his magic to revert the terrible thing he had done.

It worked, but the pale creature that rose was not the innocent acolyte of Selune that had once been, but an undead being bearing Kanchelsis's hunger and a faint echo of his powers. The former acolyte forsake the Moonmaiden and instead pledged himself to Kanchelsis, the god that had taken his life and then given it back, debasing himself for his new master. Kanchelsis, deep down, was getting exactly what he had been yearning for, the exulting adoration he felt he deserved, even through the conflicting haze of the guilt and the bloodlust.

Wasting no time, Pandorym manifested as an illusion of Kanchelsis himself, in all his fearsome and beastly glory, and, before guilt could set the demigod on the path of redemption, the crystal instead encouraged him to embrace blood as part of his domain, to use it to rise in power above other gods and build a following of carnage and debauchery.

Kanchelsis was seduced by these promises, for he wanted more attention, more followers, more devotion to him and him alone, and he had just found that fully giving in and drinking the warm blood of the living had finally sated his hunger at long last. And while the new Rake-god embraced his descent into corruption, Pandorym rushed to enact a new set of illusions to different members of the Prime Pantheon, using Selune's failure to spark old feuds and turn the gods against each other. It was Ioun's cunning who noticed the pattern, the coincidences, how it all fit together, and managed to uncover Pandorym's psychic influence. As the gods, unable to destroy it, severed it in half, they saw the crystal glinting one last time in Lathander's direction, almost mockingly, as if to say "do what you will, I've already won". Ioun would later realize that was a calculated move that would galvanize Lathander's fury into the Godswar, Pandorym getting one last laugh out of them all.

As for Kanchelsis, he would go on to become the first vampire and spread his gift to mortals, allowing them to obtain immortality through undeath for the very first time. And when mortals developed hemomancy, he would swiftly lay claim to it, expanding his portfolio even further. He would reign as a powerful tyrant-god for centuries, granting mortals the power of vampirism and hemomancy in exchange for debased worship, until the very first Blood Hunter slew Kanchelsis's avatar in his own grand temple, an act of public self-sacrifice that greatly weakened the god's following and, over time, reduced him once again to the status of a minor lesser deity.

The God Kanchelsis
Status: Lesser Deity.

Alignment: Chaotic Evil.

Portfolio: Blood, Debauchery, Vampirism and Hemomancy.

Domains: Blood, Death and Heart.

Kanchelsis takes on two different forms:

The Beast resembles a wild-eyed, tousle-headed half-elf male with powerful muscles and taloned claws. He is excessively hairy. He is a wild creature, the personification of the wild beast that rages inside all vampires. He runs with canines and felines, and tears out throats, drinking as much blood as he can swallow.

The Rake resembles a slim, elegant half-elf with long, slender hands, finely-chiseled features, and a friendly smile. He is always dressed immaculately. This is the more elegant side of vampirism, savoring blood as mortal sophisticates might savor wine. He is a charismatic seducer, a lover of high fashion, debauchery, and art.

Realm
Kanchelsis lives in the Lair of the Beast and Mansion of the Rake on Agathys, the 6th layer of Carceri. His domain there is described as a vast mansion that changes continuously based on Kanchelsis's whims. The halls are filled with mirrors and framed portraits, and the manse includes aviaries and chilling gardens. His home is awash in blood, and some rooms are said to be sculpted from living blood sculptures; some of this blood is spiced with narcotics and alkaloids. The vampires, hemomancers, and similar followers who populate the mansion are hungry sycophants, as Kanchelsis offers them only the most meager of blood rations when they debase themselves for him.

Dogma
Kanchelsis's dogma, like the deity, is split, involving both a hunger for sophistication and debauchery and a terrible, insatiable lust for blood and violence.

Worshippers
Kanchelsis is worshipped by many vampires and hemomancers, and by all who hunger for debasement and blood.

Even some necromancers pay tribute to his insatiable hunger for some sort of hopes of personal gain. If the necromancers acquire a body they can create an undead of and are able to perform the raising ritual in their sanctuary, a common offering of dead flesh will go to Orcus or Doresain, but the blood will often go to Kanchelsis.

Relations
After Kanchelsis embraced his bloodlust and hunger, Selune told him she would never speak to him again until he repented. That has suited Kanchelsis just fine. He has never spoken to the deities that sired him and has no intention of doing so, for he understands the power of blood and knows both belong to pantheons he does not wish to enrage for frivolous reasons.

Instead, Kanchelsis has made a pact with Nerull. Both share the layer of Agathys and would love to see the world plunged into eternal darkness. Kanchelsis shared with Nerull the benefits of blood magic and rituals, which were later quite impactful to the lizardfolk, and Nerull in turn shared some of his secrets of death and undeath with the young Rake-god.

Doresain was once a mortal wood elf and a worshiper of Kanchelsis. In order to honor his deity, he feasted on the flesh of his fellow elves. Impressed by the raw and savage act, Kanchelsis used Nerull’s teachings to turn Doresain into the very first ghoul. When Doresain later ascended to demigodhood, Kanchelsis welcomed him as his right-hand servant.

Through the propagation of ghouls and ghasts, Kanchelsis’s church survived even when vampires and hemomancers were at their weakest, and granted the Rake-god power to rebuild his dark following once more. Doresain remains to this day as Kanchelsis’s most faithful servant, feasting at the feet of his master’s throne.

In the new Age of Wings, Kanchelsis has been trying to reach out new alliances and offer new temptations, seemingly attempting to return himself back to relevance.