I have dwelt here so long that I have no other origin; my

beginnings are lost in the darkness of the past. When I

was young, when I was a warrior, then I was good and
just. I thundered across the valley like the wrath of a
vengeful god, driving my enemies before me and purging
them from this land. But the years of killing wore down
my soul as the wind wears stone into sand.

My youth was devoted to fighting my father’s war. When

the war went away I found it had taken my youth with it
and all I had left was death’s eternal embrace. All joy
slipped from my life; I had liberated the valley of
Barovia and brought peace and security to its
people, but they never loved me as they had loved my
father. I won the war he started, but they revered his
memory and

immortalized his name in the land I had freed. He had

found a way to cheat the death that still awaited me.
I had not been without proposals of marriage in my
youth. Was I not a prince in waiting, general of my
father’s armies, heir to his throne? One of these
supplicants was Patrina Velikovna, a daughter of the
dusk elves.
Such an arrangement was of course completely
unsuitable, but she had not come empty-handed: her
dowry was the prospect of immortality. Rahadin had
driven her from the court on my father’s orders, but
father was no longer around
to register his objections. I summoned her once again,
and she taught me the secret of the Amber Temple.
My course clear, I set out for the mountains. Of the men
who started the journey with me, loyal
servants
all, only three crossed its threshold:
Rahadin, who is more like a brother to me
than my own flesh and blood, and the
wizard Khazan and his apprentice, who
had come to steal the secrets that would
raise my masterpiece, my castle in the
clouds.

We slew many fearsome horrors in those amber halls, but

the corpse-thing that maintained the temple welcomed
me with open arms, the better to share its accursed
knowledge. While my wizard and his thrall pored over
masonic manuscripts, mere trifles, the caretaker brought
me to a vault beneath a great library. The walls echoed
with voices trapped in amber. They called out to me. One
called louder than the rest.
The magic-users left the temple with tomes and scrolls. I
left with empty hands and a head filled with a most
terrible secret: that I too could cheat death, if I were
willing to pay the price.

Returning to the affairs of the living, I determined to

surpass my father in the annals of history as I had on the
field of battle. I ordered my wizards to build a mighty
castle, one that would dwarf my father’s meager
mountain holdfast. As my father had claimed the land in
his name, I dedicated the castle to my mother. Upon its
completion I summoned her to

see what I had wrought, how I had exceeded my father in

every way.
She brought with her my younger brother, Sergei. He was
handsome and youthful and by our mother’s graces he
had been spared the ravages of war. He was also spared
the sickness that took her on the road. She never saw the
monument that bears her name: Ravenloft.

I did not want for consolers. The

great families of the valley sent their
hapless sons and daughters, all of
them seeing in my grief the
possibility for their advancement.
One spirit shone brightly above all
others. A rare beauty, who was
called “perfection,” “joy,” and
“treasure.” Her name was Tatyana and I longed for her
to be mine.

I loved her for her youth. I loved her for her vitality. I
loved her with all my heart. But she spurned me. “Elder”
was my name to her – and “brother” also,
though in truth this title belonged to another. Her heart
went to him, and her hand with it. She and Sergei were
betrothed. The date was set.
“Brother,” she called me, but when I looked into her eyes
they reflected another name – “Death.” It was death that
she saw in me. The deaths of all those I had fed to the
death goddess, and the death that awaited me in turn.
She reveled in her youth, but I had squandered mine.
The death she saw in me turned her from me, I know it.
And so I came to hate death – my death. My hate is
strong: I would not be called “death” so soon.

The voices in amber called out to me from their mountain

prison. In truth, they had never left me, or perhaps I
never left them; perhaps some part of me dwells there
still. They promised me a final triumph over death. But
only one offered me that other gift I now sought – the gift
of revenge.
Know that I agonized over my decision until it could be
deferred no longer. I did not act until I had to; for what
use was life eternal, if eternity would be spent alone?

My warrior’s castle was bedecked in garlands of

flowers. It was the day of

Sergei and Tatyana’s wedding. I found Sergei in the

chapel, mouthing prayers to his morninglord, his hands
wrapped around the hilt of the sword our mother had
given him. A sword that had never struck in anger. I
commanded him to strike me now. When he refused, I
killed him where he stood. My brother, who I loved. My
pact was sealed with the first taste of his blood.
My knights took Sergei’s side, of course. They rose up
against me, their eyes filled with hatred, and cut me
down in my own home. Arrows from the castle guard
pierced me to my soul, but I did not die. Nor did I live.
On the third night,

I rose from my unmarked grave and spurned death’s

embrace forever.
I returned to my castle and reclaimed what was mine.
The flagstones ran red with the blood of those who
betrayed me, but the greatest betrayal was yet to come.
I found Tatyana weeping in the garden east of the chapel.
She fled from me. She would not let me explain, and a
great anger swelled within me. She had to understand—
the pact I made was for her! All I had done, all I would
ever do, was for her!
She fled from me. I pursued her. Finally, in despair, she
flung herself from the walls of Ravenloft. I watched
everything I ever wanted fall from my grasp forever.
It was a thousand feet through the mists. No trace of her
was ever found. Not even I know her final fate.
I have studied much since then. “Vampyr” is my new
name. I still lust for life and youth, and I curse the living
that took them from me. Even the sun is against me now.
But I am the land. The sun is banished from my domain,
and little else can harm me now. Even a stake through
my heart cannot kill me, though many have tried. But the
sword, that damned sword! My fool of a wizard lost its
hilt but I will not rest until it is destroyed. Everything
Sergei touched must be purged from this land until there
is nothing left to remind me of his crimes.

But I cannot forget Tatyana. I have often hunted for her,

led by the sight of her flame red hair and the sound of
her laughter.
I write these words of sorrow as the final part of my pact
with the voices in amber. My tale will be added to the
annals of woe that line their halls, and I will return to my
home far below Ravenloft. I walk among the dead and
sleep beneath the very stones of the hollow castle that
was to house our family. I shall seal shut the stairs that
none may disturb me, for I am a monster, unfit for human
sight. I am a tyrant, a traitor, a kinslayer. I am a warrior,
a hero, a brother, a son, betrayed and abandoned by
those I loved most. I am beyond titles now, beyond
morality, beyond life, beyond even death.

I am the Ancient, I am the Land.