The Abbot Mihäl

It was King Garvan himself, who was no longer satisfied with the gifts of Terra, so he called a council of the leaders of the Ankorean Empire, who, hidden deep in the magnificent throne hall of Terra Ankor, decided to create something new. Terra alone should no longer be the one who decides over life and death. Why submit to her cycle over and over again?

Why not live eternally?

That's why half a dozen of the greatest minds set out to experiment far beyond the limits of what was previously possible. Under the leadership of no one less than Master Areol, Magus Gerchow Pariwal and his master Vergil Silvanus, sorcerer of Assansol, Abbot Mihäl of Thale and even Ecclesius Maximus, the Grand Wizard himself.

Gerchow describes in his exchange with Master Vergil that he had his first successes by striking parts of the body with small lightning strikes and twitching them again as long as rigor mortis did not set in. Master Silvanus managed to capture the souls of the dead only a short time later by binding them with a magic band. With this knowledge Gerchow was now able to bind the souls in a vessel.

While these two minds pursued their research on the death of King Garvan to such an extent that it was even possible for them to directly raise the dead again or even to order them in cremated form from one place to another at lightning speed, Abbot Mihäl tried to take a different path.

He realized that the knowledge of the sorcerers did not create eternal life, but rather resulted in eternal death as a perverted form of life. What he wanted for his king was eternal life, the end of the cycle, the end of their captivity.
That is why he had children brought to him from all over the kingdom. Children had to be the key, because in them lay the seed of life.

Many cruel attempts have been made on his behalf. They ate children's flesh, drank their blood, bled the children and pumped the blood into their own veins.
It made them feel good, young. But the blood didn't stop the aging process. One remained agile for a long time, but the bodies decayed nevertheless.

When the Abbot recognized this and his life seemed to end soon, he decided to reconsider the findings of his fellow researchers and found his salvation in the possibility of the transmigration of souls. So he asked Master Vergil to transfer his old, sick soul into the body of a young man. He was sure that his soul would be stronger than the one of his victim and could safely displace it.

However, Vergil betrayed him in order to achieve a first major breakthrough in his own research. Thus, Gerchow ended the life of the unconscious body Mihael had chosen.

The transfer of souls was now child's play with the knowledge that both he and Gerchow had gained from their years of research.

One of the first Undead was born.