Kraven Ergeist - Pencil

Commission drawn for me by Doug Smith at [link]

Kraven is a genetically modified human being. He is the protagonist of The Tale of Kraven Ergeist. He has long blonde hair and wears simple rags – a brown vest, slacks and boots. When he was 12, he was living his life in Almsgard Average as a street urchin, until a benevolent man named Hexus Vierge took him into his manor. After he had been fed, bathed and dressed, Kraven met others like himself whom the man had taken in – homeless men, women and children by the dozens, all of them fed and well cared for. That night, they all dined at a banquet, and Hexus greeted them all personally, assuring them that from now on, their lives would be better.

Unexpectedly, however, Kraven awoke the day after to find himself strapped to a table, along with all the others, inside the manor’s dark underground lab. After nearly a week of disjointed, half conscious, tormenting nightmares, Kraven was thrown back out onto the street. Confused and barely conscious, he went back to the man’s house and asked to be let in. The guards refused, and at Kraven’s persistence, they gutted him, leaving him for dead in a ditch. He awoke hours later to find himself perfectly fine. He tried again, only to be wounded and thrown into the ditch. Again and again he tried, until he finally managed to best the guards, learning from his previous encounters. He broke into the manor and found Hexus sitting quietly. When he confronted him, Hexus refused to acknowledge him, gesturing to him as a “failed experiment.” In a fit of rage, Kraven attacked him, only to be swatted away with ease. Once again, he was thrown out of the manor.

Lost and confused, Kraven wandered the continent for 500 years, trying to understand what had happened to him. He slowly learned that he was made how he was in an attempt to create a perfect soldier. He found himself impervious to pain or any kind of physical contact. When injured, he regenerates almost immediately. He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't breathe, and he doesn’t die. He doesn’t feel emotion, nothing to hinder him on the battlefield, he is magic resistant, and he learns like a computer from experience. Even his long blonde hair, which rests at the same length at the time of the experiment, regrows to exactly the same length within a day every time it gets cut.

As time passed, he began to thirst for vengeance. He tried confronting Hexus again and again, and each time, was thwarted almost effortlessly. He soon realized that in order to gain anything from the man who did this to him, he must first be able to overpower him, and decided to spend his life training himself to become stronger. Working as a mercenary, gaining new experience from every job, as well as an accumulation of wealth that needn’t be spent on food, he grew as a fighter, and over time, became a legendary warrior. Unrestricted by normal human needs, his name soon became known throughout the kingdom, to Inisburn Inferior to the royal capital of Pharahaven Perfecta. He was rumored to be the second coming of Draco Delphinus, a great warrior from a thousand years ago. He was at his peak when the King sought him out to aid his soldiers in battle during The Mage War, and Kraven obliged, being magic resistant, and single handedly winning the war. Returning as a war hero, his name was now the stuff of legends. As a reward, he was granted incalculable wealth, the keys to the city, and two matching swords called the Deus Blades, forged by the King’s finest smiths.

At last, he decided to confront the ambitious Hexus once more, who had been using the more successful traits bred through his experiments on himself, making him into an immortal warrior, deadly in his own right. Disappearing from the public eye, Kraven confronted Hexus in his manor, now a stronghold, in Almsgard Average. The battle raged on for days, and migrated into the outer lands, until finally, Hexus gained the upper hand, awakening a dormant volcano that nearly consumed Kraven in molten lava. Barely managing to escape, Kraven realized that he would never beat Hexus on his own, and decided to find someone who could help him.

And that’s where the story begins…

Ink and color coming soon...