The First Vampire

Beneath the shadows of forgotten archives, there whispers a tale of death and sacrifice that led to corruption and decay. An old tale. One that is all but lost to the most obscure references. The tale of how the first of the Vampires was born, and whence he came to Myrth.

The chronicles of the ancient nobility speak of the name Amru. Though some scholars believe that derived from ancient Meshatl, others have pointed to other names, realms and legends to cause doubt in it as absolute.

Amru was said to be a noble lord who once held dominion over lands whose very names have been lost to time. He was said to be of Nosturo, a man of honor - “he who walks in daylight.” Known to be of grace and intellect, beloved by his people and blessed by the divines. None of his possessions or virtues could outweigh the love he had for his wife - Ife. She was said to have been touched by both Lilith’s beauty and Heron’s unyielding strength. A blessing to his life and the captor of his eternal soul.

But shadows have their own designs, and the hearts of men are jealous. From the depths of a rival’s corrupted heart came a curse that gnawed at her flesh like some unseen parasite. Amru watched his love decay, day by day, her beauty curdling into something that should not be, her strength withering like parchment left too long in the rain. The rot was not merely physical — it was a metaphysical corruption that defied all reason, all medicine, all hope. The death curse of Nahua the corruptor.

Desperation filled Amru’s heart like a poison that works slowly, and the lord drank deep of it. He scattered gold like autumn leaves, summoned healers from distant corners of the known world, consulted sages whose wisdom had been purchased at terrible cost. But the void between what is and what should be, cannot be bridged by mortal means. When the last candle of hope guttered and died, shadows moved in the periphery — The Cult of the Grotto - the hidden priesthood of Nahua himself, that was his only salvation.

One of their number, a cleric whose eyes held the weight of things best left unspoken, came to him in the hour of his deepest despair. The cleric spoke of the Rat god - Him of the Deep Void. Of knowledge that could reshape reality itself. Knowledge that came with a price written in his own blood. The lord, already half-mad with grief and years of watching his beloved crumble, followed that shadowy figure into the deepest sanctum of Nahua, where he could trade his life for his love.

Time, in that place, became a fluid thing — a river that flowed backward and forward simultaneously. As Amru dug deeper into the secret tomes that held the secrets of decay, his mortal mind was consumed by the divine presence of its patron. Nahua whispered into his his ear. He became erratic and paranoid. Lost to himself and kis kingdom above. Forbidden knowledge burned itself into his consciousness. He found what he sought — the ritual, the transformation, the key to immortality and the end of decay — but only after years had passed in that timeless sanctum. Years during which his wife, forgotten in the world above, had long since surrendered to the grave.

When realization struck, it came not as a gentle understanding but as a shattering of the last vestiges of his humanity. Without hesitation, he performed the ritual—a ceremony that tore his soul from its mortal shell and replaced it with something that had never been meant to exist in this reality. The transformation was not merely physical; it was a violation of cosmic law, an abomination that made the very universe recoil. His soul, that fragile thing that had once loved and hoped, was ripped away and cast into the void, replaced by a fragment of Nahua’s essence—a piece of something so vast and terrible that it could not be contained.

He returned to his domain, a creature of shadow and hunger, and found only dust and silence where his beloved had once been. The truth crashed upon him like a wave of pure horror: he had been lost in that maddening search for years, and she had died alone, waiting for a salvation that would never come. The rage that consumed him then was not human — it was something else, something that had been birthed in the deep sanctum where the realms of life and death blended undistinguishable.

His grief turned to rage. Blinded by it he blamed the world. He blamed the politics tf his court, the rivalries and the backstabbing for the sake of jealousy that started it all. Fueled by the secrets he now possessed, the slaughter began there in his own keep. His subjects, those who had once looked upon him with love and respect, became mere sustenance for a hunger that could never be sated. He tore through them with teeth and claws that were no longer entirely his own, ripping throats, rending hearts, drinking deep of the life that flowed from their broken bodies. He became a swarm of darkness, a cloud of bats that blotted out the moon, and he swept across his kingdom like a plague made manifest.

The hunger, that terrible void within him, slowly began to fill — but by the time reason returned, if such a thing could be called reason, half his kingdom lay in ruin. A carpet of corpses that stretched to the horizon. The blood sacrifice had been paid. The ritual he started in the grotto had been completed. And as promised, Nahua grated Amru eternal life.

Those who understand the will of Nahua, who have glimpsed the terrible truths that lie beyond the veil, believe that this lord was the first of his kind — the first vampire, the Prince of Darkness, the Chosen of Nahua.