Lennart

Lennart is a Human-turned Dread Fighter who currently wanders the world under the banner of the Malefaux Order, accepting a wide variety of contracts to hunt down beasts — and even people — of, or underneath influence of, the supernatural. Given that Lennart has been in the profession for over half a decade, his skills have become world-renown and highly reputable, giving him a slew of admirers and enemies alike.

Appearance
Lennart bears an unorthodox appearance, primarily due to the experiments he underwent as a child in order to gain the racial attributes associated with a Dread Fighter. His primary features are, without a doubt, his extremely pale skin, long white hair and scarlet eyes. When viewed by the ordinary populace, he is often seen as ghastly or bestial and thus, unless one is forced to cooperate with him on professional endeavors, they generally avoid him at all costs. Though this doesn't technically mean that he is unattractive, the foreign, appearance he holds when compared to ordinary people of his race leads people to find him perplexing and fear-inducing, for the most part...
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History
Lennart was born in the terror-stricken country of Spyria, where citizens cannot even breathe their air in peace due to the marauding Demons and Beasts that prowl the lands and fly upon the earth. As only a young child, Lennart was soon abandoned by his parents as one of many child sacrifices for a demon that conquered over his village. However, due to the interference of a Dread Fighter later identified as Adelle, the orphaned children's lives were saved and the demon was vanquished. As a part of the contract with the village, all of the children were taken to the Malefaux Order, where they would train as prospective Dread Fighters.

Given that Lennart was only three years old at the time, he quickly forgot about the events transpiring in the village, instead focusing all of his attention on present events: his training as a Dread Fighter. By virtue of the Dread Fighter's code, Lennart remains the anonymity of his training. However, he did reflect on it as an excruciating experience. During this period of time, specifically after seven years, Lennart was forced to accompany Adelle on a scouting mission across Spyria due to the sudden influx of bestial creatures — which were even greater than the norm. Although he wasn't officially recognized as a Dread Fighter, all hands at the time were required to deal with the current threat. As a consequence, Adelle was left in charge of the completion of Lennart's training and mutagenesis.

The training period lasted for six years — until Lennart's body could be accepted as an adult — and his final lesson would be him fulfilling a higher-tier contract on his own merits. This contract occurred in a small village terrorized by an Ahriman. Following a series of tribulations in which he determined the Ahriman's intentions, abilities and he concocted a wide variety of remedies used to be able to counter the being's petrifying gaze, he managed to take down the powerful entity. In realization of Lennart's great skill, Adelle awarded him with the official title of Dread Fighter, a title which he continues to hold and use well up until this day.

Combat Prowess
Lennart, by all means, can be considered a polymath when it concerns his sheer prowess in combat: more specifically, his weaponry. He is noted to have trained in dozens of weapon types and styles over his eight years as a Dread Fighter. His skills in each individual type of weapon have increased to the point where it is next-to-impossible to determine which he is most comfortable with: he appears to be fluent in all of them. In addition, the weapons Lennart employ vary from simple melee, ballistic and ranged weapons to more obscure weapons that are commonly hidden within his clothing, which are often suited for professions of a lesser repute. To this extent, Cáo Dǎiyì has regarded Lennart as "shameless", not due to the specifics of his occupation and honor, but rather as a result of his lacking commitment towards a single field. Ultimately, Lennart's reasoning lies in the idea of efficiency. After all, the only method to dispatch of a wide variety of phantasmal species is through accommodation for as many weaknesses and limitations as possible.

In terms of combat style, Lennart is, as expected, extremely flexible and is completely dependent on the enemy's attributes in order to determine the best approach to combat. This is in part due to his innate analytical skill, but more-so as a result of his lengthy career as a Dread Fighter — apprentice or otherwise. Lennart boasts an incredible intuitive mind in battle. Without hesitation, the man fluidly shifts from tactics epitomizing group to solo performances, or even shift from supporting positions to the front-line without any unnecessary delay or bad judgement calls...


 * More coming soon...

Wingstone
Wingstone, alternatively regarded as the Piercing Gaze of Medusa is a very unique weapon forged on the request of Lennart after his first, independent, and successfully fulfilled contract. After killing an Ahriman terrorizing a small village, Lennart employed a blacksmith to craft a specially designed blade out of its steel wings and petrifying eye. Eventually the Wingstone was formed, a blade that successfully fulfilled its purpose as a sword while providing the benefits of petrification to Lennart. The blade appears, as expected, in the shape of an Ahriman's wing, with several internal curves and pointed protrusions along its length that allows the cutting edge to cause multiple incisions with every slash, causing excruciating pain in the process. In the area where a traditional guard normally lay is instead a bright blue, open eye with an almost cat-like pupil, around it being several teeth-like extensions from the blade that can cause shearing to those making contact with it. Finally, the hilt appears to be a pitch-black, relatively standard sword hilt with a deep blue, pointed extension at its end that appears to be laced with a hallucinating poison.

Above all of its attributes, the one thing that causes Wingstone to be distinguished among the vast majority of unique blades in existence is its capability to inflict petrification on nearly all of its targets. This petrification occurs due to the presence of the singular eye on the blade, which is a modified runestone based on the magical properties of the Ahriman's eye. This runestone absorbs surrounding Ether from the environment and allows it to flow across the blade. When making contact with another organic substance, Wingstone's modified Ether seeps onto the organism at the point of contact, before spreading the petrification outwards in a vein that would be compared to the spread of a disease throughout the body. However, with injuries to vital organs or specific nerves and arteries, Lennart can heighten the progression of the petrification significantly, to the point where it fully submerges the body in minutes. Such a finnicky ability leaves it as an extremely potent tool in the hands of someone like a Dread Fighter, whose very existence has been conditioned to exploit the weaknesses of any and all opponents.

Stormsong
Stormsong is Lennart's signature crossbow and an armament obtained through one of his earlier contracts. He was tasked with the objective of killing a Chimera terrorizing a rather large city, as well as it being responsible for the deaths of numerous military personnel and magi to detain and/or kill the beast. Of course, without the assistance of a professional, they were virtually unsuccessful in their attempts. However, they managed to extract one of the Chimera's horns from a ferocious battle. A steel-like constitution and appearance, Lennart went to a highly accomplished blacksmith in the area and forged a remarkably durable and powerful crossbow. With the remaining material, Lennart forged a number of bolts for the crossbow and enchanted a select few with powerful poisons of Dread Fighter design. The crossbow's design enables the bolts placed on it to fire with extreme speed and, based on that sense, accuracy as well. Moreover, the material that the crossbow is made out of tends to allow for a wide variety of projectiles to be shot from the crossbow, rather than simple bolts. From simple stones all the way to magically enchanted arrows; if Lennart can get his hands on any projectile-based weapon, chances are he can fire it. In terms of the specificity of the bolts attached to Stormsong, there are five different types of modified bolts in Lennart's possession: paralyzing bolts, hallucinatory bolts, corrosive bolts, igniting bolts and sleuthing bolts.

Black Heart
Black Heart

Bestiary
Bestiary