Heinrich Kemmler

Heinrich Kemmler is the most powerful mortal necromancer the Old World has known in living memory, a man who chose damnation over obscurity and never once regretted the bargain. Once a formidable master of the dark arts, Kemmler was broken in body and mind by the witch hunters who pursued him and by the ruinous toll of his own magic, until, on the very brink of ruin, he struck a pact with the Wight King Krell and the dark powers of undeath, trading what remained of his soul for the return of his shattered strength and more besides.

Now, wrapped in wards and grave-tokens and leaning upon the staff that channels his stolen power, he raises the buried legions of old battlefields in numbers that rival the works of the vampire lords, and the ancient dead answer him as they answer few living men. He wanders the Grey Mountains and the borderlands with Krell at his side, wakes the barrows of forgotten wars, and pursues grudges centuries in the nursing. The Empire has declared him slain more than once. Each time the Lichemaster has climbed back out of his own supposed grave, laughing, with a fresh army at his back.