Inithwe Bloodtwin

Inithwe Bloodtwin’s fate was sealed long ago, with a rivalry that became infamous throughout the Free Cities. Once, the Demonspawn was two beings, identical twin brothers named Eronn and Harren Inithwe. Both were knights of the Free City of Kalmar, and both despised one another with a passion that bordered on insanity. All they shared in common was their looks, and their hatred of their cousins, the harmonious twins Narbus and Kiro Drexthar. The twins’ rivalry had been strong since birth. As children they scrapped incessantly, their trouble-making so unrelenting that their parents considered giving both away for adoption to separate families. It was easy to confuse the pair, and there was no graver insult to either. While he was a surly teenager, Harren was enraged by one such incident. He took up a kitchen knife and gouged a long scar down the left side of his face to mark himself out from his sibling. Harren’s act of defiance only angered Eronn, who was upset he had not thought of proving his hatred of his brother by scarring himself first. With the same knife he slashed the right side of his face. Endlessly competitive, both brothers sought to become knights of the Lord of Kalmar. It was said that the ruler of Kalmar only accepted both as warriors because he was afraid that, if one received the honor and the other did not, the one left scorned would kill him. Perhaps, with age and time, the ferocity of Harren and Eronn’s rivalry would have cooled. Fate had other ideas, however. It was seemingly inevitable that the twins fell in love at the same time with the same woman, one Lady Beatrice. This fresh feud was dangerous enough, were it not for the fact that, unbeknownst to anyone in the Free City, Beatrice was secretly a Demonspawn of Siroth, an ancient evil known in Anathraad as Apraxis. The fact that both twins had fallen in love with her was no coincidence. Their spitefulness had caught even the attention of the Shadow God, and he wished to amuse himself at their expense. Beatrice played one off against the other – insomuch as it was even necessary to do so – and fanned the flames of their disputes. The divide grew so deep that both were soon plotting to murder one another, though they knew they could never succeed and still win Beatrice’s hand, for their rivalry was so well-known that if any harm befell either in Kalmar, the other would immediately be implicated. For years, the twins’ anger and bitterness led the pair down the path of darkness. With Beatrice’s subtle encouragement, Eronn and Harren went further. They both reached out to dark powers in an effort to break the deadlock. Each swore an oath, unaware that the other was doing likewise, that they would serve the Shadow God for eternity if they could likewise be the one to enjoy Beatrice’s hand in marriage for all time as well. Siroth accepted. The bargain was soon completed. During a campaign in the icy Redspike Mountains, both brothers succumbed to the chilling cold. As death loomed, they finally realized their folly, how they had wasted their lives in petty rivalry. Seeing Siroth as their only hope, each prayed for the other’s survival, asking the Shadow God to allow the other to live and marry Beatrice in exchange for their own soul. Ironically, both were now competing in their magnanimity. Siroth heard them and, filled with amusement, agreed to both of them. He fused their souls together, leaving them frozen in the bitter cold and transmuted into one being for all eternity – Inithwe Bloodtwin. The new Demonspawn railed against his fate, but could not deny his new nature as a servant of Siroth. The Shadow God kept his own end of the bargain, for Inithwe was indeed wedded to the triumphant Apraxis in a blasphemous ceremony. It was a final mockery from Siroth, salting the wounds of the new being and cementing his self-loathing and bitterness. It now mirrored the chill of the mountains where Inithwe’s existence had ended, a frigid cold that now hung eternally about him. Their consciousness now frozen for eternity, little remains of the beings that were once Harren and Eronn bar their rage. Inithwe inflicts that rage upon Siroth’s enemies with a purple-flamed ax, its bizarre flame burning cold, and viciously draining his foes of their very life force. Woe betide any unfortunate enough to encounter the Lord of the Death-Chill on the battlefield, for he is more relentless and spiteful than his constituent souls were before his dark apotheosis.