"If you know what I am, then you must understand that it has been many years since I have gazed upon my own face in the glass of any mirror. To never again see the features of your reflection, to live so long that you perhaps forget the image of your own face, can you begin to imagine what that might be like, mortal? Is it any wonder that so many of my kind give themselves fully over to madness and cruelty when they have nothing left to reminds themselves of their own Humanity? I can only see myself through the eyes of others, and so I choose to do so only through the greatest artists of each age."
- —Khemalla to Giovanni Gottio[2a]
Khemalla of Lahmia, more commonly addressed as Lady Khemalla, is one of the oldest Lahmian Vampires, who survived Lahmia's fall at Neferata's side. Through the ages she has taken many names and identities. She has been Lady Lenore, the "Vampire Mistress of Mousillon," Katrina the Bloody, the Countess Karmilla, Mirkalla von Leicheberg, Eleanor la Voisine, "Contessa Eleanora Daria di Argentisso" and doubtless many others.[1a][4]
As a nuncio or emissary of the Lahmian Sisterhood, she travels the Known World doing Neferata's will. Her specialty is the elimination of Vampires of the other bloodlines who would threaten the Lahmians' grasp on power. To keep herself occupied over the years between hunts, Khemalla uses her beauty to attract men of intellectual and artistic genius whose conversation helps her pass the long nights until she tires of them. Khemalla has one of the world's most valuable collections of artwork, containing paintings produced by long-dead masters like the legendary da Venzio, Bardovo, the Chaos-tainted Estalian Dari and Fra’ Litti. Every single painting is a portrait of her.[1a][2a][4]
The reason Khemalla is so obsessed with portraits is that she as a Vampire, she is no longer able to look at herself in the mirror. She believes a Vampire will inevitably lose their Humanity and even their sanity if they are unable to see the face they wore before they were granted their immortality.
Khemalla is also interested in the collection of ancient tomes, usually works of history or philosophy. Many of them were written in different languages, in the tongue of the legendary and distant Grand Cathay or Nippon, and others composed of thin, hammer-beaten copper leaves inlaid with a strange hieroglyphic script that may not even be Human in origin.[2a]
Kehmalla is the owner of an abandoned villa in the Trantine Hills in the land of Tilea.[2a]
The Vampire-hunter, Drakhov Vassily Romanenko, chased Khemalla through Bretonnia and Tilea just to meet his end in the sewers of Altdorf where he had tracked the Undying Lady. He was killed by one of her enemies, a Strigoi.[4]
History[]
Khemalla has stalked the mortal world for several thousand years, and was born in Nehekhara, the place now called the Land of the Dead. She served as the envoy of the Lahmian Vampire Neferata, the Queen of Mysteries, the ruler of the Lahmian Sisterhood and mistress of the Silver Pinnacle. Khemalla had roamed the mortal world for many centuries in Neferata's service, killing and conspiring as suited her whim and the bidding of her vile queen.[4]
Much of Khemalla's past history is documented fact, even if the clues and evidence for it is spread thinly across half a hundred different, rare sources.
The first recorded instance of Khemalla dates from the time of the Great Crusades, although she is suspected to have appeared throughout history long before that. She was the creature the Arabyans called "the Terror by Night," the phantom succubus that crept into camps and fortresses at night and killed crusader and Arabyan knight alike.[4]
Four hundred years later, she appeared as the "Lady Leonore," the infamous "Vampire Mistress of Mousillon." The keeps and glades of Bretonnia must have been a favourite hunting ground for her, for some believe that she was also the poet Volpaire's inspiration for the beguiling daemon-seductress in his epic poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci.[4]
Case of the Tilean Widow[]
"Destiny, Zavant. It is a plague which afflicts all men, some more than others. It clings like grave mould to some, heaping upon them, making them burn bright to our eyes. You burn, but not quite so brightly as young Felix. I hoped to sever that destiny, for my Sisterhood’s seers have foreseen that it will be inimical to us in certain ways, in years to come. When it resisted my shears, I decided to possess what I could not destroy. Perhaps he could become a replacement for poor, unlucky Wolfgang. Or perhaps I shall simply dash out his brains on the wall."
- —Khemalla to Zavant Konniger[3]
Contessa Eleanora Daria di Argentisso is one of the many identities that Khemalla has taken during her thousands of years living among mortals. She posed as the widow of the famed Count di Argentisso of Scozzese, a small independent city-state allied to Pavona. The Count di Argentisso was a fascinating man. He travelled widely to Araby and beyond, opening up new and highly lucrative trade routes into the hitherto unknown territories of the Southlands. He was also the only man trusted by both sides in the Fifth Remas-Luccini War and succeeded in brokering a peace settlement, bringing to an end almost three centuries of unremitting hostility between the two great trading rivals. The contessa's husband died almost two hundred years ago, victim of an outbreak of the Red Pox, and his line died out with him.[4]
Still, Khemalla uses this identity when she visited her villa in Altdorf, which was the former townhouse residence of the von Tallen family of Ostermark. Having fallen upon hard times, the von Tallens had been forced to make their residence available for rent.[4]
It was a tall townhouse built in an audacious, over-regal style popular a half-century or so ago during the flamboyant if ruinous reign of Emperor Dieter IV. The townhouse is in one of the less grander parts of the Reikhoch, situated near the area's venerable and now disused cemetery. Once a residence in such close proximity to the last resting places of so many famous aristocratic heroes of the Empire might have been considered a positive boon, but ever since the Wars of the Vampire Counts, when the Undead overlords of Sylvania had called forth the dead from their graves to fight in their armies, the Empire's inhabitants had developed a quiet dread of graveyards and cemeteries. So it was that the house was in one of the more decayed, less popular parts of this suburb of Altdorf, assuming a term as squalid as "decayed" could ever be applied to an area as prestigious as the Reikhoch.[4]
During the so-called "Case of the Tilean Widow" the famous Investigator of Altdorf, Zavant Konniger, was forced to make common cause with Vesper Klasst in hunting Khemalla, and even then they only barely escaped with their lives.[3]
Years later Konniger crossed paths with the ancient Vampire once again on another case. He suspected that recent, periodic uprisings in Imperial provinces and beyond were due to her influence. In exchange for a single favour, Khemalla spared the lives of both him and his companions.[3]
Patroness of Art[]
Khemalla was served by many different Vampires during her long life, like Mariato, and emotionless Vampire Thralls dressed in black garb. But she was reluctant to give the Blood Kiss to true artists, for as she herself noted the transformation to Vampire tended to remove the source of all mortal creativity. Below is a list of the Old World artists patronised by Khemalla over the centuries.[2a][4]
- Giovanni Gottio - Lady Khemalla's last portrait is of Giovanni Gottio, a Tilean artist. He was taken to one of her abandoned villas in the hills above Trantio where he completed his commission and discovered her true nature. Lady Khemalla made him drink her blood as a gift for his portrait "The Unchanging Lady", extending his life by several years.[2a]
- da Venzio - The painter da Venzio lived three hundred years ago in the 23rd century IC, and his monumental frescoes decorated the ceiling of the great Temple of Shallya in Remas were still one of the great wonders of the Old World. Da Venzio had been reputed to have lived to over a century in age -- blessed by the mercy goddess, they said, in reward for the work he had done in her great temple. In da Venzio's portrait of Khemalla she was depicted as a beguiling angel of darkness, his painting a blasphemous twin to the images of the blessed goddess of mercy on the temple ceiling in Remas.[2a]
- Dari - The mad Estalian genius named Darì had a distinctive Chaos-tainted artistic style. His work had been condemned as heretical in the 24th century IC and is still banned throughout the Empire.[2a]
- Fra' Litti - Fra' Litti was a painter who lived more than two or three thousand years ago. There are only eight known Litti paintings still in existence, all of them in the possession of the richest merchant princes of Tilea who competed with each other in bitterly fought bidding wars to purchase only the rarest and most exquisite works of art. If the one in possession of Khemalla really was a ninth and until now unknown Litti, then its potential value is truly incalculable.[2a]
- Bardovo - Bardovo was a painter who lived more than a thousand years ago. His epic depiction of Marco Colombo's discovery of Lustria spawned a whole school of less-talented imitators. He lived long enough to paint not just the portrait of Colombo but also that of the legendary explorer's merchant prince great-grandson. Bardovo's work showed Khemalla as a lonely, spectral figure standing against a backdrop of a corpse-strewn battlefield.[2a]
- Il Ratzo - Il Ratzo was a mysterious painter, who some historians now whisper may not even have been fully Human.[2a]
Quotes[]
"Strigoi beast!’ it spat. ‘Do not dare to think yourself worthy enough to use the ancient tongue of my homeland. Your kind are as vermin beneath our feet. Had I these millennia to live again, I would see to it that you and your entire polluted bloodline were wiped free from the face of this world."
- —Khemalla to the Strigoi of Altdorf.[4]
"Beware, little mortal. I have already told you more than is perhaps wise for either of us. Still, you interest me, and it has been too long since I met any mortal who has done that. I believe the last mortal I enjoyed such stimulating conversation with was the great Leonardo da Miragliano."
- —Khemalla to Zavant Konniger.[4]
Trivia[]
Khemalla of Lahmia is likely a reference to the novel Carmilla, an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the earliest works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 25 years.
The name Carmilla, like Dracula, has become a house-hold name for many female vampire characters in novels, movies and comics. Also like Dracula, Carmilla is often portrayed as either a countess, queen or some other form of nobility.