Aimar Batteux – Vampiric Vintner

Aimar, during his youth, was bound by familial trade into Strassen’s blooming wine trade, his father and mother both having worked in the vineyards of the Ingrad family, where they had met and fallen in love. For the Batteux’s, wine was held with reverence, for their shared love of it had joined the two in union, and bequeathed many sons and daughters, Aimar being their eldest. Thus it came to Aimar’s disappointment when the Ingrad family was forced to sell half their land to the Rorik family, resulting in his employment moving to the new owners as well. Before long, Aimar came to uncover the darker side of his new employers: they were working directly at the request of Duke Henrik Strauss, bottling select batches with a concentrated mix of human blood. Aimar’s attempts to relay this information fell on deaf ears, save for the Duke himself who soon received word of the young sommelier’s concerns. Aimar was summoned by the Duke, and thus enthralled, turned into the same darkspawn as himself, bound to service. Aimar had earned a reputation within the Rorik vineyard as an illustrious sommelier, so for Strauss, he was killing two birds with one stone: recruiting his own personal sommelier for his home, and ridding a blabber mouth from the city. Memories of Aimar were purged from the minds of his family and friends, and he was ultimately forgotten. That was until the time of Mindoriel’s Awakening, when ancient servants of the dark goddess stirred in the bowels of Strassen. Their battle against the Duke and his other vampiric followers severed the connection with Aimar, allowing him to flee from Strassen, into the depths of the forest under the cover of darkness. For weeks he wandered, starving, dying, until he was eventually found by a servant of House de Blanc, another vampiric house that lived a quaint life in Greypeak’s south. Aimar’s reputation as the sommelier of House Strauss was known to them, and they gave Aimar the chance to work without chains in the halls of Castle Beaufax, which aimed to begin its own small vineyard as part of its restorations. Aimar happily took the role, serving under Baroness Noctra and managing the first batches of wine for their newest operation, acting as a vintner now, rather than a sommelier. With his knowledge, he was able to replicate the same mixes of blood and wine as his predecessors in Strassen, a feat which was greatly loved by the de Blanc vampires, and even their human guests who were ignorant to the tainted grails they drank from.