Abartach is widely regarded by occult scholars and Choir theologians alike as the first true vampire to walk the Shardisite-scarred Earth. Unlike later blood-drunk revenants and shard-mutated aristocrats who adopted the title in imitation, Abartach predates the formalized taxonomy of undeath. His name appears in fragmented Gaelic chronicles recovered from the eastern coasts of Ireland, where he rules not as a wandering horror but as a sovereign tyrant since the early Age of Nations. Descriptions from that period portray him as slight of frame yet unnervingly composed, with pallid skin stretched tight across sharp features, dark hair worn long in the fashion of an older era, and eyes that reflected torchlight like wet obsidian. He dressed as a lord among men, favoring high collars, layered wool, and iron signet rings, presenting civility as a mask for predation.

Modern historians place his first documented rising in the centuries following The Meteor, during the era when belief still reshaped reality in unstable and often catastrophic ways. In rural Leinster and Ulster, where famine, superstition, and fractured loyalties defined life, Abartach consolidated power through terror rather than open war. According to preserved accounts, he abducted youths from fishing villages and inland hamlets, selecting those with strong constitutions or striking beauty. These captives were not merely drained. They were remade. Through ritual feeding and prolonged confinement, he transformed them into thralls and familiars, binding their wills to his own and granting them an unlife that halted decay while extinguishing warmth, appetite, and mercy. To some he presented this state as a gift, liberation from hunger and time. To others it was an irreversible sentence. In either case, their loyalty was absolute.

Unlike shard-blighted imitators whose vampirism manifests through visible mutation, Abartach’s condition remained disturbingly intact throughout his reign. He did not rot. He did not frenzy. He reasoned, strategized, and governed from fortified estates along Ireland’s eastern hills. Witnesses describe courts held after sunset, where pale attendants moved in disciplined silence and mortal petitioners were admitted only by invitation. Demonologists argue that he represents one of the earliest stable manifestations of predatory immortality, born not of raw shard exposure but of concentrated communal fear refined into doctrine. Others contend that his existence proves undeath can organize itself, forming hierarchy and lineage independent of demonic patronage.

Abartach’s dominion did not sprawl across continents, yet within eastern Ireland his authority was absolute. Coastal trade bent to his oversight. Local nobles vanished or reappeared altered. Entire bloodlines entered into quiet pacts that bound them to nocturnal service. What distinguishes Abartach from lesser vampires is not merely antiquity but intention. He is not driven by hunger alone. He cultivates. He corrupts. He extends his shadow through generations. He is not an outbreak. He is a dynasty of one, and his evil is deliberate.