Johannes was once among the most skilled human Korpskraftsmen in Dulur. In the city where every race was nominally equal, a human practicer of the art, no matter how good, could only ever dream of attaining a truly prestigious position. However, associating with one of the Lateborn was quite the fashionable act of rebellion among the young, anti-establishment elves. With their support, Johannes found his place among the Acolytes. His intellectual discussions with his unruly peers gradually shifted his focus from Korpskraft to other, darker areas of research.

In time, Johannes became wholly devoted to the idea of inverting the properties of the Void; to make of it a productive battery rather than an engine of consumption. Driven by the obsession, he became more and more reclusive, until his only companion was the half-elf Tigris. Johannes only tolerated her company because she’d promised to get him into the abandoned High City.

She failed — not entirely unexpectedly — and Johannes attempted to make the passage across the chasm alone, following the Urgis tunnels deep below the ice. There, he found ancient and eldritch structures comprised of unique stones which, he theorized, could delay Consumption.

Johannes constructed a device to harness this capacity but, unbeknownst to him, his mind was already frayed by the Void, causing him to miscalibrate. An implosion drew parts of his body into the vortex powering his arcane machine which, instead of slowing down the Void’s influence, accelerated it exponentially, consuming him in a matter of days. Only his defeat by Hunters ended his terror. There was one among them whose scholarly nature reminded Johannes of the man he once had been. And although that man is long gone, so is the Void’s domination over his heart and mind.