Vandrel Reinhardt

Vandrel Reinhardt is a character in The Great Belligerency.

Weapon:
A large sword, one that would be a two-hander for most people, but Reinhardt is able to use it with one hand thanks to his gauntlet. It is decorated with runes in a forgotten tongue. He also carries an oval-shaped shield with spikes on it so he can slam it into foes it they get too close.

Abilities:
Reinhardt is a ruthless tyrant who will not tolerate disobedience and tries to always be ahead of the game to avoid being usurped. He is a cold, calculating thinker in addition to being a strong fighter. Although his homeworld is in the Middle Ages, he can stand up to more advanced technology due to his enchanted gauntlets, which increase his strength and endurance, so he can shrug off bullets (he's not completely immune, though - he can still die if shot enough) and wield a two-handed sword with a shield. His main weakness is that he isn't very fast or agile, but he can take damage and dish it out (basically, he's a Mighty Glacier). Also, he's quick to anger.

Description:
Reinhardt is a stocky, muscular man in his early 40s, with a bald head but a thick beard, grey with black streaks. He has a scar down the side of his face from his days as a gladiator. To impose his power over his subjects, Reinhardt wears a suit of knight's armour painted black, worn with a fur-collared grey cape and an iron crown; in battle he wears a great helm with metal wings in place of the crown, but otherwise the same outfit. In personality, Reinhardt is a cold, calculating schemer most of the time, but he is quick to fly into an uncontrolled anger if provoked. As a dictator, he shows little mercy or kindness to those he considers inferior to him. Reinhardt is deeply racist and detests nonhumans and magic users, using the excuse that they threaten his power to send them into death-camps around his kingdom, and as such, he shows no respect for the nonhuman competitors of the battle. Despite his irredeemible cruelty, he is very poetic and has a tendency to recite speeches in sophisticated language.

Biography:
Reinhardt hails from a fantasy world in the Dark Ages era, where he rules with an iron fist as a military dictator.

Vandrel Reinhardt was born into slavery in a kingdom then-ruled by a corrupt king. Because he proved to be disobident to his master, refusing to work and stealing from his master's estate, Reinhardt was deemed a criminal and sold off to an arena, where he spent his youth competing in gladiatorial pit-fights, owing to his strength. He soon became well-known for his fighting ability, becoming a champion. Eventually, Reinhardt won his freedom, and soon after he was enlisted in the army, in recognition of his fighting ability. He rose through the ranks and was knighted, ultimately becoming a bodyguard to the king. However, one day, the king was assassinated by a band of revolutionaries, supposedly tired of the king's cruelty. Reinhardt, defending the kingdom, slew the assassins and took the throne. Or at least, that's what they say.

The story of Reinhardt's ascent to power is largely propaganda, cleverly leaving out the fact that Reinhardt had framed the king and hired the assassins to do the deed, after which Reinhardt murdered his own co-conspirators to gain absolute power. Reinhardt, a racist, coveted the throne largely because he hated the king's tolerance of magic users and nonhumans. Among his first acts in gaining power was to break all treaties and policies of tolerance to these groups, and soon after, he established death-camps where magicians and nonhumans were gathered from their homes, imprisoned, and tortured to death, allegedly because their powers threatened the stability of the kingdom. Consequently, he ordered various magical artifacts to be siezed and given over to him, which he used to build up his power. Among these are his gauntlets, which enhance his strength. Over time, Reinhardt transformed the kingdom into a brutal dictatorship, where resistance was forbidden and suspected conspirators executed. His armies conquered new lands, and his empire grew. For twenty years, Lord Reinhardt sat on the throne, overseeing the empire he had built on the bodies of countless innocents.

Until one day, the throne was empty. The ruler had disappeared.

Or more aptly, he had been summoned.

Development
Impressed by New Shambhala's technical sophistication but displeased with its pesky policies of equality, Reinhardt, with the help of Amy, organised a takeover in which he placed himself as the head of the city's government and, setting up an "alien terrorist attack", led the people on a campaign to wipe out all the aliens for fear of uprising and leave the city to be ruled by and for humans.

Death
Knowing he was about to die, Reinhardt delivered a classic "My death is only the beginning" speech to Cole, stating how his death will spark a new war of genocide when the destruction of New Shambhala would be blamed on the aliens. However, he didn't count on Cole letting him finish.