Alexander Karchev

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Khador.png Alexander Karchev Khador.png

Kommander

Karchev510.png

Race Human (Khard)
Gender Male
Weapons Runed Greataxe
Sunder
Fissure
Birth 469 AR

Khador.png Alexander Karchev Khador.png

Khador Warcaster

250px

Weapons Sunder
Height 3.962m
Weight 12 tons
Fuel load 239.95 kg
Fuel usage 6 hours general
1.5 hours combat
Chassis designer Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly
Initial service date 571 AR (current design)

Alexander Karchev, better known as Karchev the Terrible, is by far the oldest living human warcaster, at nearly 140 years of age. After a devastating injury suffered in the Thornwood War, Karchev’s life is sustained by mechanikal augmentation, a remarkable feat of engineering. Karchev has personally experienced some of the most pivotal events of the last century. With over a century of battlefield experience, Karchev has been an instrumental fixture in Khador’s military.

History

Information on Karchev’s childhood is scant, and it is unclear whether he was an orphan or whether records of his parentage were systematically eliminated. Records indicate his arcane talents manifested at a young age, and it is possible there was an incident of uncontrolled sorcery that prompted him to become a ward of the state, a common practice in this era.[1]

In 483 AR, very young for a cadet, Karchev entered the Druzhina, the elite Khadoran military academy in Korsk. He was assigned special mentorship under a koldun of the Greylords Covenant to discipline his powerful sorcery. In 484 AR he joined the Covenant as an uchenik, and it is likely his warcaster talent was recognised at this time.[1]

In 488 AR, after perfecting his warcaster abilities and completing officer training, Karchev attained the arcane rank of rastovik within the Greylords Covenant. He is given kontroller status in 489 AR and sent on tour with the 3rd Border Legion with a small battlegroup. After a successful two year tour, Karchev was accredited as a magziev and kommander in 491 AR. He rose to respect and acclaim within the Covenant alongside the 1st and 5th Border Legions.[1]

After King Ruslan Vygor's ascension in 499 AR, Karchev became an instrumental figure in Vygor’s ambitious military campaigns. He gained a reputation for tactical brilliance and masterful control of his warjacks, along with unflinching willingness to obey the sometimes-harsh dictates of the king and his kommandants.[1]

When the Thornwood War erupted in 510 AR, Karchev was one of the king’s most trusted military leaders and was perhaps Khador’s mightiest warcaster. He was responsible for a number of crushing victories as Khador battered through border defenders and proceeded deep into the Thornwood, fighting toward the Dragon’s Tongue River.[1]

During the Battle of the Tongue in 511 AR, Karchev led a vanguard kommand, where he was ambushed. Although he was gravely wounded he knew he could not wait for the arrival of reinforcements. He instead drove forward to assault the enemy warcaster, Colonel Drake Cathmore. Karchev unleashed such a tremendous blast of arcane power that it consumed both of them. Cathmore was slain, but Karchev somehow survived and was sent back to Khador. After six months, he regained consciousness. Having been rendered quadripelagic, he confronted the High Kommand and demanded a machine body be built to let him fight again, and for the next two years a mechanikal life-sustaining 'vivification housing' was created for his ruined body.[1]

From 514 AR to 521 AR, in an effort to make use of Karchev’s still potent mind and sorcerous ability, the Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly attempted to integrate his body into a modified Berserker chassis. Adjusting cortex housing to receive instructions from a living mind proved exceedingly difficult, resulting in many failed attempts. The project was finally completed in 521 AR, providing Karchev with a fully mobile mechanikal armature. However, Karchev was unsatisfied with the performance of his new body and demanded frequent changes and even complete overhauls. It would be nearly a decade before Karchev’s warjack frame is deemed fully battle ready. He returned to active duty in 530 AR, leading a small battlegroup against a Cygnaran border outpost. In 535 AR, Karchev’s warjack frame was upgraded based on the redesigned Juggernaut chassis.[1]

Karchev was successfully identified by an Cygnaran Reconnaissance agent in 538 AR, leading a force near Deepwood Tower. He gained the sobriquet 'Karchev the Terrible', in reference to the fact that he was previously presumed dead.[1]

Karchev's warjack frame received three more upgrades: in 545 AR with a steam engine similar to that employed by the new Kodiak chassis; in 570 AR with an experimental arcane turbine; and in 585 AR per his specifications to the Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly, including greater range of motion for his arms. During the years, Karchev’s physical body atrophied considerably and there was a marked reduction of lower torso mass.[1]

At the start of the Llaelese War in 604 AR, Karchev and a force of damaged and ageing warjacks attack the Cygnaran fortified castle of Northguard to keep the First Army garrisoned there occupied while the main Khadoran army launched an offensive against Llael. The High Kommand later orders Karchev unleashed upon Riversmet. He destroys the city’s defences and exterminates its inhabitants, causing the nearby city of Leryn to surrender.[1]

In 606 AR, under Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk, Karchev leads the initial assault against Northguard. Although Khador fails to take the castle, Karchev personally destroys many enemy warjacks and slaughters scores of Cygnaran troops. In the wake of this attack, Cygnar has difficulty resupplying the fortress to its former strength.[1]

A year later, Karchev plays an instrumental role in the success of Irusk’s second attack on Northguard. After the castle falls, Karchev personally kills General Hagan Cathmore, Earl of Bloodsbane, Lord of Northguard, and descendant of Colonel Drake Cathmore.[2]

In 608 AR, Karchev joins Irusk and Oleg Strakhov in the two attacks on Point Bourne, where he is credited for the breach in the wall that leads to the seizure of the northern battlements. Shortly afterward, when a Cryxian army suddenly raids the city while the Khadorans are not ready, Karchev and a small force hold the line while Strakhov and Irusk musters the army, but the Cryxians, led by Deneghra, manage to quickly overrun Karchev's men before the Khadoran army could be prepared. His body is removed from his warjack frame and taken to the Cryxian necrofactorium under the Thornwood.[3]

In the underground Cryxian facility, Lich Lord Asphyxious, wishing to turn Karchev into a weapon against his own nation, has Deneghra subject him to a taxing and intensive regimen of pain and agony. However, he proves remarkably resilient and none of her attempts succeeds. When hearing news of a Cygnaran army approaching Point Bourne, Deneghra straps Karchev to a Leviathan and has him accompany an army on an assault on Point Bourne, letting the Khadorans clearly see him in an attempt to use him as bait to goad them into an ambush. Unfortunately for her, Irusk fails to fall for her plan, and she is forced to return Karchev to the necrofactorium.[4]

Soon after Karchev finds Strakhov sneaking into the facility, approaching and waking him. After Strakhov explains to him Irusk and the Khadoran army have withdrawn, Karchev asks Strakhov to kill him to prevent Cryx from turning him against the Motherland. However, Strakhov adamantly refuses, promising to get him free. When the Cryxians return, Strakhov quickly conceals himself behind the machinery.[5]

Over the months, Karchev clearly deteriorates, the torments inflicted upon him by his captors eroding even his legendary iron will. Strakhov comes back to see Karchev a few more times, and when Karchev is lucid enough, he asks Strakhov to kill him, and every time Strakhov refuses or deflects the request, asserting that he would find a way to free Karchev and return him to the fight against Khador’s enemies.[6]

The opportunity finally comes when Strakhov returns with a mechanik, whom he freed from the cephalyx, and a damaged Grolar chassis salvaged from the facility. The mechanik successfully integrates Karchev into the chassis, and together they flee the necrofactorium.[6]

As they approach the exit, Karchev realises the Khadoran army is making a push on the surface. When they reach the still-intact central engine chamber of the necrofactorium, realising Irusk has failed in his attempt to take it out, Karchev harnesses all of his power, but unlike at the Dragon’s Tongue a century ago, he does not let the power utterly consume him. Instead he focuses it, compresses it, enslaves it to his will. The Cryxian machinery is consumed, but the resulting explosion heavily damages Karchev's warjack frame. Though Karchev's life support systems have begun to fail, Strakhov manages bring him back to the Khadoran line through the hordes of undead. Strakhov convinces Karchev to retire to the rear for critical repairs, but he continues to fight even in the heavily-damaged warjack chassis, until Strakhov convinces him the battle has swung clearly in the Khadorans' favour.[6]

Personality

Karchev has a reputation for extreme patriotism as well as brutality, and has an unequaled record of reliability and almost inhuman discipline. Repeatedly, Khadoran documents referring to Karchev describe his intelligence and wealth of tactical knowledge from more than a century of warfare. Combined with his warcaster abilities, this experience makes him an invaluable resource in any military campaign. Single-mindedly pursuing victory at the expense of ally and enemy alike, Karchev pushes his forces to the breaking point. Long ago he learned as long as he kept fighting, his rage could conquer even death. He fights not because it is all he knows; he fights because it is all he wants to know.[1][7]

References

Warcasters
Cygnar Allister CaineColeman StrykerConstance BlaizeDalin SturgisEdward Dominic DariusJeremiah KrayeKara SloanMarkus BrisbaneSebastian NemoVictoria Haley
Protectorate of Menoth Anson DurstFeoraMikael KreossSeveriusAmon Ad-RazaServath ReznikThe High ReclaimerHarbinger of MenothThyraVindictus
Khador Alexander KarchevAleksandra ZerkovaGurvaldt IruskOld Witch of KhadorOleg StrakhovOrsus ZoktavirSorscha KratikoffVladimir Tzepesci
Cryx AsphyxiousDalin SturgisDeneghraGoreshadeMortenebraScaverousSkarre RavenmaneTerminusVenethraxWitch Coven of Garlghast
Retribution of Scyrah Vyros NyarrIssyria NyarrRahn ShyeelThyron EllowuyrOssyan VyreKaelyssaRavynGarryth
Convergence of Cyriss AuroraAxisDirectrixGhil LucantSyntherion