Talion Vanos

“''I am the last of my house, young elf. The spear is yours now; you wield it far better than I ever could, our people will need elves like you in the dark days to come... So very dark.''”

- Prince Talion's dying words

A Yvressian Prince and lord of the House Vanos during the Great War against Chaos, he had held that position for nearly nine hundred years before his death. Talion possessed a highly attuned political mind and was reputed amongst his friends and rivals as one of the strongest forces in Ulthuan's courts. He was a competent warrior and commander, but nothing more, preffering the comforts of his manor and the splendour of High Elf society to grisly battlefields. Talion's wife, Raina, died giving birth to their only son Erudhir who was quite the aspiring warrior, however he fell in his third battle fighting Dark Elves during The Great War against Chaos.

In order to counter his military ineptitude, Talion surrounded himself with skilled warriors and commanders. Namely, Commander Arhalien, a grim veteran of countless battles who led the elite company of swordsmen known as 'Valour's Heart', his second-in-command was Baralei Athreale.

Talion was charged with defending one of the initial invasions into Yvresse by the Dark Elves during the Great War against Chaos. It was here that the Prince's inexperience would prove to be his downfall, after the Druchii had lulled the Asur forced into a false sense of victory by posing human slaves as Naggarothi warriors, Talion ordered his army into persuit of the fleeing slaves - despite the advised hesitation of Arhalien. The true bulk of the Dark Elves unveiled itself and tore the heart out of the the Asur forces. Talion was mortally wounded by a fearsome Executioner of Har Ganeth, it was then that Baralei leapt to rescue his fallen lord from a grisly fate, using Talion's ancestral spear, Vigilance, Baralei slew the Executioner. This display of prowess was enough that with his dying breath, the last lord of House Vanos saw fit to pass the fearsome weapon to this humble warrior, perhaps he was desperate to see his line carry on in whatever form it could, perhaps he was delirious with pain, perhaps in his last moments he saw something in the young elf - Talion's reasons will forever be unknown. He died at the age of 887, thus spelling the end of the house of Vanos.