King Adelbern

King Adelbern

Race

Ghost

Profession

Warrior

Level

30

Rank

Legendary

Location

Foefire's Heart
(Ascalonian Catacombs)

Organization

Ascalonian ghosts

Image(s)

Interactive map (floor -2)

“

I will have my vengeance! Join me in death!

— King Adelbern

King Adelbern (1011–1090 AE), known to the charr as the Sorcerer-King, was the last monarch of human-controlled kingdom of Ascalon. To prevent the charr from conquering Ascalon City in the late stages of the human-charr conflict, the Sorcerer-King used his sword Magdaer to unleash the Foefire, a spell that destroyed the capital and led to the creation of the Ascalonian ghosts who fight for their king even in death and infest the countryside to this day. The ghost of Adelbern resides deep within the Ascalonian Catacombs, guarding his kingdom against all threats from both above and below ground while waiting for the return of his son, Prince Rurik.

Biography

Early years

Born circa 1011 AE, Adelbern was blessed by the god Balthazar. In his younger days during the time of the Guild Wars, Adelbern was the champion of his guild, Ascalon's Chosen, and fought against Kryta. He was said to be a good strategist. Adelbern was well-liked by the citizens of Ascalon because of his easy demeanor and battlefield heroics, and Duke Barradin appointed him the commander of the army after the Battle of Rin.

After the assassination of the royal family in the Third Guild War, Adelbern was crowned king at King's Watch by the people's demand despite not being next in line for the royal crown who would have been the previous king's younger brother Barradin. However, the duke did not object to Adelbern becoming king and stepped aside to honor the wishes of the people. Barradin and Adelbern's children, Lady Althea and Prince Rurik, were intended to be wed to unite and strengthen the two bloodlines.

However, some Barradin loyalists disagreed with Adelbern's crowning and became rowing bandits known as the Royalists whose mission was to harass Adelbern's supporters and place the duke on the throne. By 1070 AE, the threat the Royalists posed was great enough that Devona asked local adventurers to investigate whether people at the duke's estate were actually showing signs of disloyalty towards Adelbern's regime and if Barradin was supporting the Royalists' actions. These investigations ultimately revealed that Barradin and others at Lakeside County were fully loyal to the crown, thus putting an end to rumors of high treason.

Guild Wars Prophecies

Adelbern started out as one of the most popular kings in the history of the walled nation, but towards the end of his reign, he was driven increasingly mad and obsessed by the war against the encroaching charr and suspicion towards Kryta which he had fought against in the Guild War. Although he was in need of supplies, he refused aid from Ambassador Zain, who had traveled to Ascalon from Kryta as a representative of the White Mantle, and intended to arrest him and place him on trial for suspected treachery until Prince Rurik intervened on the ambassador's behalf.

The Searing caused by the charr drove the Ascalonians from Rin in 1070 AE, a source of shame and ire for the king. Not willing to stand down, Adelbern was determined to defend the city from the charr. However, Prince Rurik, the king's firstborn son, advocated making peace with Kryta and taking shelter within its borders. This remained a source of tension between father and son, culminating in Adelbern disowning Rurik who led a faction of Ascalonians into Kryta. Rurik ultimately perished during conflict with the Stone Summit dwarves while traversing the Shiverpeak Mountains in 1072 AE. The king was devastated by his son's death and hardened his resolve towards the defense of his nation.

After Vizier Khilbron had unleashed the titans into Tyria, Adelbern fought against the titan invasion in Ascalon and pushed them back from the eastern section of the Northern Wall until he and a handful of soldiers were surrounded by the enemy. The king was saved, however, when the dragon prophet Glint sent a group of heroes to his aid at this critical moment, which allowed the Ascalonians to prevail against the titans.

Guild Wars Beyond

During the Krytan Civil War in 1079 AE, the increasingly paranoid Adelbern was approached by Master Exemplar Evennia of the Shining Blade who pleaded him to commit troops to aid Princess Salma's rebel forces against the White Mantle zealots in Kryta in exchange for Salma assisting the king in driving the charr from Ascalon for good. Evennia disappeared without a trace some time after reaching Old Ascalon, however. White Mantle propaganda would claim centuries later that Evennia and her fellow Krytan emissaries had been assassins whom Adelbern had hanged from the walls of Ascalon City.

Fall of Ascalon

Adelbern witnesses the fall of Ascalon City.

In 1080 AE, Adelbern recalled the Ebon Vanguard, who consisted of both Ascalonians who had followed Rurik on the trek through the Shiverpeaks and slaves saved from the charr, from the Eye of the North. After celebrating them for their bravery, the king ordered the Vanguard, led by Gwen Thackeray, to fortify the Stronghold of Ebonhawke in an attempt to solidify Ascalon City's supply lines and establish a last-ditch holdout position against Ascalon's enemies. Kimmes the Historian, who chronicled these events, pondered about the king's decision to add specific civilians and families to bolster the Vanguard's forces on their trek south as it was unclear whether these additions were a sign of support from the king or an act to remove those questioning his rule from sight.

Adelbern's efforts to keep Ascalon isolated and rely only on his troops proved futile, however. Ascalon City, the Ascalonian capital after Rin, eventually fell to the encroaching charr army in 1090 AE. Accounts of this conflict differ between human and charr records.

In human accounts, Adelbern's forces fell to the charr, and Adelbern himself was left to fight the charr alone. He eventually fought his way to the Imperator of the Flame Legion, wielder of the Claw of the Khan-Ur. The Claw clashed with Magdaer, Adelbern's sword, and caused a spark of power that engulfed the land for leagues around. This event became known as the Foefire.

Adelbern unleashes the Foefire with Magdaer.

The charr accounts offered an alternate version of the events. Rather than fighting to the death, Adelbern's forces retreated from the city, leaving their king behind. In his rage and despair, Adelbern struck the ground with Magdaer, producing the immense burst of energy now referred to as the Foefire. The king used an ancient divine ritual with his inherited crown and the sword Magdaer to cast the Foefire. Following the destruction of Ascalon City, charr forces found the crown and toyed with it, losing it in the process as its fragments were scattered throughout Ascalon.

Adelbern suffered the same fate as other Ascalonian ghosts due to the Foefire and became a ghost driven to fight the charr and any other opposing force on Ascalonian soil to the end of time or until the curse he cast can be lifted. According to a legend, the curse can only be lifted in a ritual performed by the current Ascalonian ruler from King Doric's lineage who wields Adelbern's crown and either Adelbern's sword Magdaer or its sister sword Sohothin which had been wielded by Prince Rurik.

After successfully driving charr scavengers away from Ascalon City, Adelbern spent his time patrolling the ruins of his fallen capital and collecting various armors, weapons and artifacts which he stored into his royal vault underground as trophies. One of these valuables was the Claw of the Khan-Ur which had once been wielded by the Imperator of the Flame Legion himself who had perished in the Foefire.

Mysterious maps of Ascalon City, with detailed accounts of the valuables in the royal treasury, were released in the wind in the decades to come, encouraging daring treasure hunters to explore the ghost-filled ruins.

Ghosts of Ascalon

In 1324 AE, an adventuring guild consisting of the humans Dougal Keane and Riona Grady, the charr Ember Doomforge, the norn Gullik Oddsson, the sylvari Killeen, and the asura Kranxx braved the dangers of Ascalon to retrieve the Claw of the Khan-Ur for General Almorra Soulkeeper of the Vigil. The general, Imperator Malice Swordshadow of the Ash Legion, and Queen Jennah of Kryta needed the Claw so they could use it to begin talks for a ceasefire between humans and the charr High Legions so that both races could focus their attention on the growing threat of the Elder Dragons.

Killeen died to the Branded on the way to Ascalon City Ruins, but the rest of the party managed to sneak into the ruins intact. However, they soon alerted the ghosts to their presence and would have perished if they had not been saved by Savione, the chief courtier of King Adelbern and the only friendly ghost in all of Ascalon due to having died moments before the Sorcerer-King had cast the Foefire curse.

The party learned that Savione had been responsible for the suspiciously detailed maps of Ascalon City and the royal vault as he had hoped that adventurers would help him have his revenge on Adelbern who had stabbed him when he had tried to stop the king from casting the Foefire curse. The courtier also revealed that the charr account of the events of the Foefire was closer to the truth and that Adelbern had cast the Foefire out of desperation and madness rather than facing the Flame Imperator in a duel.

With Savione's help, the party were able to decipher the clues of the Claw's current whereabouts in Adelbern's trap-filled vault and proceeded to secure it. When they believed Gullik to have perished to the ghosts, Riona convinced Ember to accompany Kranxx as a decoy to lure the ghosts away so Riona and Dougal could sneak into the king's treasure vault unnoticed. Although the distraction worked for a time, Adelbern eventually spotted the intruders. Dougal attempted to continue distracting the Sorcerer-King by truthfully stating that he was a descendant from an Ascalonian family, and then lying that he had come to the ruins on the behalf of Rurik. The treasure hunter's statements caught Adelbern off guard, but the ghost king quickly regained his composure when he remembered how Rurik had betrayed his trust in the past.

Before Adelbern could attack the party, however, he was distracted again when Savione appeared near him and renounced his position in the king's court. Angered, Adelbern pulled out a dagger from Savione's chest—a ghostly version of the weapon he had originally killed the courtier with—and sliced him in two. Releasing Savione from the weapon's hold, the Sorcerer-King unwittingly freed the ghostly courtier from his remaining burden, which allowed Savione to fade away into the Mists. The courtier had bought enough time for Dougal and Riona to slip away much to Adelbern's frustration.

Despite the party's attempts to evade the ghosts, the Sorcerer-King eventually found them in the ruins. Adelbern summoned his spectral army to kill the trespassers, promising to forcibly recruit the party as his undead soldiers and then lead an invasion of the surface world so he would finally have his revenge against the charr invaders and any who sympathized with charr. For a time Dougal's party believed that Ember had perished as well when the ghosts closed in on them.

Before the Sorcerer-King could defeat the party with his magic, however, Kranxx arrived in the nick of time. The asura battled Adelbern and the ghost army with a massive golem made from the bones of Ascalon's long-dead soldiers and infused with the magic of the late inventor Blimm's ruby known as the Golem's Eye. Noticing the reanimating power of the ruby, Adelbern declared that he wanted that power for himself. Although Kranxx perished in the clash, he successfully managed to collapse Sunrise Tower and his golem on Adelbern, evaporating the Sorcerer-King for a time with the sheer mass of the golem and the city's architecture. The act granted the rest of Dougal's party valuable few moments to locate the Claw and flee from the ruins before the king and the rest of the ghosts would reform.

Ultimately Dougal, Ember, and Gullik were the only survivors from the journey into Ascalon City after Riona's attempted act of treachery and subsequent death. However, they had successfully recovered the Claw of the Khan-Ur, which allowed charr and human politicians to begin talks of a ceasefire and set the stage for the signing of the Ebonhawke Treaty.

Personal story

By 1325 AE, Adelbern's ghostly form had reformed underground in the Ascalonian Catacombs and was preparing to take the fight to the surface. The arrival of an adventuring party, including Eir Stegalkin, Rytlock Brimstone and the Pact Commander, stirred Adelbern who came to greet them. At first the Sorcerer-King believed that his son Rurik had returned when he sensed the sword Sohothin's presence. However, he soon realized his error when the wielder of the sword turned out to be the charr Rytlock instead. Furious, Adelbern swore to make all charr pay for what they had done. He mocked the party's efforts, daring them to face his four champions who were already in later stages of preparing the ghostly army for the invasion of the land above.

The party proved to be better skilled than Adelbern had expected, however, when they successfully defeated the four champions and returned to the enraged king to claim Magdaer. Adelbern faced them in battle himself but was ultimately bested as well. Before disappearing, Adelbern's gave the party a dire warning about greater horrors lurking within the catacombs which the party's actions had unwittingly unleashed. Eir took Magdaer, which she intended to give to Logan Thackeray, champion of Queen Jennah, to mend his friendship with Rytlock, and announced that she would hand the sword over to a blacksmith to mend the sword's shattered pieces.

Location

Ascalon

• Ascalonian Catacombs (story)
  • Foefire's Heart

Combat abilities

Abilities

• Pulls Enemies Close
• Summons Foefire

Effects

Skills

• Fire Swing - Melee attack that cleaves.
  •   Gash - Melee attack that cleaves.
    •   Final Thrust - Melee attack that cleaves and inflicts  Burning for 2 seconds.
• Foefire - Creates an area of effect firestorm at target location that pulses twice per second over 6 seconds, dealing damage with each pulse.
  • Foefire
• Draw Spirit - Pulls nearby enemies in a point-blank area of effect.

Stolen skills

•   Skull Fear

Gallery

• 

  Adelbern's portrait from the Ascalonian Catacombs cinematic.

• 

  Render of Adelbern as depicted in a cinematic.

Drops

• 1-2 random pieces of equipment of DMasterwork rarity or above.

Name	Type	Rarity	Quantity
Bag of Wondrous Goods	Container	DMasterwork	1
Gilded Strongbox	Container	CFine	1
Gilded Strongbox	Container	FExotic	1

Trivia

• King Adelbern is voiced by Bob Joles.
• King Adelbern has a striking similarity to Constantine XI Palaiologos, last Emperor of the East Roman Empire who likewise died at the ultimate fall of his realm's capital city. Legend has it that he never died and awaits under the earth to reconquer his lost city as "the Immortal Emperor".
• Adelbern means "noble bear" in Old German.
• "Adelbern's Ghost" from the Guild Wars 2 Original Soundtrack is named after him.

See also

The Guild Wars Wiki has an article on King Adelbern.

• Foefire
• King Adelbern's crown
• Magdaer
• Tyrian royalty family tree

Associated items

• Adelbern's Burden
• Adelbern's Royal Signet Ring
• Mini King Adelbern
• Rare Ascalonian Coin