Brencis

Who is Brencis

Brencis (voiced by Andrew James Spooner) is the primary antagonist of The Blood of Dawnwalker and the leader of the Vrakhiri, the ancient vampires who rule Vale Sangora. He was born in AD 131 as Caeso Burrienus Laurentius, into a noble Roman family that owned enormous farming estates across the empire. He climbed through the Senate, aimed for the consulship, and then someone turned him into a vampire.

Being a vampire in ancient Rome meant the end of his political career. The institutions he had spent his life ascending through no longer recognized him. But Brencis kept the ambition. Nearly 1,200 years later, he is still building empires. He just uses different tools.

The Coronation

The immediate trigger for Coen's 30-day mission is a coronation. Brencis is preparing a formal ceremony at which he intends to be made a prince of Vale Sangora, and he plans to mark the occasion with the blood of Coen's family. As Coen puts it, the coronation is in thirty days, Brencis wants to be a prince now, and he means to mark the moment with the family's blood.

This is the present-day expression of the same ambition that defined his Roman life. The senator who once aimed for the consulship has spent nearly 1,200 years waiting for an institution that would recognize him again. The coronation is that institution. It also explains why his response to Coen is personal rather than administrative. Coen's family is not collateral, it is the centerpiece of the rite Brencis is engineering for himself.

Takeover of Vale Sangora

Two years before the game begins, Brencis and his cadre arrived in Vale Sangora and eliminated the valley's previous ruler, Skender Dragosti. Skender had been a tyrant, he used silver mine proceeds to expand the dungeons beneath Greifberg Castle rather than fund religious institutions, and his walls were stained with blood. When the plague reached the region, Skender's response was to wipe out entire villages to stop the spread.

For the surviving population, Brencis looked like an improvement. He brought order. More importantly, he brought the cure. Vampire blood eliminates the Black Plague, and in a world where the disease is annihilating entire communities, that makes vampires look like saviors. Many humans in Vale Sangora now worship the vampires as religious figures.

The cost is the blood tax. Humans provide their blood to the vampire overlords on a regular schedule. The collected blood is stored in warehouses operated by Brencis's officers, including a network run by Ambrus, and is distributed from there to Brencis and the rest of the Vrakhiri. It is an extractive system dressed up as benevolent rule, the kind of arrangement a former Roman senator would understand instinctively.

Seat of Power

Brencis rules from Greifberg Castle, which overlooks Svartrau near the wealthy Silberkreis district. The castle predates the vampire takeover. It was Skender Dragosti's seat, complete with dungeons that Skender had expanded. Brencis inherited the infrastructure and put it to his own uses.

The Vrakhiri and the Court

Brencis does not rule alone. He leads a cadre of ancient vampires, the Vrakhiri, who each control their own territories within Vale Sangora. His lieutenants include Xanthe (an ancient Greek priestess), Ambrus (a charming manipulator), and Bakir (a Central Asian warlord). Each has their own agenda, their own methods, and their own history stretching back centuries.

The shipped game gives this arrangement a name and a screen. The senior vampires are boyars, and a Court tab in the menu shows their portraits alongside Coen's standing with the regime, with each boyar carrying an anger reading that rises as Coen dismantles that boyar's operations. Brencis sits at the head of it. See Notoriety System for how the screen works in play.

Relationship with Coen

Brencis offered to cure Coen's sister Lunka of the plague. He did. Then he used the debt to hold Coen's entire family hostage. He also attempted to turn Coen into a vampire, but the silver poisoning in Coen's body disrupted the process, creating a Dawnwalker instead. Coen's 30-day mission centers on getting his family out from under Brencis's control.

Reactive Behavior

Brencis actively responds to the player's actions throughout the game. If you undermine vampire operations, he escalates: increasing soldier patrols, locking down cities, restricting movement. This is not a static antagonist waiting in a castle for the final confrontation. He adapts to what you are doing, and his responses make the 30-day clock feel more real.

The formal mechanism for this is the system of edicts. Each night ends and a new day begins with a fresh decree proclaimed at sunrise across Vale Sangora. Edicts are tied to the notoriety system: the higher Coen's infamy, the harsher the next edict, and the more challenging the world becomes the following day. The edicts are the visible sign that Brencis is paying attention and reacting to what Coen has been doing in the valley overnight.

The regime also pushes back through specific lieutenants. Each of Brencis's officers carries an aggression bar that rises as Coen disrupts that officer's operations. When the bar peaks for a given officer, such as Ambrus, a new questline opens that shapes how the eventual confrontation with Brencis plays out. Targeting one branch of the regime hard enough draws a personal response from the lieutenant in charge of it, rather than a generic patrol increase.

Confronting Him

This section summarises what launch guide coverage reports about facing Brencis. It carries story spoilers, it comes from guide writing rather than from any studio statement, and the specifics should be read as reported rather than as confirmed.

He is fought twice in the prologue, and the second stage has a name of its own: Brencis, Grotesque Ascendant. Beating both stages there is possible and ends the game immediately, which coverage describes as extremely difficult at that point and easy to miss entirely.

After the prologue he is the endpoint of several different routes rather than one. Coen can storm Greifberg alone or alongside allies; he can side with the rebellion; or he can take a deal instead of a fight. The deal route is reported to open only once the three named boyars have been dealt with, and to be offered at a haunted site outside the city rather than in the castle. What Coen gives up in exchange varies by route and is the part the endings differ most on.

Whichever route reaches him, the final confrontation is reported to end in Anachora, the vampire afterlife, where Coen chooses whether to invite Brencis in or leave him to be consumed. See Vampire Mythology for what Anachora is.

The endings are named by their achievements. Beating him alone is The Folk Hero, with Lacra The Patricide, and with Crake and the rebels The Knyazmaker; taking his deal at Shrike's Crag, in the final quest A Deal with the Devil, is The Turncoat. See Endings.

Walkthroughs also turn up traces of his past in the valley. One reports that his own maker, an ancient vrakhir named Isbrand, is found chained in a kobold hive during Lacra's questline, and that a hidden lair on Mount Balaur, where Brencis is said to have plotted his rise, holds a phial of his blood and notes from Isbrand.

As an Antagonist

What makes Brencis work as a villain is that he is not straightforwardly evil. He genuinely cured people of the plague. He removed a tyrant. The valley under his rule is functional. The problem is the price, and the fact that the humans who serve him do not fully understand the long-term cost of that arrangement.

The blood tax is only half of how the regime holds the valley. Brencis has also reshaped religion to suit his rule. Roadside shrines have been erected that resemble him, strengthening the perception of him as the lord of the valley. New frescoes have been commissioned in the same vein, and coins minted with his coat of arms now circulate as currency. For the worshippers who already see vampires as saviors of the plague, this fused iconography of faith, money, and rulership makes Brencis indistinguishable from a sanctioned authority. It is the propaganda layer underneath the extraction.

He has survived for over 1,200 years. He has outlasted empires, religions, and every political system humans have invented. His ambition has not faded, it has just learned patience.

Boss tactics

Brencis changes moveset between his normal vrakhir form and the Grotesque Ascendant fight in Anachora. Avoid committing to a long attack sequence when he is preparing an unblockable move.

Active abilities and weapon arts can interrupt some attacks. Sparing Xanthe earlier reduces the spectres interfering with the confrontation. Watch the red skull cue and keep enough stamina for defensive movement rather than spending it all on attacks.