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Who is Brencis

Brencis is the primary antagonist of The Blood of Dawnwalker and the vampire lord who controls Vale Sangora. He was born in AD 131 as Caeso Burrienus Laurentius, a Roman citizen from a wealthy family that owned enormous farming estates — latifundia — across the empire. He rose through the ranks of Roman politics, joined the Senate, and was working his way toward becoming consul when something interrupted that career path: he was turned into a vampire.

Being a vampire in ancient Rome meant social death. The institutions he'd spent his life climbing through no longer recognized him as one of their own. But Brencis kept the ambition. Nearly 1,200 years later, he's still building empires — just with different methods.

Takeover of Vale Sangora

Two years before the events of the game, Brencis and his followers arrived in Vale Sangora and overthrew the valley's previous ruler, a tyrant named Lord Scander. For many of the valley's human inhabitants, this was actually an improvement. Scander had been cruel. Brencis, at least on the surface, brought order.

More importantly, Brencis brought the cure. Vampire blood eliminates the Black Plague, and in a world where the disease is killing entire villages, that makes vampires look like saviors. Many humans in Vale Sangora genuinely worship Brencis and his kind. They see the vampires as religious figures who delivered them from death.

The cost of this arrangement is the blood tax. Humans must regularly provide their blood to the vampire overlords. It's an extractive system disguised as benevolent rule — a pattern Brencis would have recognized from his time in the Roman Senate.

Relationship with Coen

Brencis offered to cure Coen's sister Lunka of the plague, which he did. But the act of apparent kindness was a trap. Brencis used the debt to hold Coen's entire family hostage. The specifics of what he wants from them have not been fully revealed, but Coen's 30-day mission centers on getting his family out from under Brencis's control.

As an antagonist

What makes Brencis interesting — at least based on what's been shown — is that he isn't straightforwardly evil. He genuinely cured people of the plague. He removed a tyrant. The valley under his rule is functional, even prosperous. The problem is the price, and the fact that the humans who serve him don't fully understand how much they're giving up.

He is described as a being of immense power. He has survived for over a thousand years, outlasting every political system, every empire, every human institution. His ambition never died — it just adapted to whatever era he found himself in.