Marcus Munchen was born in 1781 in the Black Forest of Germanic Prussia. The son of a noble, Marcus was a spoiled and despicable man in his youth. He excelled in cruelty to house servants and locals who he'd forced to work the family land. His father fell into poor health (many believing as a result of Marcus slowly poisoning his father) and as such Marcus became the head of the estate and lands (Lord) with his father in absentia. He raped dozens of women and eventually started killing those that didn't do what he wanted.

 

Realizing his efforts were driving his land's people away (and killing off a lot of his skilled laborers and artisans), Marcus instead turned to a new tactic and went on a 'good will' tour to neighboring towns attempting to recruit their best and draw them to live in his castle and/or estate. Marcus figured, eventually, in time, he'd be able to control this group better, learning from his mistakes. He mostly recruited beautiful young women for embroidery and tapestries, many of which needed repair at the family castle. Marcus also sought new blacksmiths (killing the two who'd been with his family for 55 years recently). After enticing these new recruits with gold coin and promises, the caravan of over 100 laborers, artisans and craftsmen, all with their trade tools and personal belongings on wagons and horses, moved over 80 miles to the area that Marcus told them was Bavaria (but was actually closer to today's Slavic region.

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Once these new artisans and tradesmen and laborers got settled, it didn't take long before the rumors of the evils Marcus did to others before them and the expectations of what he'd do to his new 'workers' began to spread. Marcus, within a week took to the Blacksmith's beautiful wife and took her as his own to bed in the evenings, sending her back beaten and bruised. Marcus did learn a lesson about others 'trying to leave' and ensured his guards and men were keen to anyone attempting to escape his lands, thus entrapping his new workers and preventing them from leaving.

 

Reveling in his fortune and gratuitous immorality, the new blacksmith, overwhelmed with pain and grief over what was happening to his wife decided to create a new "Munchen" Family Longsword that "Marcus I" as Marcus called himself now, would have as a regal adornment along with his fancy attire and robes. The only difference was THIS sword was to be cursed by one of the laborers wives, who was secretly a powerful witch with death magic school ties.

 

After crafting the Marcus I Sword, the blacksmith had the witch curse the sword, enchanting it was a fantastically powerful spell that would kill Marcus and separate his soul from his body the first time the sword would ever draw blood. When all was done, a formal ceremony was planned and setup to present Marcus I with his new family sword. Of course, not everything went according to plans for Marcus...nor those involved with the sword and its curse, since they were being spied on by Marcus' own spies.

 

Marcus, in a regal ceremony, received the blacksmith's elegant sword, thanking him for his service...and his wife's service as well. Containing his anger (barely), the blacksmith urged Marcus to 'christen' the sword with the blood of a Boar Pig that was to be cooked for the feast scheduled for later than night. Marcus instead had his guards escort the blacksmith out into the courtyard where the one laborer's wife, the powerful witch, was strung up on a gallows, tied up as if she was imprisoned. She'd been beaten and bloodied. The blacksmith looked over and Marcus told him that his plan to 'curse' him was about to fail. He was, instead, going to kill the witch with the sword, which the witch told him, under duress and beatings the night before, would negate the curse. Marcus motioned for the blacksmith to be seized and taken to the gallows for execution as well.

 

After all the people in the royal ceremony earlier were drawn out to the courtyard to watch the execution to which Marcus simply stated was a witch and a blacksmith vying to assassinate him, he then stabbed the witch through the heart.

 

Marcus' body began to shake as if electrified. The witch cackled as she died from the sword wound through her heart.

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The sky grew dark; the ground blackened. Shadows erupted into the now looming darkness and literally started eating those in and about the castle's grounds...all except for the approximately 100 that had been lied to coming to Marcus' castle. Each of those  people were given a magical talisman to wear by the witch the day before; a talisman that prevented the shadows from eating them and their souls.  The rest of the castle's residence, however, were not as lucky.

 

Everyone else without the talismans died from the shadowy creatures, including Marcus' gravely ill father and the witch herself. Once the shadows finished with the castle's unprotected citizens, they encircled Marcus, who's 'new' sword was still lodged in the witches heart, all which Marcus' soul was basically a thread away from being destroyed once that sword left the witches body.

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Marcus with the last potential move of his life, while still holding the sword in the witch's chest, reached over and snatched one of the talismans from a nearby standing 'protected' man ripping off that man and placing the talisman on his own coat. This caused the shadows to eat that now unprotected man. As Marcus placed the stolen talisman upon his own outerwear, a massive explosion of dark energy erupted from him. The shadow creatures were instantly destroyed from exposure to the explanding explosion's ring of dark energy...and then, it all came back - right into Marcus' body. All the darkness about the sky, the ground and the castle drew straight into Marcus' body. Marcus labored to stand and to keep his sword in the witch's heart as all this happening, struggling like a tree against hurricane winds. When it seemed all the dark energy in range was absorbed into Marcus, the clouds parted and the sunlight came back out. It seemed that the shadow curse upon the castle and all about it was gone...and was now seething about inside Marcus' body.

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With no strength left, Marcus let slip the sword from the witch's breast. The witch's lifeless body turned to dust before everyone's eyes even before Marcus hit the ground. Marcus DID lost his soul that day...but NOT his life.

 

Pulling himself back up, unsteadily, overloaded with dark and death magics of spectacular proportions, Marcus (or what what now left of Marcus) went about chasing and stabbing citizens still wearing the talismans to their clothes.  After stabbing and killing a few, the other protected citizens began to run away from him, that is, all except the witch's 14-year old daughter and her father. The daughter positioned herself in front of Marcus and yelled at him in German "NEIN!! (NO!!)", to which Marcus unceremoniously came to a stop....against his own will and desire.

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The daughter, amazed that Marcus actually stopped, quickly realized she was able to control Marcus is some warped, strange new twist on this curse that'd gone grievously wrong in so many ways...most likely due to her mother using blood magic to ensure the magics didn't counter-effect her or her family line. As a result, the orders the daughter gave to Marcus had to be obeyed; Marcus had no control. Marcus had his life, but now with no soul, and even more to the now, he was under the witch's daughter control, with no control of his own actions so long as she was alive.

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As such, the witch's daughter told Marcus to kill himself.

 

Marcus did.

 

Marcus then arose, alive again.

 

The witch's daughter told him to stab himself several times now.

 

Marcus did...and then got up. Alive.

 

Time and again she told him to kill himself. Time and again he arose alive with the dark magics healing him rapidly each time.

 

Marcus didn't die.

 

He couldn't die.

 

Marcus was now loaded with so much death magic that it was now nearly impossible for him to die any form of natural death. Even magically, the witch's daughter infused every known spell, no matter how vile and torturous they were, but to no avail.

 

Marcus couldn't die.

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Regardless, the daughter tasked Marcus to keep killing himself and to attack no one else but himself...and to stab himself repeatedly with his sword, telling him that he'd never be able to be rid of his new 'Sword of Spades'.

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For the next few days, as the few remaining castle's folks figured out what to do next (and Marcus screaming every dozen of so minutes as he kept killing himself over and over again, painfully), the 'new community of Bavis (as they now called themselves) decided to have Marcus dig a massive hole and build himself his own underground prison as far down as he could effectively dig where he'd be forced to live out the rest of his unnatural existence away from the world...and to suffer for all eternity to doing what he did to the other innocents under his charge.

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Months later, the new underground prison was completed. It only had one exit - a vertical shift four feet in diameter that dropped into the prison's underground void over 120 feet below. With a formal banishment ceremony, the town of Bavis, under the charter of their new community, the town (not the witch's daughter) called for Marcus to imprison himself for all eternity into the 'prison of his own making', where he would stay for forever thereafter. With that, the witch's daughter told Marcus to jump down into the hole and never attempt to dig his way out. After jumping down the hole into his prison, the hole was filled with rocks and boulders to prevent Marcus' escape, cutting off oxygen and sunlight, leaving Marcus in abject seclusion for what was deemed to be all eternity. That, of course, didn't happen.

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Decades later, World War I occurred.

 

Most of the citizens of Bavis were killed due to a mustard gas attack on the town one night. Everyone in the town died except the town's eternally imprisoned subterranean prisoner and the decedents of the witch and her family (the witch's daughter's children and grandchildren divined the town's gas attack in advance and escaped, only to be imprisoned by Russian troops and taken to the Ukraine where the men were killed, the women married off or tortured to death (the witch's daughter died on the way to Russian) and the grandchildren were given to families to use on farms. As for the cursed 'Sword of Spades', it had been locked away in the Bavis' mayor's home, however, after the mayor's death and the town's destruction, the sword, as well as tons of town documents and journals, including locked tomes describing what happened to Marcus I, were sent off to Berlin after the war to be stored with other historical treasures and documents.

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Decades later, in the early years of World War II, in the forest-overgrown ghost town that was once Bavis, German Nazi archeologists began to unearth Marcus after reading the now unlocked tomes and documents relating to what happened to Marcus I.  Luckily for the world, the Nazis, while attempting to free Marcus I, were killed by a massive aerial bombardment ordered by Britain's MI6.  Marcus prison was never breached by the Nazis, however, only several feet of dirt and rock remained between Marcus and freedom; several feet of dirt and rock that, no matter how much he wanted to, Marcus was disallowed to dig out through.

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Years later, the long dead town of Bavis was aligned to now be part of East Germany, which, at that time, was under Soviet Union rule. As such, any efforts for archeologists and 'ghost hunters' to get into the Bavis area were instead halted and negated thanks to Soviet's inaction.

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In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union the untouched land that was once Bavis began to be built up.  In 2010, Marcus' prison was unearthed, and in it, Marcus...still in his pseudo-living state, soulless and undying...and literally looking like a ghoul of death. Marcus immediately killed the ones who found him. Marcus then darted up the hole, escaping into the wilds of the forest. There for the next few years, he dwelled. On occasion, people saw him, but were afraid to pursue him. Eventually, after folks started taking a few 'fuzzy pictures' of this 'ghoul of death', people started trying to track him down. Ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, you name it. Some of them weren't able to track and find Marcus; others, however, died by his hands in their pursuit to capture him.  As such, Marcus continued to elude the authorities and the adventure seekers...that is, until one day, when they finally caught him.

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Thanks to a few supernatural heroes and T.R.I.P.S., Marcus was captured and taken into custody. GUARD prevented the news from getting out about Marcus and his 'state of being' (GUARD's Mystiguard took control of Marcus' containment and press releases). Marcus was once again imprisoned, this time in a mystical prison in Germany's GUARD Regional HQ. There, GUARD's Mystiguard personnel quickly identified and classified Marcus as a being infused with spectacular amounts of ancient death magic, making him immortal, but with his lost soul and no additional powers or enhancements, he was no different than a normal person, except that he'd living forever...as far as they could tell, since GUARD's knowledge of Death magic was thin at best (it's Mystiguard leader, Greenwich, wasn't so up to speed on Death/Dark magic...nor is even to this day).  Eventually, a tech decided to bring the 'Sword of Spades' in proximity to Marcus to see if there was a connection to the two, after reading the same tomes the Nazis read decades before.

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This turned out to be a bad idea.

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When Marcus and the Sword of Spades were brought within 10 feet of each other, The sword exploded with dark energy and death magic and sent it pouring back into Marcus. The sword, earlier, had been thoroughly scanned and was identified as no threat...but not anymore. The dark energies, once again, created a sheath of dark energy protections around Marcus, as well as allowing the sword to now magically cleave through ANYTHING, even unearthly types of materials, so long as Marcus wielded the sword. Using the sword, he easily cleaved a massive hole in the prison walls and escaped. During the escape, Marcus realized the the sword was slightly pulling him to 'go' in a certain direction.  To where, he was unsure, but realized the sword wasn't about to stop pulling at him anytime soon. Thus, Marcus and the sword walked through the hills, mountains, valleys and forests across eastern Europe, leading Marcus to the most unlikeliest of locations he'd ever suspected - a casino.

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The casino belonged to the notorious gambling crimelord of East Europe and the leader of the Blackjack gang casino - "Blackjack Bruno". Marcus shuffled (more like led by the sword) into the casino and was drawn right to Blackjack Bruno's office. Once in there, Bruno's guards opened up on Marcus, shooting him with a hail of gunfire. When they realized that didn't stop Marcus, the guards stabbed and attempted to subdue Marcus, all to which proved futile, as Marcus advanced up to the desk of Blackjack Bruno, who sat at his desk watching the entire show with Marcus like as if it were a TV show playing in front of him.  Once in front of Blackjack Bruno, the sword pulled forward no more. The intended target the sword wanted Marcus to find was actually Blackjack Bruno.

 

Marcus simply stood there...without words or action. When Bruno, looking intrigued over this whole strange event, then told Marcus to tell him what he (Marcus) wanted with him (Bruno), Marcus slowly voiced, in German, "I don't know.  I've been drawn to you. I can't kill you. I'm trying to, but I can't. This only happened once before back in 1841 in Bavis Germany, done by the daughter of the witch that cursed me". Upon mentioning that, Bruno stated that he was told of this same type of 'story' when he was a child; his great great aunt was supposedly the ones who imprisoned Marcus. After a bit of deduction, Bruno ordered Marcus to sit on the floor...which Marcus did. He then ordered Marcus to stand up and spin around like a ballerina, and again he did.

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Blackjack Boris was able to fully control Marcus, just like the witch's daughter had once been able to do more than a century before.

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After the next few weeks of research and  conducting several tests on himself, Bruno was able to to determine that being a blood relative of his great great aunt, the witch, was enough for Bruno to have control of Marcus.  Since no other family members of Bruno's lived, Bruno had absolute control.  To that, he realized the value of having his own personal undying ghoul to control. Thus, he had his men train Marcus and get him back into fighting trim, allowing Marcus to be more agile and stronger. Marcus was also taught about all that had transpired over last century or so, teaching him about technology, the world's current status oand of course, all about modern society. WIth that, Marcus became Bruno's personal bodyguard. The only issue was that Marcus body, well...it reeked.

 

It reeked of death.

 

It stunk.

 

The odor was so offensive to Bruno that he had to constantly apply flowery salves under his nose to prevent himself from hurling his lunch while he was in Marcus presence. No matter how much perfume, Lysol spray or air fresheners they hung on him< Marcus still exhibited at least a feeble level of death and rot. As such, Bruno decided to keep Marcus 'in the field' instead of by his side 24/7. To that, Bruno had Marcus trained enough (and given specific orders) that he (Marcus) would basically be capable of independent operations and relative thoughts, but not able to perform any major consequential actions without Bruno's say so.

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Marcus was given the new codename "King of Spades" since Marcus still kept referring himself as "King Marcus I", to which Bruno simply 'hurumphed' at each time. As such, the King of Spades became a dedicated, controlled operative and enforcer for the Blackjacks and Blackjack Bruno. With Marcus barely in control of his own actions, he is nothing more than an immortal slave to Bruno...that is...as long as Bruno is alive, right....?

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Today, Marcus as the King of Spades still operates with the Blackjacks and under Blackjack Bruno's full control.  Marcus has been trained to operate independently, however, only within the guidelines Bruno has allowed. Thanks to his reconditioning, Marcus is a powerful, untiring killing machine that will relentlessly track a target or victim without mercy.  He is not as acrobatic at others, and usually takes a direct line of attack, rarely plotting nor applying logical tactics in his attacks and actions.  He is devoid of his soul, with dead eyes and expressionless face. He only smiles when Bruno orders him to.  Marcus hates everything about this and wants to kill all of them but has no power to override the magical controls that the witch's family bloodline has over Marcus. Until the day when Bruno (and/or his bastard offspring?) die(s), only then does Marcus think he will magically regain his soul and still retain the power of the death magics linked between him and the Sword of Spades.

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