The practice of necromancy is forbidden among the dragons of Argonnessen, but Arstyvrax is one of this land’s foremost practitioners of the dark art. He is a member of the Shadowmasters—a cabal of a dozen necromancer dragons who share lore and maintain secret libraries scattered across the Vast.
Like most Argonnessen dragons, the Shadowmasters share a steadfast enmity for the Undying Court of Aerenal. Unlike their so-called elders in the Conclave, however, these dragon necromancers believe that understanding the power of the Shadow is the only way to ultimately prevail against the Aereni and their undying lords. What not even the other Shadowmasters suspect is that Arstyvrax has a very different purpose to his studies. He is secretly a vampiric dragon (Dr 195) who has ties to the Blood of Vol.
Arstyvrax joined the ranks of the undead some two hundred years past. Already an initiate into the necromantic arts, he was doing fieldwork in Xen’drik when he fell to a vampiric wyrm’s assault. That foul undead was the servant of a Blood of Vol high priest operating secretly out of Stormreach. In his tortured mental state, Arstyvrax quickly latched onto the teachings of the cult as a means to accept and justify his horrid transformation.