Valerian Kardos was once High Lord of the 3rd seat on the Council of 13 in the Inquisition. As a High Lord he had authority rivaling a nation, and it was still not enough for his perceived glory.

The older brother of Kreszentia Kardos was, like her born a calico.

However as male he was infertile, and thus unable to carry on the family name, was promptly considered a 'failure' by his own father and then High Lord Sebastian Kardos. Still as the son of a High Lord, and coming from a family that draws a line to Germanic nobility, Valerian was put into the best military boarding schools, and became an expert fencer and marksman on his way into becoming an acolyte to be trained by Inquisitor in the field.

When he mastered the 'hammer fist' ability that ran through his bloodline and being promoted to an Inquisitor he came home to find his mother had two new healthy children. Clement, and another calico Kreszentia, the parents overjoyed about the birth of the ginger tabby Clement enraged Valerian.

When Clement was 14 he was killed in a 'wargame' accident during the young teen's stay in the same boarding school Valerian attended. By this time however Valerian's parents were too old to bare more children, as the next two pregnancies after Kreszentia and Clement's birth resulted in stillborn. Kreszentia and Valerian's mother died only a few years later leaving a 'highly decorated' Inquisitor Elite in Valerian ready to fill his father's seat.

This was seen as the best option as the young Kreszentia was just promoted to Inquisitor and thus too young. (and considered too brash and politically incorrect) Other Inquisitor Elites either didn't want to leave the field to retire into a seat or were not even close to the measure of the skill and demeanor of Valerian. (And as many knew he was infertile, political rivals hoped he would be the last 'Kardos' on the Council)

In combat Valerian uses the Kardos technique known as hammer fist and his rapier 'Vulkan' a Hephaestus steel sword that burns with intense holy fire and rains clouds of ash as it strikes through the air. The real secret of the blade though is it is hollow and filled with a magic reservoir of acid that clings to a target and can melt to the bone.

On the Council he was seen as a young but wise beyond his years Inquisitor, that supported his sister's proposal to promote Acolyte Kingman into an Inquisitor in his own right. It was Valerian himself that gave Kingman his first mission...to assassinate another Inquisitor named Jorge San Juan. When Kingman did this it revealed a cancer that had been growing in the Inquisition, one that as layers of intrigue and shadow wars (now called the Faction Wars, or the Inquisitorial Civil War) revealed Valerian was behind it all. His younger brother's death, his mother being poisoned, his...'encouragement' of certain Inquisitors to fall. If San Juan had killed Kingman that day though...he would have achieved his goal....opening the eyes of all the sheep he perceived living on the world in ignorant bliss of daemonic forces.

When cornered he begged his sister to join him. To drop the material world into hell itself, and let mortals fight for the right to live. He aligned with powerful hell spawned generals eager to spill blood and claim for the hell of it. When Kreszentia refused it was the final 'betrayal' in his eyes of his own blood. He retreated into a portal and when Kingman, Kreszentia and the old retinue followed him into the 7th circle of hell. There he sprung an ambush and nearly killed them all, until Testsiliya forced open his portal with an incredible display of her powers and led the remains of nearly the entire Black Guard of the Inquisition in to rescue the heroic Inquisitors and their allies. As the counter attack struck, Valerian was so eager to see his sister dead, (who already had her right arm eaten by a Klurichir) that he cut down several Black Guard until he got close enough to strike and at that moment as his rapier took out her eye, she plunged her hand deep into his chest....

And that was the last anyone has seen of Valerian...but then again, no one recovered his body...