This is Janos Hunyadi – a heroic European soldier and statesman.
A lord from Transylvania who rose from the knightly class to become the most celebrated soldier of his day, eventually ruled Hungary as Regent and even fathered a king.
From a young age, he fought in dozens of raids, skirmishes and battles, eventually leading armies of tens of thousands of men against the Ottoman Turks.
His record was excellent. He fought in Albania, Serbia, Transylvania, Wallachia, Bulgaria and countless more places.
In his youth, he travelled to Bohemia and learned about Hussite battle tactics and technology and later employed them to great success.
He led armies of Hungarians lords, Polish knights, Czech hand-gunners, German mercenaries, Wallachian horsemen, and soldiers from all over Europe.
He was a solid general and tactician, even brilliant at times. His men trusted him.
But the greatest generals in history are the ones who win the big battles, and Hunyadi lost two of his most important ones. (One of them at least was not his fault!)
In between his campaigns, he managed the complex web of alliances and feuds in the Balkan kingdoms, installing or removing this prince or that, and fending off subversion from jealous Hungarian lords and interference by the Holy Roman Emperor, the Catholic Pope and the Turkish Sultan.
He was a man who lived an almost incomprehensibly full life.
A man of history, a man of destiny.
He has a small part in Vampire Impaler and it was fascinating reading about this man’s achievements.
If you want to read more, his Wikipedia page is quite good but you might need to click on a hundred hyperlinks, too!