Vir Stannum claimed to be the estranged son of Gustav Malvoni. He was a large and lumbering man with
slate grey eyes. His hair was impeccably styled, although an outdated fashion.
He claimed to seek the secrets of his father's quest to create a mechanical
heart for his terminally ill daughter, Eva. He was willing to do anything to
find the secret of the heart, and was frequently consumed by rage and
dissappointment. He believed that Gustav was holding out on him, denying him
the heart out of spite for not being the type of son Gustav wanted. For not
being the apprentice that Gustav found in Duffy.He shadowed Duffy and his companions as they followed Gustav's clues, and in Karina, apparently stole Gustav's journal while they were in prison. He was an enigma, known to have killed several innocents, and also known to have stolen Lumley's Heart Chamber, from the custody of the Guardians in Mordentshire. But he also may have helped Duffy and his friends escape from their wrongful imprisonment.
He has been known to exhibit extreme feats of strength, resiliency, and speed that led the group to believe he was more than he appeared. In 730, he was whisked away by the Mists to a prison in Nova Vaasa, at the command of Vincenzo, the vistana. Breaking out of the prison was a trivial affair, once he deciphered enough of the journal to formulate a new plan. This plan led him back to Mordent, where he killed another Guardian, and stole all the information he could find on the relic known as the Souldrinker.
In 735, in Lamordia, he found the resting place of the Souldrinker. When Ludovic, Leif, Duffy, and Kerri found the evil relic, it was in the possesion of the creature known as Severed Hand, who was promptly relieved of the Souldrinker (as well as his own head) by Vir. There, in a small mining village on the slopes of Mt. Steimschloss, they confronted Vir for the last time. The awful truth that they had suspected was confirmed, that Vir was actually Gustav's invention, not his son; he was Talos, the Clockwork Man. The story of his wife and daughter was a lie, twisted from a Lamoridian folktale Gustav had taught him. He sought the Heart Chamber, and now the Souldrinker, to give himself the soul that Gustav could not or, in Vir's opinion, would not. He used the Souldrinker to take 13 lives, including Ludovic's, and infused their souls into the Heart Chamber, which he had installed in his chest. But the damage inflicted on him during the fight was extensive, and Duffy's final shot shattered the Heart Chamber, freeing Ludovic and the twelve miners, and destroying Vir's mechanical body. Aside from some parts taken by Duffy for study (including his head), Vir's remains lie buried at the graveyard of Monastery of the Willing Sentinel, in Lamordia.