The Legions of the Dead
An Army of the Undead is a truly terrifying sight.
Many armies do not even wait to recieve the
charge - they drop their weapons and run. The
vision they see is an army of once proud and great
warriors, being lead to do battle by their Lords
and Champions, armed and ready for war. But the
soldiers are already dead, the lines of infantry are
a mass of decaying and rotting corpses, and the
Skeletal legions of Death fight under the control of
terrible spells, cast by the Necromancers. The
Undead horde is battle-ready, and hungry. The
army fights with with just one desire - to kill!
The Art of Necromancy
Necromancy is the most abhorrent of sorcery, and
all who practise it are hated and feared in equal
measure. In violation of natural law,
Necromancers are able to use their power to defy
death itself, extending their own lives virtually
indefinitely. Invoking powers learnt from ancient
tomes, they are able to make corpses clamber back
to their feet, and skeletons claw their way up from
ancient battle fields.
It takes great power and concentration in order to animate and sustain the dead, however, requiring
many decades, even centuries, of study in order to be anywhere near competent. However, such
devotion does have its rewards - the most powerful necromancers are able to raise armies
numbering the tens of thousands, and are all but immortal.
Necromancy is a hateful and indiscriminate art, and when a sorcerer weaves the incantations of
awakening, it will re-animate every dead creature nearby. In such a manner, the decomposing
bodies of dogs, rats, birds and horses will inevitably be raised along with the corpses of warriors
and long dead heroes. All are enslaved to the will of the necromancer.
While Undead armies are all but unstoppable in battle, the Necromancer is its lynchpin – destroy
him and the entire army can collapse, like puppets with their strings suddenly cut.
Skeleton Infantry
With rusted scraps of antiquated armour hanging off their bones and clutching the chipped and
corroded weapons they bore in life, Skeleton Warriors form the bulk of the Legions of Undeath.
Raised from the grave by the darkest sorcery, they are utterly enslaved to the will of their
Necromancer master, and will obey their every command without question. Empty eye-sockets
filled with baleful witch-fire, they advance relentlessly against whosoever their master decrees,
marching forward in unstoppable serried ranks, bringing inevitable death to all who stand against
them.
Skeleton Warriors are terrifying foes to face on the field of battle, knowing nothing of fear,
remorse, pain or exhaustion. They are notoriously difficult to destroy, and can usually only be
stopped by smashing their skulls to splinters; if hacked in half, they will merely drag themselves
forward, the need to kill impelling them on. Even when finally stopped, they may yet prove a threat,
for with just one spell, a Necromancer is able to re-knit smashed bone and force the fallen to rise
once again.
Undead Revenants
In ages past, the mightiest of heroes and chieftains
who fell in battle were entombed in cairns and
barrows of stone and earth, still garbed in the
armour they wore in life. Surrounded by their
earthly wealth, they were sealed in with curses
and hexes, ensuring that none disturbed their
eternal slumber. However, while these ancient
spells of warding might keep centuries of tomb
robbers at bay, they pose little hindrance to the
most powerful Necromancers.
Their tombs defiled, these ancient heroes are
infused with the Necromancer’s power and rise to
become Revenants, deadly undead warriors whose
power is far greater than that of the lesser Undead.
Though their flesh has long since rotted from their
bones, they are encased in heavy ensorcelled
armour of bronze and iron, making them nigh on
impossible to destroy. Their weapons radiate a
deadly chill, and it is said that those felled by these cursed blades are damned for all eternity, their
souls forfeit. The Revenants form the armoured elite of a Necromancer’s army, and there are few
living warriors with the strength or nerve to stand against them.
Helikaeth, the Revenant King
Of all the warriors and kings of old, few were as powerful as
King Helikaeth. A giant of man, standing almost seven feet tall,
he carved out a kingdom that ranged for thousands of miles in
all directions, ranging from the foothills of the Dragon Spine
mountains in the west to the Ironskin Mountains in the east. He
forced hundreds of chieftains and kings into subservience, and
while he was a fair ruler, he was utterly ruthless to any who
defied him. He defeated countless invasions, drove the Orc
hordes from the Plains of Dust, and forged alliances between
men and Dwarfs that still hold, and yet he was dead before he had even seen twenty-three summers,
slain by Elven arrows.
Helikaeth was entombed on the high moors of Bloodmire, buried within an immense barrow that
took a decade to construct. Dozens of smaller burial mounds were positioned around his own,
where his most loyal warriors were entombed. Helikaeth lay undisturbed for six hundred years,
surrounded by his earthly wealth and wearing his golden armour.
On a moonless night, Helikaeth’s eternal slumber was ended. Helikaeth and his bodyguard were
raised as Revenants by the sorcery of a black-hearted necromancer, their skeletal bodies still
encased in the armour they wore in life. Helikaeth’s spirit proved far more formidable than the
powerful necromancer had anticipated, however, and hefting his massive, ensorcelled blade, he
beheaded the sorcerer.
For a hundred years, few dared to approach the high moors, for rumour of Helikaeth’s return from
beyond the grave had spread far and wide. The Revenant King, they called him, and it was said that
any who ventured up onto the moors risked incurring the ancient king’s wrath. Several
necromancers crept towards the ancient barrow under the cover of darkness, hoping to enslave him
to their will, but all failed and had their heads hacked from their shoulders.
Then, almost eight hundred years after his death, Helikaeth left his burial place, marching
alongside his long-dead warrior elite. He descended from the high moors and laid waste to the
village of Dartcliff, leaving none alive. What drove the Revenant King to commit this atrocity is not
known, but since then he has been seen marching alongside the armies of Mhorgoth the Faceless.
Standing head and shoulders above his ancient warriors, Helikaeth has, it seems, embarked upon a
war against the living, which heralds dark time to come.
Ghouls
Ghouls are devolved, cannibalistic creatures that eke out a
horrid existence in the dark recesses of the world. Once they
were evil-hearted men but they are now all but
unrecognisable, twisted into cursed troglodytic monsters by
countless generations of inbreeding, cannibalism, and dark
pacts with demonic beings. They are reviled and hunted like
vermin wherever they are found, yet their numbers continue
to swell. When the Legions of Undeath march to war, the Ghoul clans flock from their caves and
mausoleums in huge numbers to join the slaughter and the inevitable feast that follows.
In battle, Ghouls fight like rabid beasts, howling and screeching as they surround their prey. Their pallid,
sore-ridden bodies are deceptively strong, and they are easily capable of rending a man limb from limb.
They leap upon their enemy in fury, ripping with filth-encrusted talons and tearing off chunks of flesh with
their feral, blood-stained teeth. Long before the battle is over, the Ghouls will already be gorging
themselves on the flesh of the fallen...
Balefire Catapult
The Balefire Catapult is an arcane war machine
that inspires terror in all who face it. As easily
capable of reducing castle walls to dust as
obliterating entire regiments of foot troops on the
battlefield, there are few war machines that are
more feared. Indeed, such is the dread reputation
of the Balefire that merely the rumour of facing
them has been known to cause solders to desert
and entire armies to rout the field.
Rather than simply launching stones or boulders,
the Balefire Catapult is loaded with the skulls and
bones of the fallen, each of which is inscribed
with dire runes and curses. Crackling sparks of
violet energy dances across these bones, but is
when the Balefire launches that this power is
unleashed in full. The skulls and bones erupt into
searing flames as they are hurled into the air, trailing arcs of violet energy across the sky. They
crash down amongst the enemy and explode in a deafening roar, searing flesh from bone and
liquefying armour and weapons. At battle’s end, the bones of those killed by the Balefire are
gathered up and inscribed with fresh runes, ready to be unleashed upon another unwary foe.
Mhorgoth the Faceless, Necromancer Lord of the Fallen Vales
Mhorgoth the Faceless is arguably the most powerful Necromancer ever to blight the world, a twisted and
ancient being that was old even before the mountain folk sealed the gates of their subterranean cities to the
world above. What little is known of his past is clouded in darkness, lost in the mists of time. What is known
is that Mhorgoth is hated the length and breadth of the known world, classed as enemy to all living beings,
be they animal, man, Elf or Dwarf. As mad as he is powerful, Mhorgoth has sworn a pact to see every living
creature perish, and he will not rest until the world is populated only by the dead.
Mhorgoth was once a man, and his talent in the sorcerous arts, even as a child, was far beyond those of any
of his kinsmen. It is believed that the Elves took Mhorgoth into their realm when he was a but a boy, partly
to help guide and teach him, but also to keep him under close watch. He was a handsome child, charismatic
and full of life, with golden hair and a happy demeanour. That was all to change, however. Tragedy
followed Mhorgoth like a curse, and as the years rolled by, everything and everyone that he cared for was
torn from him.
As he grew from a child into a haunted, bitter man, Mhorgoth devoured every lesson in magic with a hunger
that the Elves found staggering and more than a little disturbing. How and when he was introduced to the
dark arts of Necromancy is a matter of great speculation, but whatever the case, Mhorgoth’s expertise in
the dark arts was finally revealed. The discovery was met with shock, revulsion and sadness by the Elves.
Mhorgoth fled, carrying with him a grimoire containing all his cursed teachings, but he was hunted down
and reluctantly sentenced to death.
As his earthly flesh was consumed in the Eternal Flames, Mhorgoth cursed those who had sentenced him,
and so became truly damned. Even as his hair and robes were consumed in flames, and the flesh and
muscles of his face bubbled and ran like liquid, he unleashed the full extent of dark powers for the first time.
When he was spent, there was no living creature within a mile of his location. With his flesh burnt beyond
all recognition, Mhorgoth stumbled from the grove in agony.
Forever more Mhorgoth would live with that agony on a daily basis, and the stink of burning flesh hangs
around him like a pall. Repulsed by his own horrifically burnt countenance, he crafted himself a mask of iron
and hammered it into his still raw flesh, thus becoming the terrible being known as the Faceless. He
retreated from the world for many years, during which time his bitterness and madness slowly consumed
him.
As the passing decades rolled into centuries, his life now unnaturally prolonged through dark pacts and his
cursed arts, a plan began to formulate in his ravaged, agonised mind. After two hundred years of self-exile,
Morgoth emerged at the head of the largest Undead Legion the world had ever seen, with just one burning
aim consuming him; to exterminate the living, and re-populate the world with the dead.
Lord Malak, Vampire Castellan of Dol Eragos
For over four centuries Lord Malak has ruled the Shadowlands from the dark fortress of Dol
Eragos, high in the Knifepeak Mountains. A tall and imposing warrior with eyes as fierce as a
savage wolf, Lord Malak is a warrior beyond compare. Preternaturally fast, quicker even than the
Elves of the forest, and with the strength of ten men, Malak has never been bested in single combat.
Riding his savage winged hellsteed Malice, he leads his armies of Undeath down from his mountain
fastness in terrible rampages, leaving nothing living in his wake.
Once, Dol Eragos was renowned for the fairness of its rule, yet under Lord Malak it has become
synonymous with savagery, depravity and evil. Warriors long dead man the battlements, and
thousands of bodies impaled on spikes line the approach to its drawbridge. Blood-curdling screams
can be heard echoing from the castle in the dead of night, and those who are dragged there by the
dark knights of Dol Eragos are never seen again.
In his youth, Malak was sent eastward by his father at the head of a large crusade of knights to
restore order to the hinterlands beyond the Rhovan Forest. Heavily outnumbered and facing ever
increasing rebellion, Malak nevertheless conducted a masterly campaign, piling on the victories as
the years passed. Malak’s father, however, grew disturbed by rumours of his son’s increasing
savagery, culminating in the execution of over twelve thousand men, women and children in one
terrible night of blood. It was said that Malak led the slaughter, roaring like a beast as raced
through the streets, drenched from head to toe in blood. Malak’s father called him home in
consternation, hoping the rumours were exaggerated. What he discovered, however, was that
Malak was no longer the son that he knew.
At some point in his time in the east, Malak had been embraced into darkness, becoming a creature
of the night; a blood-sucking Vampire. Upon his return home to Dol Eragos, his father was
horrified at what he had become. Malek drained the blood from his own father and threw his corpse
from the battlements, before slaughtering all of his father’s personal guard. None of them could
match his swordsmanship, and his strength was far beyond that of any man. Within the hour, he had
killed over three hundred men. He was now the castellan of Dol Eragos, and a new dawn of terror
had begun.
Dreadlord Balor and the Corpse-Dragon Gharamesh
Balor was one of the last true Dragon Lords of the Eastern Reaches. The inheritor of High Peak
and bearer of the Serpent Crown, few dared to stand against his dominion, and those that did were
ruthlessly crushed with all the authority of the Dragon Lords of old. Riding upon the back of his
blood-bonded High Dragon, the golden-scaled Gharamesh, he destroyed all who defied him. Not
even entire armies were a match for his power.
It was not an army that eventually laid Balor low, however, but a single individual. Though his
armour could withstand any sword blow or arrow, it could not protect him from the sorcery of
Mhorgoth the Faceless. Having reigned undisputed for almost a century, the Dragon Lord was
slain by Mhorgoth’s necromancy.
As Mhorgoth drained Balor’s life-spirit, so too did the dragon Gharamesh perish, for neither could
live without the other, blood-bonded as they were. However, Balor was not allowed the opportunity
to join his ancestors after death; Mhorgoth was not finished with him yet. Ensnaring the dead
Dragon Lord’s spirit and imprisoning it within his now dead flesh, Mhorgoth forced Balor to
become one of his chief lieutenants.
And so the Dreadlord Balor was forced to serve Mhorgoth for all eternity, and while he hates
Mhorgoth with a fierce passion, he is powerless to act against his will. Over the centuries the flesh
rotted from Balor’s bones, but still he fights on with all the power and skill he wielded in life.
Gharamesh too was raised into Undeath, and while the dragon’s golden scales are now dull and
her flesh worm-ridden, she still bears her master into battle, poison spewing from her gullet with
every breath.