Multiplayer Game Book. The Darklands. Written by Vincent Lazzari & Joe Dever

Transcription

1 Multiplayer Game Book The Darklands Written by Vincent Lazzari & Joe Dever Additional Text by August Hahn Interior Illustrations by Jidus, Gill Pearce & Florent Haro Cover Illustration by Ralph Horsley Edited by Charlotte Law Layout by Iain Barnwell A Mongoose Publishing Book Published by Mongoose Publishing Limited Cricklade Road, Swindon, SN2 8AF With special thanks to Jonathan Blake and all at Project Aon. 'Lone Wolf' is a registered trade mark owned by Joe Dever. All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Printed and bound in the USA by Mongoose Publishing. Joe Dever

2 Contents Introduction to Evil 3 Darklands Geography 7 Helgedad The Eye of Evil 60 The Darklords 99 Creatures of the Darklands 133 2

3 Chapter One : Introduction to Evil Welcome to The Darklands, the book about a most terrible country and the vile beings ruling that blasted scar on the face of Magnamund. This text will detail the lands and its legions in detail. By the time you have finished reading this tome of terror, you will know the ways of evil on Magnamund much better than you did before. You will know which Darklord rules in the domain of Nightmares, which one revels in the applications of torture and what horrors yearn to be awakened in the underhalls of Helgedad. You have been warned. There is no force of darkness in Magnamund greater than the Darklords. Incarnations of evil born of pure malice and hatred, they are the personifications of evil brought forth into the world by Naar, the true Lord of Evil and the greatest of the Dark Gods. Each one is subtly different and while they all serve the same ends, they often do so at cross purposes. This may be all that saves Magnamund s free peoples from their accumulated power. The nature of evil is recursive; nothing truly lasting comes from evil sources and nothing wholly evil can long stand the presence of an equal. The Darklords are held together as a single force by Naar s will alone. Even so, there is little to keep them harmonious and many of their best laid plans are torn asunder not by the machinations of the land s desperate heroes but by their own infighting and ambition. It is only when one Darklord, such as Zagarna or Vashna before him, rises to such pre-eminence that none of his peers dare to challenge his power that anything is done in the name of Naar s true goal domination of Magnamund. As the planet most beloved by Kai and Ishir, this world is the one jewel Naar craves most for his crown of might. If he can take Magnamund from the Gods of Light, his victory over them will be complete. To this end, he has committed time and time again the greatest bulk of his power towards the goal of Magnamund s conquest. 3

4 He exerted himself in such a manner when he sent the Sea Dragons to destroy the realm of the first servant of Kai, Nyxator. He reached forth a second time with a son of his own, Agarash the Damned, and nearly succeeded in grinding the world beneath his black heel. Only the power of the Elder Magi turned aside his victory by the narrowest of margins. Then he created the Darklords and set them into motion in the Darklands, a ruined land in the heart of the world he despised so much. To these entities he gave the gifts of immortality, terror, wrath and power. They became invulnerable to the weapons of mortals and while they were bound to Helgedad and the Darklands as the source of their foul energy, they were all but unconquerable within that domain. But generals were not enough. The Dark God Naar knew that with his most powerful minions tied to one place on Magnamund, they would never be able to gain him the victory he craved. To them, he also bequeathed a gift more powerful and deadly than any of the others the gift of twisted life. The Darklords were given the power to make living things in the image of their own formless, terrible god. They set to work in the labyrinth under Helgedad, corrupting the living bodies of others and creating new creatures of such malevolence that the very surface of Magnamund quaked at their efforts. In this way, Naar s evil begat evil of its own and the cycle of darkness continued anew. From their unholy spawning vats, the Darklords unleashed mutated creatures and original beasts of vicious cruelty to spread over Magnamund. The Darklords themselves could not leave the borders of the Darklands for long without suffering weakness and death, but their creations were under no such limitation. With them, the vile grasp of Naar s generals could enclose neighbouring countries and bring them under their dark control. These Darkspawn were powerful and some were even capable of reason and logic, but all suffered from the corrupted, mind-bending effects of their creation. While they made effective shock troops and behemoths, only the mutated Mountain Giaks were suitable as soldiers. Without rank and file troops in great number, there was only so much the Darklords could accomplish through brutality and rampaging terror. They needed a true army and even their power over life could not provide that to them. So came the Drakkarim. Humanoids brought to Magnamund by Naar himself before the Darklords, the Drakkarim were a nearly unstoppable 4

5 force for destruction from the moment their legions appeared during the Golden Age of the Shianti. After a long campaign of bloodshed and tyranny under no flag or banner but their own, the Drakkarim were finally defeated and their advance across Northern Magnamund halted by the most unlikely of saviours the Darklords themselves. This proved to be no rescue, merely a respite. The Darklords had proved themselves the stronger force by their defeat of the Drakkarim and in the blackened halls of Helgedad, the otherworldly warriors signed pacts of blood. Called the Darke Treaty, this act of contrition bound the Drakkarim to the Darklords as their new army in MS The Darklords had all the power they required in the force of men, monsters and malice. All that remained for them to truly become a tool of dominion for Naar was the might of a single leader to unite them. That might was Vashna. With his great axe of power and his deadly dagger, Vashna carved his way up the ranks of the Darklords and seized control of the Darklands for himself in MS Every territory, from the vast mines of black ore to the sulphurous pits of the Lake of Blood, came under his sway. Those Darklords not completely dominated by his will were powerless to challenge him for the right of ascension to the Obsidian Throne of Helgedad. Those who tried were swiftly taught their inferiority. The loss of Vashna at the Battle of the Maakengorge was a crippling, yet not lethal, blow to the Darklords, sending the forces of the Darklands back into defeated exile and sparing the nations of Light from the enslaving domination of their would-be dark masters. That this battle also gave rise to the hero of Toran who would one day become the first Kai Lord is a bitter irony that still burns in the hearts of the remaining children of Naar. With their greatest general dead and his weapons destroyed or lost, the Darklords fell into a time of dire seclusion. The Sommlending and Durenese forces that defeated Vashna were not fooled enough to think their foes truly vanquished, but with wounds of their own to tend to and the army of evil retreating back into the Darklands a place where the allied victors could not safely go there was no opportunity to finish off Vashna s legions. The world of Magnamund entered a time of peace; Light was busy healing and rebuilding while Evil was too weak to do anything but the same. 5

6 Many years have passed since the First Black Muster, the gathering of Vashna s forces, was put down at Moytura Pass. Many in the world, even those who should be wiser, believe that evil sleeps in the Darklands and can no longer threaten Magnamund directly. They are wrong. The Darklands are both prison and fortress to the scions of Naar. In its sheltering confinement, the Darklords have come together under the lordship of a new Archlord, Zagarna Vashna s most ruthless lieutenant. Through deceit, murder and subterfuge, Zagarna has begun a Second Black Muster and is calling the forces of evil to him in the Darklands. The spawning pits are once again disgorging horrors at a frenetic rate and the beasts of war stir again in the ashen wastes of the North. Within a century, perhaps much sooner, the dark hand of Zagarna will reach forth and command an army greater than anything seen in the world. Unlike Vashna, Zagarna knows well the lessons of the past. His minions work in secret, his Helghasts infiltrate and eliminate without a trace and his spies include the greedy and the desperate of every nation. He is content to work slowly, dreaming of the day when he can cast subtlety aside and descend on his enemies like a black tide of unrelenting death. Now is the time of heroes. Zagarna s War may not be preventable but his plans can be held off and his forces delayed until the land is ready to defeat him. His secrecy must be pulled aside and his Black Muster revealed for what it is and the threat it poses. His dark work must be undone and if there are no heroes willing to rise to the challenge, all the Knights and Kai of the land may be insufficient to keep Naar s shadow from finally swallowing Magnamund forever. To defeat Zagarna and stop the press of evil, great legends will have to arise. Great powers will have to be mastered. More importantly, great heroes must answer the call of battle. Can you be such a champion? Can you resist the lure of evil power and fight for the Light? And ultimately, will you have the courage to venture where the road of heroes must eventually go? Dare you enter the Darklands? 6