You turn to your child, shaping some of the demonic essence within it. While you cannot be certain how powerful its demonic side will be – no one has ever managed to control that – it will have your skill at persuasion and Lurrothel’s mastery of dreams. This could make it be anything from a living dream to a sorceress unusually skilled at dream magic, but either way, she will be a loyal servant.
You turn your attention back to the matter of this irritating invasion, demanding your people abandon their homes before the invaders. Let them starve in what should be a place of plenty, while you prepare to teach them the true meaning of fear. And meanwhile, Caliwick flies south, seeking the monsters he buried in the heart of the desert.
You yourself head south to Canord, to better direct this, and to witness their impending defeat. The town is packed, full of hundreds of people, as it was before you claimed it. But while those people huddled in fear, yours celebrate, as prisoners are burned alive in your name and their bones used to forge unholy steel weapons. You haven’t paid much attention from this part of your realm, and demanded little from them. And they have put every spare bit of labor they have into improving it, by the looks of things.
The walls bristle with ballista and scorpions, and paved roads snaked across the landscape. Vast fields of half-rotten crops stretch to the horizon. And everywhere lie shrines to you. They are simple ones, mostly – boulders carven with your sigil or wooden effigies – but there are many, and some of them seem to have magic in them.
As you travel south, you spot several foxcrows. They seem to have taken well to their new life, and many of them are surrounded by torn and savaged carrion, sleeping peacefully in the heap of blood and viscera. Others taunt villagers and farmers with their screeches and mocking, delighting in their spiteful reactions. You even see one using a zombie’s skull as a larder. That one, you decide, deserves a reward.
Shaping it with your demonic power, you turn into something bigger. Fiercer. Smarter. You give it a poisonous bite and the power to demand respect and obedience from other foxcrows. And you pour your corruption into it, giving it the ability to command both foxes and crows as well. It perches on your shoulder, finding easy purchase on a joint which no mortal mind can comprehend, and caws taunting, crude insults at man and animal as you fly south.
When you arrive at Canord, you begin to consider ways to better teach your mages. Working carefully, you detach all the knowledge of magic and demonology from the head of the Doom-Seekers, and shape it into the form of a living crystal. It can respond to questions, access any knowledge of any mage within a small radius around it, and provide assistance in spells and rituals. Once Caliwick or Lurrothel get their hands on it, it will prove a powerful weapon.
Throughout your realm, work continues. There are now roads between every major settlement, lined with shrines and carefully paved. Wagons of ore trundle north from Canord, to cloth goes south from Avar. Zombies labor on nearly every farm alongside the living, and many of those who refused to use the undead find themselves forced into the same role as them.
Two of your followers are murdered in Henord Crossing by a merchant, who is sent to Southbend in chains to await your pleasure. And Kreth, returned from the Barrow Bows to report to you, decides to deal with him on his own. No one knows what actually happened to the killer after that.
But there is far better news from Avendor, as your followers continue to gain strength, and rumor runs wild. Two priests are so weakened in their faith that they find themselves easy prey for the whispers of your seducers, and now they preach the truth of the Southbend Expose alongside your Voices of Change and seducers.
Your power has grown to levels most mortals cannot comprehend. All but the mightiest most avert their eyes from your gaze, lest the sheer malevolence within you turn their minds into a shattered dreamscape of eternal nightmares. You can raise the dead with but a gesture, warp flesh and bone with a breath. Again, a wave of dark energy erupts from you, sweeping across the world as you force it to recognize you for what you are. Undead claw their way out of their graves, and while the ones within your land are mostly empty, a few join the Broken. Men and women are driven mad by their nightmares, and flee into the streets to burn and destroy in the name of the evil that they have seen. Monsters stir, and those who would slay them find their strength lacking against the might of these risen abominations.
In the west, cities burn. The population of entire towns are slain and their bodies left on stakes or hung from trees in grisly displays. Temples are defaced, cemeteries defiled, granaries destroyed. In the north, men find common cause with the dwarves who were once their enemies, fighting valiantly against a tide of bestial horrors.
And you…you find your power growing once more, as long-forgotten memories return to you.
Pick two traits:
Master of the Land
Prince of the Accursed Grimoire
Nightmare Walker
Mighty General
Speaker of Ten Thousand Lies
Name: Klx-Dryklfx
Time: 9.75 months
Physical Might: 168 +6 ( -8 leakage, -2 fox-crow king, -4 knowledge crystal, +36 worship)
Mental Might: 168 +6 ( -8 leakage, -2 fox-crow king, -4 knowledge crystal, +36 worship)
Cults
The Ceaseless Consumption
Members: 7 seducers, 1 high seducer, 3 Shapers, 96 peons, 3 members of the city council in Avendor, 327 Civil Guardsmen, 2 priests
Resources: 40 (+6 government corruption, +4 theft)
Power: 27 (5 spent recruiting, 2 spent training, 5 spent worshipping, 5 spent spreading rumors, 6 spent hunting bandits)
The Avar Society
Members: 1 seducer, 27 peons, 23 merchants, 11 artisans
Resources: 1 (+5 donations, +4 town government, -3 party, -8 temple)
Power: 8 (4 spent throwing parties, 4 spent constructing temple)
17 mutated spies
15 Voices of Change
Fortresses
Canord
Strong walls (45), Deep moat (25), Thorn Wall (25), Wards (20), Traps (25), Demonic crops, plentiful mines, Strong aura of domination.
Avar
Basic Walls (25), Living Ward (15), Demonic Mud Moat (20)
Castle Southbend
Strong Walls (35), Strong Wards (30), Moat (20), Gargoyle Guards (15), aura of reanimation (-4 slaves/week)
Demonic Realm
2100 Peons
1 Doom-Seer, 2 Doom-Seekers, 305 Slaves, 4 Dark Priests, 499 zombies
400 Light Cavalry
135 resources
+28 power/week, + 40 resources/week (farms, mines, mills), -5 resources/week (upkeep)
Mild corruption, Road Network, Demonic Shrines
Demonic Armies
11 Reavers, 2 Doom-Seekers, 250 thralls, 100 zombies in Canord
The Broken – 821 chaff (43 thralls, 443 zombies, 228 skeletons, 17 wisp wights, 89 weeping sores), 725 light infantry (400 Spear-Thralls, 2 Spear-Thrallherds, 321 Sword-Thralls, 2 Sword-Thrallherds), 269 heavy infantry (27 Demon-Touched , 1 Demon-Touched Thrallherd, 199 wisp-wretches, 42 heavy swordsman), 332 ranged (313 Archer-Thralls, 2 Archer-Thrallherds, 17 slingers), 30 mages (2 Doom-Seers, 30 Doom-Seekers), 315 heavy cavalry( 5 mounted god-slayers, 310 deathless knights), 23 Infiltrators (18 Hunters, 5 Night-Stalkers), 28 support (15 Dark Priests, 1 Dread Priest, 12 Shapers), 10 siege (8 armored brutes, 2 crushers), 17 incorporeal(17 specters), 180 scouts (rangers), 17 flyers (17 Gresh-spawn) in Southbend
Barrow Bows – 172 scouts (rangers), 39 light infantry (bandits) in between Avar and Southbend
Champions
Kreth Woemaker
Physical might: 27 (+11 worship, - 8 corruption, -2 corruption)
Mental might: 27(+11 worship, - 8 corruption, -2 corruption)
Other: Magic Cloak, worshipped by the Barrow Bows
Duthrax Soul-Render, First of the Thrall-Herds
Physical might: 9 + 1
Mental might: 5+ 1
Other: Duelist, skilled commander, zombie horse, Herald
Lurrothel, Weaver of Nightmares
Physical might: 3
Mental might: 8
Other: Necromancer, skilled at wards and dream magic, pregnant with your child (2.75 months till birth)
Caliwick the Arch-Necromancer
Physical might: 2
Mental might: 11
Other: Necromancer, Soulbond, Living Legend
Artifacts
Desecrator
+6 physical, +6 mental
Bringer of unholy rot, Reanimator, Focus of Power
Magic Cloak
Unknown properties
Herald
+2 physical, + 2 mental
Inspiring song, crimson regeneration
Author
Topic: The Rise of a Demon (Number of ritual wedding duels: 1) (Read 57415 times)