Not every wizard put their talent to work for good. One-Eye’s narrative was tempting and seduced many into walking on the dark side. Listed below are some of the more despicable wizards influencing Tyrnavalle’s history. Some were born native to the sub-continent, others started life on Fanar and came to Tyrnavalle for what they hoped were easy pickings. All had long lives, thanks to the Spires and not at all to clean living.
Think of the first year listed as the wizard’s coming out or his first time on the All-Star ballot, not the year of the wizard’s or birth. Most rose from relative obscurity and I don’t know when they were born, though none were young by the time they made it to the big leagues. The second year is the year the wizard died.
| 43 – 212 | Horatin |
| 218 – 488 | Gishtan |
| 348 – 1228 | Calef |
| 381 – 647 | Tymbar |
| 531 – 777 | Uranol the Gold |
| 728 – 892 | Blaznik |
| 760 – 1293 | The Wolf-Mage |
| 782 – 906 | Harkonell |
| 874 – 1127 | Rax the Black |
| 1065 – 1315 | Satal |
| 1050 – 1421 | Papachil |
| 1170 – 1228 | Torloch |
| 1253 – 1508 | Fergol of the East |
| ???? – ???? | The Witchghoul |
| 1392 – 1812 | Numkargol (and his lich) |
| 1520 – 1772 | Quirto |
| 1898 – ???? | Moose XXII |
The wizard Horatin belonged to House Barginali, one of many defunct noble houses in Sangrithar with a “For Sale” sign after the God-Emperor was deposed. Horatin wasn’t someone who accepted change all that well and, blaming Hali for his losses, he followed the ships to Tyrnvalle and took up residence in the nearby Dansk Hills. Horatin got his big chance in the year 78. He came to the great hall at Halitai and demanded Halimac (Hali’s son) pay for his father’s treason. Thinking himself judge, jury and executioner, Horatin was about to impose sentence when Estan Phaerizol, the Royal Mage, challenged him to duel arcane.
Horatin survived the duel and Phaerizol did not, but after the victory, his gas tank was empty and he retreated south, to the Dansk Hills. A blind, three-legged puppy could have beaten him at that point. Horatin fully recovered in time, and took on a disciple though you could argue that Gishtan was more slave than student. Horatin was a Barginali, after all, spoiled and rotten to the core. His roots also kept his attention to the north, on Halitai, and away from the young city of Renk to the south. Ankerrafang, an ancient dragon living in the Renk Hills (also south of Horatin’s lair), may have had something to do with his northern preoccupation as well. Horatin finally met his end when he faced Cantellex, Phaerizol’s successor as Royal Mage in Halitai, in duel arcane.
The wizard Gishtan learned dark magik from Horatin and took over his lair in the Dansk Hills when he didn’t return from his duel arcane with Cantellex. As the years passed, Gishtan’s power grew, enough for the dragon to have a healthy respect for it (if not the wizard’s shining personality) and maintain a tenuous détente with him.
Then Tarik came to town. The Wizard of Renk (that’s how they knew him) built the Tower in the mid-fifth century. If you know anything about Tarik, and if you’ve read more than two pages on this site, you do, then you know he’s overly proud of his wizardry, it stems from a deep-seeded insecurity, and back then he was even more insecure. When Gishtan came to his attention, he paid the upstart a visit and warned him to keep clear of Renk, but Gishtan underestimated Tarik.
He ignored Tarik’s neighborly warning and tried taking the Tower of Renk by force. Gishtan might as well have tried storming the Gates of Heaven. None of his spells left so much as a mark on the tower and Tarik kept poking his head out the window to laugh at his ineptitude. When he finally tired of Gishtan’s pathetic attempts, he conjured a block of stone and dropped it on the wizard from the Dansk Hills like he was Wile E. Coyote, but, as it turned out, Gishtan wasn’t nearly as resilient as the Roadrunner’s foe.
Calef began life in western Tyrnavalle, when the Norbing was still a beautiful forest. He had a solid reputation in those early years, but after the demon escaped and turned the forest to badlands, Calef was a different man. Whatever horrors he’d seen had changed him and not for the better.
Centuries later, he approached Zerita of Pylos, thinking she’d make a fine wife, and together they’d make little wizardlings, but she had already given her heart to another, a local farmer. Calef couldn’t understand how she’d prefer a commoner over a wizard. Zerita told him that she had enough magik in her life, that she treasured her time with Brannick because he was a man of the earth, who didn’t need sorcery to see the good in the world. Well, that sort of logic made no sense to Calef. In fact, it infuriated him and he struck her in rage. She fell and hit her head on a brick. She died and Calef fled, knowing that no one would believe it was an accident.
After that, Calef sulked for centuries. When the barbarians came to Tyrnavalle, they stayed off his radar for a long time, but not forever. Some think (and they’re right) that Pelavin the Ancient baited Torloch (they were hardly friends, even though both served the overlord Ardallin) into attacking Calef, hoping that would be the end of him, and his prayers were answered when Calef and Torloch killed each other in duel arcane.
Tymbar was raised in Halitai and taught wizardry by Kerreloff the Royal Mage. The two had a falling out over a bet and a bottle of wine (talk about overreacting!) that ended with Tymbar living alone in an uninhabited area of northeast Tyrnavalle and plotting his revenge. He assassinated Kerreloff, not with wizardry, but by poisoning him with a bottle of doctored wine.
Kerrellof may have been the last of the Royal Mages of Halitai, but wizardry still flourished on Tyrnavalle. The settlers from Fanar had included several wizards and they hadn’t lacked for disciples in the new world as Tymbar would find out. The brothers Samos and Somas, who learned from Nerevan, who learned from Akballa, who had learned from Kerreloff, were two of the best. Misguided in their youth, a course correction from Tarik set them on the right path. When Tymbar started demanding protection money from local villages, they stepped in. Tymbar could have taken them, if they’d had the balls to come at him one at a time, but both at once were more than he could handle.
Uranol the Gold, named for his bright yellow hair, does belong on this roll call, whether he meant it or not. Uranol was a Dwarf from the Achmad Mountains and maybe he turned to such unconventional methods because the Forge Folk made such poor wizards, maybe that was his only path to power, but even so, he should have known better. Even a child knows not to mess with demons! Uranol had spells for every kind of demon – Jixari, Ulgarja, even Maldoks – and knew to take precautions, but he slipped up. The Maldok he summoned was an old one, it had made the trip from the Darkhold to the Darkstar and rune scars covered its body. For a demon so old and wily, Uranol should have been better prepared – a complete magik circle, silver dust, runes of power at the ready, burning incense, and a good fast & cleansing were the minimum to work such a complex summoning. The wily Maldok noticed the crack in the magik circle right away and escaped before Uranol realized the spell had gone awry. Uranol was still scratching his head when it rolled to the floor.
The wizard Blaznik first took power in the southern reaches of the Briarwood, which at the time belonged to the kingdom of Enlas. He then established a stronghold in Big Enlas, the capitol, which before the Endiron civil war had been known as Rockport.
When Blaznik learned that Tarik had deserted the Tower of Renk, he saw an opportunity and teamed up with Archon, a warlord in the eastern isles. They marched against Renk in 762 RT and might have crushed the city if not for Separ Horsewind, a Knight of the Spring. Vitale’s champion faced Archon and handed the warlord a resounding defeat, scattering his armies so badly it took generations to recover. Blaznik fled the battlefield, returned to Big Enlas to lick his wounds and picked up an apprentice, Harkonell, sometime around the year 782 RT.
Even though Archon hadn’t worked out, Blaznik liked the idea of teaming with a warlord. Most wizards wanted cannon fodder nearby when the going got tough. In 863 RT, he left Harkonell in Big Enlas and went looking for some muscle. He found Utnam, his new partner, across the water in Selnor, the city on the northeast tip of Tyrnavalle. Blaznik took Utnam east to the islands (ninety-nine years had passed since the defeat at the hands of Separ) to recruit a new army. What’s that saying about teaching an old dog new tricks?
On one of the eastern islands, Blaznik discovered an ancient throne that let him use wizardry from a distance. In 881, Blaznik sent Utnam and Harkonell (who had come east from Big Enlas) to Carrack at the head of a massive fleet, while Blaznik stayed behind and brought his power to bear using the throne. Between his wizardry and the fleet, Carrack was taken. The easterners lived in the gutted city, gathering strength for a run at Renk. In 892, Sarven, the Wizard of Renk, finally pierced the Blaznik’s wards and divined his location. Once he did, he took the fight to his enemy by far traveling to the island. He destroyed the throne first, halving Blaznik’s power, and then easily vanquished him. With Blaznik out of the picture, the armies of Renk routed the easterners in Carrack, leaving it a deserted ruin. Utnam and Harkonell both escaped to Big Enlas.
Once upon a time, the Wolf-Mage was human wizard smitten with Seldarie, an Elven princess of the Fillani jungle. She returned his affection until she caught him kissing her younger sister Anarie in the dark. The wizard swore that he thought he’d been kissing Seldarie, but she ran off in tears to her grandfather. King Erellan wasn’t pleased and ordered the wizard from the Elvenhome. As soon as he left, the wizard was bitten by a werewolf. That night, Velya was full and the change came upon him, turning him into a monster and his love for the princess into something dark and twisted.
Most lycanthropes revert when the moons aren’t full, but not him. Maybe it was the Spires, maybe it was the love gone wrong between him and the princess, but whatever it was, he stayed shifted all the time, and crazy like a Grush on saddaka. Worse, the Spires fed his rage, making him stronger, tougher, faster and oh so deadly. The Elves hunted the Wolf-Mage, that’s what they called him, until he fled north, past the Witchghoul’s lair into the Suggam Moors.
The Wolf-Mage was territorial and stayed close to his new home where visitors were scarce. Not many traveled through the moors and those who did stayed far away, but not Elemeas. Seldarie’s cousin, had never forgotten the wizard. He’d come upon them first, the wizard and Anarie, and seen them when they thought no one was watching. When Elemeas felt ready (he spent a lonnnnng time improving his magecraft) he tracked the beast to its den and dared it to face him After looking forward to it for so long, Elemeas was almost disappointed at how easily the Wolf-Mage went down. Almost, until he remembered the lie.
I’ve already mentioned Blaznik’s apprentice, the wizard Harkonell. He’d been a low level wizard in Blaznik’s employ back in 762, when Separ had defeated them. In fact, that’s when Blaznik noticed him. Twenty years later, Blaznik awarded Harkonell the black robes, the evil wizard version of a graduate degree. When Blaznik went east with Utnam in 863, Harkonell waited and waited in Big Enlas, but Blaznik didn’t call or write or text – nothing, not a word! Somewhat out of boredom, Harkonell took on an apprentice, a real quick study named Rax the Black who earned the robes in 875. In 881, Harkonell finally heard from Blaznik and went east to lead the assault on Carrack with Utnam.
One lesson Blaznik drilled into Harkonell was the importance of living to fight another day. In 892, when the armies of Renk were closing in, he and Utnam escaped to Big Enlas, where they expected to find Rax the Black waiting, but when they arrived, the cupboard was bare. Tired of waiting around, Rax had headed east to the islands.
A chance encounter in the market one day in 899 brought Harkonell out of semi-retirement. Since the defeat at Carrack, he’d been content to relax and spend some of the loot he’d plundered. He had enough to live like a king for the rest of his unnaturally long life and didn’t see the point of risking his valuable neck for a few more gold pieces. That all changed when he caught a glimpse of Imrilla. This priestess of Glorianna was the Ilnaya of her age, and once Harkonell saw her, he could think of nothing else. But, there was a problem. Harkonell’s one true love was engaged to Thiggrim the Club, a knight sworn to Beldar. Harkonell and Utnam kidnapped Imrilla on her wedding day and spent the next seven years on the run (but not too fast, Utnam was getting on in years by then). When Thiggrim finally caught up, he gave them both a close introduction to his last name.
Thiggrim and Imrilla were yet another incarnation of the Warrior, Prince and Priestess. Thiggrim, obviously, was the Warrior, and Imrilla, equally obviously, was the Priestess. The Prince in their little drama was Valenz, a Knight of the Spring descended from Separ Horsewind, who had a short stint as the Lord of Renk. The three of them set out for the marsh, willing to take on the Witchghoul himself, if that’s what it took to recover the Soul Stone. Thiggrim and Imrilla escaped with the stone, but Valenz wasn’t so lucky. When it was his turn, Sudnar looked the other way.
Evil wizards were like Sith lords, they always had apprentices and Rax the Black traced his dark side tricks from Harkonell to Blaznik. Apparently, abandoning your apprentices for long stretches was part of the Sith tradition too. Blaznik had done it to Harkonell and Harkonell did to Rax. Harkonell departed Big Enlas in 881 and didn’t return for eleven years. It’s no wonder Rax didn’t stick around.
By the early tenth century, Rax the Black’s wanderings had taken him to the eastern islands where he joined forces with Barayorg. They took the city of Selnor in 918 and made it as far as Renk, where they lay siege for six long years, from 931 – 937. The siege was finally broken by Sarven, the Wizard of Renk, who perished while saving the city. Rax fled and skulked in the ruins of Carrack for the next fifty years or so with the survivors of Barayorg’s army. In 980, the second and third generation of those survivors founded the city of Bayor, named after the warlord. While Bayor grew, Rax the Black stayed in the shadows. Then, beginning in 1062, Bayor launched a series of attacks on Renk, six of them over the next sixty-five years. A different warlord rode at the head of each army, but make no mistake, Rax was behind them all. The wizard finally met his end in 1127, when he fought Lord Bantam of Renk. Once you’re within a few feet, steel beats spells every time. After Rax the Black’s death, the peace between Renk and Bayor lasted until the barbarians came to Tyrnavalle.
The wizard Satal was next in the Sith chain of masters and apprentices. Rax the Black took him on in 1065 and taught him everything he knew. Well, not actually. They always held something back, just in case the student turned on the teacher. Satal was with Rax during the raids on Renk in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries and took careful notes.
Bored with attacking Renk, Bayor turned to a new target – Pylos on the western coast, south of the Highpeaks. Pylos wasn’t an easy target and stretched Bayor’s resources. Rax and Satal argued about this, and though it never came to blows, the apprenticeship did come to an end and Satal left in a huff. Though neither of them knew it, this was the end of the line for the lore handed down from Blaznik. From this point forward, next gen wizards from Fanar would begin to dominate the scene, but in some ways this was coming full circle, seeing as Blaznik had gotten his start on Fanar.
Satal returned to Bayor in 1131, after Lord Bantam took care of Rax. During his exile, he’d been to Fanar and made the acquaintance of Papachil, a wizard from the Shadowgrim with many friends in Enlas. They maintained contact and through their relationship, Bayor and Enlas entered into a secret alliance beginning in 1148. When the barbarians conquered Tyrnavalle in the early thirteenth century, Bayor was spared. Of the three wizards serving Ardallin, Satal was the least regarded. Torloch and Papachil thought him a country bumpkin and cut him out of the action. By 1315, Torloch wasn’t a problem (having turned to fertilizer by then) but if anything Papachil’s treatment had grown worse and invitations to Little Enlas were exceedingly rare. Satal confronted him in the overlord’s palace where Papachil gave him a choice – take the gold watch or burn baby burn – but Satal was in no mood to just go away peacefully, which in the end saved Papachil the cost of a gold watch.
The Shadowgrim gave birth to Papachil’s sorcerous power. He must have been one of the forest people living in the Briarwood, taken or left behind for the Dark Ones. Instead of killing him, they took him back to the Shadow Lord’s domain where he learned dark secrets. When he first came south from the Shadowgrim in the year 1050, he was fair seeming and the tribes of Enlas soon knew him as a friend.
Papachil could spot talent when he saw it and when he met Satal during his sabbatical from Bayor, knew the wizard from Tyrnavalle could be a helpful ally, pawn or both. In 1148, the two forged an alliance that would prove handy towards the end of the century, when Ardallin’s horde came south.
Satal’s information helped the barbarians conquer Tyrnavalle, but after that Papachil increasingly froze him out until doing away with him entirely. For the next two hundred years, Papachil had the overlord’s ear and lived the life of a fat cat in the palace until 1421, when Murtav caught him taking a stroll where he ought not have been. Deridean’s avatar struck him down to begin his long and illustrious career.
Torloch was the third and most powerful of the wizardly triumvirate backing Ardallin’s rise to power. It’s not easy for me to write about Torloch, he was one of the most infamous professors in the University’s history. Torloch started out as a teaching assistant in the history department, I’m embarrassed to say, though in my defense it was a thousand years before my time. Since then, the University’s screening practices have improved, the lawyers insisted on it. After the university hired him as a full time professor, Torloch transferred into the wizardry department as soon as a spot opened up and taught introductory classes in potions and scrolls, where his wit and good looks made him popular with the younger students especially the female ones.
By the time he gained tenure, Torloch was teaching advanced classes in charms and transmutations, his areas of specialty. From the accounts I’ve read, Torloch was a horn dog always on the prowl, so those choices weren’t surprising – they got him laid more than hurling fireballs. He appeared in whatever form his victims found attractive and his charms were like a bottle full of rufies. Torloch slipped up when he tried to pull a fast one Gallia, a new faculty member specializing in comparative religion. If he’d stuck to students, he might not have been caught. Not knowing that Gallia was a wizard, he tried his usual tricks and Gallia’s wards protected her. When she cried foul, Torloch fled. He ran all the way to Enlas, where he met up with the warlord Ardallin. After Torloch left, the university investigated and discovered he’d been raping his students for years.
Torloch and Ardallin made a formidable team. For twenty years, they traveled the countryside uniting Enlas’s tribes under Ardallin’s banner. In 1191, they brought Pelavin the Conqueror and Papachil into their alliance, and Papachil brought Satal of Bayor. For the next decade or so, the barbarian horde conquered parts of Fanar and Tyrnavalle. Pelavin settled in Renk (by choice) and Torloch too (at Ardallin’s orders). The overlord wanted Torloch, his closest advisor, in Renk to keep an eye on Pelavin and after the Conqueror died in 1205, his son Pelavin the Ancient. Pelavin (both of them) and Torloch were rivals for Ardallin’s favor and didn’t care for one another.
Pelavin, a very perceptive man for a barbarian, thought Torloch cruel and heartless and didn’t trust him as far as he could spit. He needed an expedient way to get rid of the wizard that wouldn’t point at him and hoped the wizard Calef would provide the answer.
Pelavin didn’t have anything against Calef, he’d never even met the man. All he knew was that Calef was a powerful wizard with a reputation for an explosive temper and that Torloch had a weakness for women. Pelavin sent a three women to Torloch. Each seduced Torloch (not a difficult feat) and afterwards told him that he was the best ever … except for that wizard in the west. When pressed, each reluctantly coughed up Calef’s name. After hearing all three lovely ladies crow over Calef’s ability to please, Torloch couldn’t stand it anymore.
He tracked down Calef, confronted him in his lair and demanded to know his secret. The situation escalated quickly. Calef didn’t take kindly to Torloch’s tone and tempers flared. Bringing those two together was like throwing a torch on a powder keg. They hashed it out inside a hastily drawn circle of protection with duel arcane. Unfortunately (unless you were Pelavin), as so often happens in duel arcane, neither party emerged victorious.
As a young man, Fergol of the East was shipwrecked in the Eastern Isles where he ran into a tribe of savages. He escaped by hiding in a cave littered with bones. That night, a ghost from the Spirit World came to him, one of those dark spirits that given up hope of redemption, and offered Fergol power, if he would bury the bones in the caves.
Fergol swore by mad Rabyn, as the ghost asked. He should have known better, those deals never work out well and, come on, swearing by mad Rabyn, that should have been a dead giveaway that something rotten was going down, but Fergol would have sworn to anything to escape the savages.
The ghost rewarded him with dark power and Fergol roared out of the cave, cowing the savages gathered outside. They worshipped him like a god from then until the day he died, nearly two hundred fifty years later.
His undoing, ultimately, was a woman – Imerrina, a sorcerous from a nearby island. He sent gifts by messenger, but she returned every one unopened. She had a beau already, it seemed, and even if she hadn’t, she wanted nothing to do with Fergol. He’d made a bad name for himself in the islands.
Fergol killed her by accident. He’d been aiming for her beau, the powerful wizard of Norbing, but the plan (and the trap) misfired. It took years, but eventually Norbing tracked Fergol down. After that, it was time for Fergol time to play ghost and hope someone would wander by to bury his bones, but no one ever did.
No list of Tyrnavalle’s evil practitioners of the Spires could be complete without including the Witchghoul, but I don’t have the space to do his story justice (there are other reasons I can’t writeup the Witchghoul, ones I can’t go into right now). Compared to the Witchghoul, other wizards described in this article were mere upstarts. Of all the evils in the world, only his master, the Shadow Lord, was worse.
I plan on doing a full write-up of the Witchghoul at some point, but for now, I’ll just leave it at that. Just know that his story is a long one and it began, as so many things did, in the Elder Days. You’ll read it in detail, as volumes of The Tale become available.
Numkargol, the Wraith of Halitai, was flesh and blood, just like you and I. They called him the Wraith because he haunted (figuratively speaking) the ruins of Halitai like a ghost. Numkargol was a throwback with the fair-skin, curly brown hair and long life of Sangrithar’s ancient nobles. Born late in the twelfth century, Numkargol was still a young man when the barbarians destroyed Halitai in 1205. Somehow, he avoided the dragon fire and falling buildings, but didn’t leave. He couldn’t – he was obsessed with Halitai and refused to believe that its days were over.
For decades, he lived alone in the ruins, wishing for the good old days as his unhealthy obsession worsened. He searched the ruins from top to bottom, looking for lore. Treasure didn’t interest him, he had nothing to spend it on, but lore did. He’d been young, as wizards go, when Halitai was destroyed and since then, entirely self taught. He devoured every scrap he could get his hands on.
In 1392, he hit the mother lode when he found a chest of crystal shards containing vast stores of arcane knowledge narrated by Rhys, the last mage of Halitai. When word of Sangrithar’s destruction had reached Rhys, he’d feared Halitai might suffer the same fate and so he’d made the crystals to preserve the lore. With what he learned from Rhys, Numkargol’s power rose sharply, as did his obsession. He was more convinced than ever that he could restore Halitai.
In 1684, Numkargol came to believe that finding the Crown of Halitai was the key to resurrecting the city and that the crown lay in to the south, in the Sandstorm Seas. When he arrived, Orallah the desert mage greeted him. Thinking that Orallah meant to keep the crown, Numkargol attacked, leaving Orallah no choice but to defend himself.
Numkargol’s spirit took the Short Walk, but Bangal ordered him to the Spirit World instead of sending him on his way. Even in the Spirit World, Numkargol’s thoughts turned to Halitai and his dreams left an opening for the Dark Lord. One-Eye sent him back to his beloved ruins, but as the Lich of Halitai, not as its Wraith.
Numkargol gathered his power in the ruins for many years. Death didn’t change his goals, but it did add to the list. He still wanted to bring back Halitai and now he also wanted revenge on the desert mage. He never succeeded at the first, but he did kill Orallah years later, in 1812. Howard the White, a paladin of Deridean living in Renk finally put Numkargol’s spirit to rest, in 1967.
Quirto comes to power in Bayor. Some objected to his quick rise, but any naysayers were quickly silenced by Quirto’s partner in crime, the assassin Derrel. Sorcery and stealth made a powerful team and the pair grew bold with success. In 1624, Derrel, with some magikal assistance from Quirto, infiltrated the Tower of Renk and took out Bitris the Wizard,. Two years later, Spates, who replaced Bitris, died in a suspicious laboratory accident. Good money says Quirto and Derrel had a hand in this one too.
Quirto practiced the faith of Morkanis. Now I can’t say that the wizards wearing the black robes were a religious lot, most never stepped foot in any god’s temple, but those who did tended to put their faith in Harnor (magik isn’t good or evil, Tarik used to say. He sounded like an NRA poster) or if they preferred the darker side of things, any god in the Dark Lord’s employ other than Morkanis. The God-Brute was all brawn and no brain, the complete antithesis of what most wizards appreciated, but Quirto was quite devout in his faith nonetheless. In the mid seventeenth century, the priests of Cthar made a move on the temple of Morkanis, but Quirto caught wind of the plan and the Ctharians walked into a trap. The Ctharians were slaughtered to the man, starting a brief period of Morkanian dominance in the city, but in the end it was unsustainable. The priests of the God-Brute just couldn’t stick to a plan, let alone make one.
From 1762 – 1767, Quirto was a not so silent partner with pirates from the east. Quirto provided the easterners supplies and a base from which to launch attacks on Little Enlas, the former barbarian seat of power. The wizard was quick to ally with the easterners, for he wanted revenge against those in Little Enlas for the shabby treatment given to Satal after helping the barbarians conquer Tyrnavalle, even though those responsible were long dead. Quirto had a soft spot for the founding father, having learned the black arts from Thalius, a wizard old enough to have studied with Satal himself.
Quirto’s planned conquest met defeat at the hands of Dernor, Lord of Little Enlas. Dernor was a very capable leader and worshipped of Sudnar. When the pirates attacked, the god of luck smiled upon his protégé and Dernor beat back the invaders. Afterwards, Sudnar’s popularity surged. The enemy retreated, but Delnor followed, not wanting them to come back in seven years like a plague of locusts. Delnor slew Quirto in 1772, and afterwards, Sudnar displaced Numra as the most popular god in the city.
Moose the XXII rose to power at the end of the nineteenth century in the southern Fillani jungle. There weren’t twenty one Mooses (Moosi ?) before him, twenty-two just happened to be his favorite number, so he appended it to his name. In 1922, Orcs under Moose’s control kidnapped Ellerene, the daughter of Erebald the Elven High King. Ellerene had married a mortal and her husband Nov, was a famous warrior and outdoorsman with a few drops of Elven blood. Centuries earlier, Erellan (another Elf King, they were everywhere) had wed Birae of Halitai (a human), and Nov descended from them. When Ellerene was taken, Nov and Ellerene’s brother, Emerring, searched Tyrnavalle for her and finally, after five long years, rescued her from a dungeon in the Kinner Woods.
In time, Moose set his sights on northern Tyrnavalle. He needed a stronghold closer to the action, so in 1967, he murdered Telleran, an old wizard who had protected the people living on the eastern seaboard for generations, and took over Telleran’s tower.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, Moose made Renk his top priority. In 2000, he stole the Dwarven Cask of Fires, an artifact on loan to Renk from the Highpeak Dwarves. Srenson, the Wizard of Renk, volunteered to hunt it down and Dallan went with him. The Cask was recovered, but the quest changed Srenson. He announced his retirement upon returning to Renk and then departed immediately, leaving the Tower vacant until the council could find a replacement.
When the council hired Varzin Albaster of Colcester in 2004, Moose was still smarting from losing the Cask and so he stamped Varzin’s welcoming reception with his own personal message – a giant moose head in the clouds. Then, in 2008, he kidnapped two members of the city council, but left an easy trail to follow. When Varzin tried to save them, he fell into Moose’s trap and was captured too. Everyone thought Varzin dead, but Dallan knew better and went to rescue him. Once those two were gone, Moose signaled Bayor to attack. For the next five years, Bayor occupied Renk and Moose took up residency in the Tower, but without the ring, the tower’s power was like a never ending lap dance – teasing, tempting and out of reach.
During those five years, Varzin had been prisoner in his own private hell, courtesy of Moose. Five years is a long time for anger to simmer and Varzin’s was boiling over. He let Moose have it with both barrels. As strong as Moose was, he couldn’t stand up to a Wizard of Renk, not even a rusty one. The tower was a strong home court advantage and it responded to Varzin like that same lap dancer, when she was home and off duty. Varzin thought he’d killed Moose, but of all people, he should have known. When dealing with a wizard like Moose, never count him out until you see him dead and buried. Even then, count to ten and check again.
Varzin had killed Moose’s doppelganger, something cooked up in the Tower’s labs (Moose called it Twenty-Three), and the real Moose had escaped back to the Fillani. He laid low for a few years and then started on his comeback, which was a work in progress when the Long Night came.
