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Multiplayer Game Book
A Mongoose Publishing Book
Published by Mongoose Publishing Limited52-54 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 2011
Written by Vincent Lazzari & Joe DeverAdditional 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
The DarklandsSa
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Introduction to Evil 3
Darklands Geography 7
Helgedad – The Eye of Evil 60
The Darklords 99
Creatures of the Darklands 133
ContentsSa
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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
in-fighting 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.
Chapter One :
Introduction to EvilSa
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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
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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 3150. 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 3192. 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.
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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?
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IntroductionDarklands GeographyHelgedadThe DarklordsCreatures of
the Darklands