Unidades Infernais e Infernalistas Notáveis
The Infernal Army
Infernal Units
Infernal Masters
Only the most powerful of greater infernals have a sufficiently strong presence and the long-accumulated power needed to lead armies on Caen, a place inimical to their very nature. It is as though reality itself tries to push them out, like red blood cells attacking an infection. Perhaps this is, indeed, part of some intrinsic aspect of the world, but the gods of Urcaen may have also played a hand in reinforcing these barriers.
While lesser infernal beings can be brought to Caen by easier methods, the truly formidable masters require elaborate summoning rites. Only gifted mortals who have given themselves completely to the masters can conduct these rites, learning to imbue summoning glyphs and forge gateways to connect disparate realms. These gates are not simple to open; they require the sudden outpouring of energy that accompanies sacrifice and bloodshed. But by these summons, the movements of the infernal masters are unpredictable and the attacks they make on Caen can be devastating. Where infernal masters walk, misfortune and carnage follow. These masters are each beings of godlike power that can shape reality with but a thought, and they bring with them innumerable horrors.
Agathon, the Voice in the Darkness
Other Names: Abhotep, Ashoth, Ariphon, Alothoton, Kybalion, Kylophelion
Epithets: Dream Ender, the Reaping Herald, Pactbinder, Shadow Maker, Taker of Names
The entity called Agathon has been transacting insidious arrangements with humans of western Immoren for centuries. Countless talented but impatient and greedy arcanists have been twisted to serve the Nonokrion Order as infernalists through the far-reaching schemes of Agathon. They hear the Voice in the Darkness in their dreams…and they obey.
Agathon is the most adept of a caste of fiendishly intelligent beings called curators, for whom the soul trade is their focus and source of power. They seek and find those who can be tempted to enter into binding pacts. Such fools invariably become infernalists, indebted to stealing souls and delivering them in exchange for boons. And in time, these infernalists are themselves claimed. Almost none manage to escape the clutches of their master, no matter how clever they might be.
The Voice in the Darkness knows the minds of the mortals of Caen, having overcome all their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. This understanding brings with it a powerful hatred and loathing, as Agathon looks upon the petty passions and schemes of mortals with utter disdain and savors bringing each of these aspiring demigods to ruin. Infernals like Agathon promise infinite power and have, in fact, raised mortals to greatness but only to watch them ultimately fall. Agathon’s voice is a whisper heard but not remembered in the hours of darkness, when the mind is vulnerable. In dreams, the Voice has passed along the shapes of wriggling silver runes to struggling apprentices, runes that, when inscribed, open conduits to the outer realms in the greater darkness beyond Urcaen.
Among the Nonokrion Order, Agathon holds a vaunted position, made potent and influential by a glut of souls. The Voice answers only to the entity known as Teldoquorin, the Opener of the Ways, the executor responsible for negotiating the Gift of Magic with Thamar, the Dark Twin. Though a creature of subtle power, will, and persuasion, Agathon is also a fierce battle master who takes delight in rendering lesser beings powerless and reminding them of their mortality. What those beings call magic is simply thought to Agathon, as reality bends and reshapes at the Voice’s whim.
In their otherworldly stronghold, the Voice in the Darkness has an endless warped and changing hall that serves as both vault and library, the mist-filled rooms containing doorways to other worlds. Within sealed vaults are the endless contracts and tomes that tabulate debts owed and paid over the eons. Many of these are written in forgotten tongues preserved on stone tablets, strips of bark, cured flesh, and stranger forms of writing never seen on Caen.
To those who serve Agathon, it is possible to perceive this being as manipulative, political, and grasping. Yet the true mind of this master is alien and unknowable, with methods and goals incomprehensible to lesser entities. Whatever their true agenda, Agathon is at the center of a great reaping of souls, the eye in a whirlwind of arcane power and influence, a tempter and bargainer without peer.
Omodamos, the Black Gate
Other Names: Baalloth, Gelshidon, Nabomosk, Oronox, Ozoraaz
Epithets: Bringer of Sorrow, Keeper of the First Horror, the Reaper, the Unmaker at the Threshold
All infernal masters are masters of battle, adept at leveraging the strength of their horrors and that of other enslaved minions to achieve their greater goals by force when need be. But more than any other, Omodamos embraces combat as the ultimate expression of his being. This master is a juggernaut of destruction, a veritable force of unnature, whose arrival presages slaughter and endings. He is called the Black Gate, for he eschews negotiations and contracts to secure souls, preferring instead to tear them directly from slain corpses and send them howling into the Outer Abyss.
Omodamos has not often appeared in occult tomes or even esoteric historical records, as few have dared draw the attention of this being, and he offers no boons or bargains. The places where he has manifested have been sites of imminent desolation and ruin, and he arrives to reap with abandon. A rare text in ancient Khurzic called The Abyssal Portal describes a Thousand Cities era cult called the Woebringers whose mad prophets hoped to open the Black Gate to obliterate a warlord they despised named Hekitor. They eventually succeeded in their task, and both Hekitor’s keep and their entire sect were erased from the world, leaving only a haunted ruin.
Unlike most of his kind, Omodamos actually favors taking physical form. The tangibility of existence on Caen affords him ample opportunities to inflict chain reactions of destruction and suffering. Nothing pleases the Black Gate more than overseeing the disintegration of the tangible, whether ending lives amid sprays of gore, shattering animated wolds, or cleaving through intricately assembled machines. This is a pleasure denied to him while in the spiritual outer realms. His savagery in melee should not be misinterpreted as thoughtlessness or simple rage, for his actions are premeditated and part of greater plans. He orchestrates his forces in battle as a being that has perfected the game of conflict for untold eons.
Where Omodamos strides, reality weakens and buckles, flinching back as if afraid. Solid stone beneath his footsteps melts and becomes liquid, plants blacken and wither, the air shimmers and darkens, becoming cold and hostile. Small fires erupt spontaneously in his proximity, turning books or other delicate flammables to blackened ash. For soldiers unfortunate enough to be ordered to stand against him, it is extremely difficult to retain the will to fight, as oppressive hopelessness and despair fill their minds. In those few texts that dare mention this being, the coming of Omodamos truly presages the end of the world. No one sane chooses of their own free will to enter the Black Gate.
Zaateroth, the Weaver of Shadows
Other Names: Niriah, Sarpanit, Zaroth, Zeparax, Zirrath, Zohridreelqun
Epithets: Tyrant of the Unhallowed, Executor of Debts, Gracious Obliteration, Judge of All Truths
Zaateroth is a fell master of tremendous intellect and will, an entity whose very appearance can overwhelm lesser minds, forcing them to their knees as they prostrate themselves and find it difficult not to obey her least commands. She possesses an aura of alien grace and majesty that is both cold and terrifying. It is no wonder that at times in ancient history, those who witnessed Zaateroth thought her a dark goddess, and in occult texts she is described as a personification of death and decay. Some wayward heretics and unwitting infernalists have mistaken her for Thamar, but she is a being far older and infinitely more incomprehensible.
At her least touch, corporeal forms begin to lose coherence, falling to ruin as if left to age a thousand years. It requires almost no effort for her to weaken and debilitate her foes, magnifying their vulnerabilities. Shadows move about her like specters, and in these shadows is the essence of the Outer Abyss, a seething and almost living energy that retaliates against any foolish mortals who attempt to unravel Zaateroth’s powerful magic.
Counted among the upper hierarchy of the Nonokrion Order, Zaateroth is an ominous being whose nature and goals are shrouded in enigma, even to her own kind. A bridge between the executors and architects of the Order, Zaateroth has been instrumental in planning the final Claiming. Mortals have no conception of the complex web of schemes and treachery that make up infernal politics, but Zaateroth walks these shifting landscapes without fear, held in high regard even by the ruling Magnate Tritorium. Though there is no formal chain of command among the masters tasked with invading Caen, Zaateroth is the being most respected and feared, and it ultimately falls to her to orchestrate the undoing of mankind.
Infernal Horrors
While terrifying in their own right, each infernal master is invariably accompanied by bestial horrors ready to fight in their stead. These otherworldly creatures are capable of tremendous feats of destruction and carnage. Some have at times been gifted as boons to infernalists to protect them or to destroy their foes, and they are among the most frightening of adversaries, each a being utterly dissimilar to anything living on Caen.
Though resembling living creatures, they are artificial beings, with tissues and organs that do not resemble those found on Caen and which defy biology. Attempts to dissect and understand the anatomy of horrors does not provide useful insights and is complicated by the fact that when destroyed, the forms of horrors slowly dissolve into putrescent ooze before dissipating into choking vapor and vanishing from mortal sight. Invisible detritus left behind after their destruction is soon collected by small invisible parasitic beings that descend like locusts to return this material to the infernals for future reconstitution. The rendered essence that makes up horrors is entirely useless to Caen’s necromancers and liches.
Every horror represents an unholy process of spiritual transgression. They are forged rather than born, created when dozens of otherwise imperishable souls are torn apart by a greater infernal, reduced to component essence, and reshaped into a new nightmarish form. This process of spiritual essence becoming a corporeal body for horrors has some cosmological similarities to how grymkin’s bodies can be both solid and unreal at once. But, strange as grymkin are, their minds are not utterly incomprehensible; horrors, however, are alien creatures with no behavior or thoughts that their creators did not instill in them. They have no true will, intelligence, or emotions, though they may seem to possess these things. What behavior they demonstrate is a remnant of the raving echoes left behind by the forced integration of dozens of disparate and tormented minds. Enacting violence is their customary state, for they were made to slay and destroy. Any intelligent action they seem to undertake is instead a sign of the greater minds controlling them.
Becoming a horror is the unthinkable fate awaiting many of those unfortunate souls bartered to infernals by those who serve them or souls that are seized outright by violence when infernals are summoned to Caen. Many believe, perhaps rightly, that this is the worst fate any soul could experience, even worse than being imprisoned in the soul cages of Cryxian liches. For every other fate a soul might experience, there is still a hope of reversal, of recovery. Not so when becoming a horror. Nothing returns from this.
The outer realms, where true infernals are comfortable, are places of flux and strife. Infernal society is built on violence and competition over limited resources, the most important being raw spiritual essence, the substance concentrated in sentient souls. The Nonokrion Order has clashed with rival infernal factions in countless wars over this currency. It is in these wars that horrors have been refined into their current forms, each a weapon serving a particular niche.
Greater Horrors
Were they so inclined, the masters could create every horror as a distinct and unique entity. Yet they feel no need for such extravagance, instead treating horrors as simple tools. For the most part, they rely on several long-established forms with proven destructive capabilities.
The larger horrors are built to be massive hulks, their strange hides resistant to cutting and resilient against all but the mightiest blows. They are intended to stand against the more formidable beasts and machines that mortal factions employ. While this is their primary purpose, these entities are equally adept at threshing through mortal warriors, dismembering limbs, and inflicting other ghastly wounds. To an infernal, a living body is just clay, something easily and brutally dismantled. Life has no inherent value, and they kill to separate the soul from the flesh that anchors it to Caen. Bodies are a hindrance to be shucked and discarded.
Desolators and Tormentors often join masters in battle, serving as primary combatants in an assault. These bulky horrors share a similar squat form, emerging from the shadows to advance on four spindly legs, each with curved claws that allow it to scrabble and secure firm footing, regardless of where it fights. Despite the slender nature of these limbs, their unnatural muscles are more than adequate to keep these horrors steady. The attack limbs of a Tormentor are enormous serrated toothy claws, each disturbingly containing an open throat ready to swallow any flesh or metal it tears loose. That which Tormentors consume is not digested but is disintegrated into usable energy through some more esoteric process. Some believe these mouths to themselves be portals to the Outer Abyss.
By comparison, the bodies of Desolators are more readily recognizable, as they display myriad tumor-like bulbous sacs, each serving as a bladder for caustic liquids the Desolator unleashes through the yawning maws of its attack limbs to obliterate its foes. Enemies closing with one are soon shredded by its upper limbs, which end in long-bladed claws.
The Soul Stalker possesses a very different form, that of a large serpentine horror all too familiar to victims of infernals even before the recent conflicts. They move between worlds by slipping unseen through portals created by unwitting infernalists. Arriving with a piercing shriek, Stalkers immediately begin searching for marked souls to recover for their infernal masters. They have long been part of the soul-reaping process employed by the Nonokrion Order, recovering those hapless marked souls stranded on Caen, including those who sought to evade payment for their bargains. There is no true escape from infernal contracts. While their primary function is to collect souls the infernals have marked as theirs, these coiling horrors are formidable in combat, quite capable of slaying those who would interfere with them and then collecting their souls as well.
Minor Horrors
There exist horrors of various sizes and combat capabilities, and some of the most disturbing ones are those that are less physically imposing. These horrors are unsettling in ways that other beasts of the wilderness are not. Their movements are clearly unnatural, as is the way the air around them shimmers with strange light and manifested shadows.
The violence horrors commit is not solely physical. The very appearance of one of these creatures is an assault on the mind — it can shatter sanity and fray nerves, sending enemies into emotional shock. This is especially true for the smaller and stranger horrors, such as the Lamenter. These beings possess formidable weaponry but often torment their victims needlessly, as if suffering has value to their masters. Lamenters in particular have been known to inflict slow mortal injuries and then linger with their piercing legs impaled through a struggling victim. Another horror, the Shrieker, emits a terrifying high-pitched sound as it strikes from a distance, a sonic attack that overwhelms mortal senses and pulverizes internal organs. Death by either of these creatures is never clean, and any who manage to survive such an assault are left with lasting mental scars.
Some lesser horrors such as the Foreboder serve as conduits for the power of their infernal masters. The presence of these floating beings is accompanied by a sensation of mental oppression. Many who have witnessed one describe feeling a sound too deep to hear, one that manifests as acute pressure in their eardrums. It is impossible to face one without dread as the horror glows with sickening radiance before channeling the magic of its master.
Infernal Fodder
The infernals do not host an army in a conventional sense but are quite capable of defeating their myriad enemies in battle when the need arises. In these cases, infernal masters make use of a number of lesser entities as fodder. While a master’s main target will often be singled out to be obliterated by horrors, lesser obstacles are cleared or distracted by the enslaved beings accompanying each master, including people and creatures that gladly put themselves in harm’s way.
The needs of the invasion of Caen have placed a special strain on those who serve the infernals, as the marked souls of those who have bargained with the masters must be collected and consumed to maintain their presence. Those of higher standing preserve themselves by sacrificing subordinates, hoping to prove themselves useful enough to be maintained. But in the end, the masters view all mortals as fodder and fuel.
Infernalists
Despite the efforts of organizations like the Order of Illumination, the infernals have managed to enlist the service of many mortal collaborators. Most infernalists have chosen of their own free will to serve beings from beyond Urcaen, tempted by offers of greater power, given special boons, or corrupted and manipulated into surrendering liberty and former loyalties. Some infernalists believe the supremacy of the infernals is inevitable, and so they see collaboration as the only way to avoid obliteration. In the end, they facilitate the destruction of their own kind.
Infernalists can come from all walks of life and station, though the most useful have been those born with the Gift of Sorcery. A powerful arcanist who becomes an infernalist can often seize a leadership position among the cults. This is particularly true if one has pleased their masters by fulfilling their contractual obligations and surrendering large numbers of souls, most often stolen from hapless and innocent victims during sacrificial rites.
Accomplished infernalists who have acquired any degree of true power often create their own cults, bringing others into their pacts. Each of these cults has its own rites and practices, but all serve their masters and must do as commanded. Lord Roget d’Vyaros is an example of one who has risen to such a position. A former member of the Order of the Golden Crucible, Roget is glad to have put that group behind him; he now openly serves his true masters.
Cultists become useful henchmen and bodyguards for their leaders as well as assistants in gathering fresh victims and dealing with any other mundane matters their leader requires of them. Cultist bands are eager to join their greater masters in battle, seeing them as akin to gods. These bands overwhelm by sheer numbers, wielding rune-covered ritual blades that whisper to them and pulse with inner heat in the presence of infernals. The most devoted and prodigious killers may be elevated to dark sentinels, entrusted with special tasks by cult leaders.
Infernal masters care not for the desires or prayers of their cultists, seeing them only as walking resources. Masters are quite willing to reap the souls of these minions when they have need of their essence. Cultists do have their uses, however. Their fervent belief empowers nearby horrors, and in the right circumstances, they can seize enemies without slaying them. Such captives are subjected to the whispers of the masters, which sometimes results in fresh converts whose minds and eyes have been opened to the dark truth.
Some infernalists embrace their chosen path with greater than normal enthusiasm, surrendering themselves utterly to the cause and giving up their humanity. Referred to as Wretches, these individuals have put their past identities behind them and have earned a variety of boons from their patrons that allow them to unleash terrifying magic. Infernal power has transfigured them into monsters with scaled skin, wrapped in chains that symbolize their bondage to higher powers and tattered rags that are all that remains of their former attire.
Lesser Infernals
The distant realm from which infernals originate is utterly unlike Caen, being closer to Urcaen as a place where beings of spirit and energy dwell, divorced from the fixed forms of corporeality. Yet for all that, the Outer Abyss does possess an ecology. The vast and hostile landscapes are inhabited by otherworldly entities that eke out an existence, hunting and being hunted in turn. Spiritual matter ebbs and flows, gathering into self-motivated configurations that prey upon others. The strong consume the weak, the swift outrun the slow, and there is a cycle of violence not dissimilar to that found in nature, though the forms are quite different. Alien beings float through the air unhindered or meld into shadow only to emerge elsewhere in a blink. It is in this environment that beings like Howlers and Griever Swarms hunt.
Griever Swarms drift swiftly through the air and travel in small packs, disgorging void fire at their chosen prey. These beings are considered infernals, as they are native to the same realm and so can only manifest on Caen when summoned. Yet they are not like greater infernals, being far more limited in thought. They are closer to animals or beasts, though this comparison is not entirely apt. While most of their behavior seems simple and instinctive, they can still demonstrate surprisingly sophisticated tactics and coordinate in a way that suggests a weird understanding of their environment and their prey. They are surprisingly durable, and their mode of movement is erratic, making them hard for mortals to anticipate in battle. Inky darkness follows them, pulled from beyond Caen. In the proximity of these ever-moving shadows, the barrier between worlds weakens.
Deadly as the Griever Swarms are, Howlers are even more formidable. These heavier and stronger entities take on a form that is extremely durable, each with a thick hide that readily turns aside blades and deflects or at least diminishes the impact of bullets. These beings ooze shadow and warp reality around them in such a way that their presence facilitates greater infernals lingering on Caen, though their primary utility is to commit violence. Smarter than the Griever Swarms and capable of self-willed actions, Howlers are still not “people” in the sense that those in western Immoren mean it. These beings have a simple society and do not appear to resent being enslaved by greater masters, willingly serving them and showing no fear of dying. Each wields an iron blade that glows from within with a sickly radiance, leaving wounds that are slow to heal.
Their name reflects a terrifying battle howl they emit when advancing into combat, a sound taken up by each in turn, yet dissonant and betraying nothing akin to harmony. The sound can be deceptive, appearing to come from behind or adjacent to a Howler. Combined with the surprising speed at which these creatures rush into combat, mortal soldiers assailed by them are often thrown into disarray. Maintaining disciplined ranks in the face of an advance by these otherworldly terrors is quite difficult even for veteran soldiers, especially when the Howlers enter a berserk frenzy and begin tearing people limb from limb.
Umbrals
Umbrals are a type of infernals that occupy a distinct niche in the Outer Abyss. Long ago, these beings belonged to a rival infernal society that contested and was eventually defeated by the Nonokrion Order. Rather than being obliterated, they were subsumed and enslaved, turned into an extension of the Order’s operations on Caen with beings such as Umbral Guardians.
Umbrals benefit from being able to slip into Caen more readily than other infernals. This is a result of many centuries of folktales and myths that contain within them aspects of Umbral summoning rituals. Umbrals possess a special connection to shadow and have forged lasting links between the shadows on Caen and those in the infernal realm, exploiting them as potential gateways. Umbrals eschew the process of contract negotiation in favor of verbal agreements forged — often unwittingly by their summoners — by the very words of rites that invite them. In the current invasion, they are encountered as guardians of prominent cult leaders or the masters themselves. Umbrals dwell in their summoner’s shadow, awaiting the time when they are needed.
They are skilled at intercepting those who would harm whomever they have been directed to protect.
Infernal Gates
For centuries, infernals have schemed to find ways to reach Caen. Because of the unfathomable distances and the cosmological difficulties involved, this has required the work of intermediaries. Even with infernalists performing the proper rituals, this process is tricky and requires considerable energy. Infernals have devised various means to facilitate their arrival.
Infernal gates serve as longer-lasting conduits between the outer realms and Caen. Each represents a pair of doorways, one built by infernalists on Caen, the other in the shadowy abyss where infernals dwell. They must be exactingly inscribed with glyphs of power to mirror one another, and these glyphs require the power released by fresh souls to fully activate. The mirroring process creates a powerful supernatural accord, one which makes these constructs otherworldly and more a product of the infernal reality than the mortal one. Looking upon an infernal gate, one would never suspect mortals had any hand in its construction.
After the preliminary rites are complete, a gate is dormant until the time is ripe for it to be opened. During this fallow time, gates may appear to be utterly mundane or even invisible to mortal vision. They are often set into archways in places of power, unseen and awaiting the proper key sequence to usher infernals into the world. When fully active, they take on their true infernal guise, becoming towering portals of darkness emitting beams of sickly radiance, causing reality to slip and shiver around them. At an infernal master’s bidding, they can fire bursts of spectral flame while still affording ready access to the master’s arsenal of reinforcements and stockpile of souls. Gates draw the souls of the recently slain to them like moths to a flame, souls that can be readily employed to augment nearby infernal forces.
Infamous Infernalist Cults
The coming of the infernals has been a well-kept secret, buried in layers of myth, misdirection, and outright disbelief, but those collaborators with clandestine insight have known the truth all along. While some infernalists operate alone or in impenetrable shadows, others have been instructed by their masters to gather their cults to join the fight directly.
ORDER OF THE RED DOCTRINE
“From few words come never-ending revelations.”
In secret tomes and forgotten scrolls lie some of the greatest secrets of the infernals, or so believe the members of the Order of the Red Doctrine. Tattooed with arcane symbols derived from these sinister writings, the infernalists of the order consider themselves to be at the eye of the infernal invasion’s storm — central to its success yet removed from its effects. They believe they will draft the eternal historical records of the invasion, whether those words be drafted in their blood or carved into their bones.
THE UNSEEN MARK
“What you think you see is a lie.”
Led by the blind infernalist Fallon Moreland, the leaders of the Unseen Mark commune with the horrors from the Outer Abyss by gouging their own eyes out and then infusing those excised organs with dark magic. Once returned to their skulls, their eyes grant special perceptions of the flow of magic. The rank and file in this cult aspire to earn the right to this special gift, bestowed in a special sacrificial ceremony undertaken during the new moon.
WHISPERERS IN THE DARK
“Let the Voice drown all thought.”
Followers of the infernal master Agathon, the Voice in the Darkness, the infernalists of this cult share an ambition: to rise to power after the infernal invasion they help to bring about. The Whisperers, as they refer to themselves, hear subliminal messages in the commands of their master, messages they believe provide clues to achieve immortality should their service be deemed sufficient.
THE PALE GUARD
“My Queen is my salvation.”
Great Princess Regna Gravnoy in northeastern Khador commands her own circle of infernalist cultists who are bound by the belief that patricide is the ultimate sacrifice to prove one’s worth to the coming infernal masters. Those who have already given the souls of their fathers to the White Queen wear a single white ribbon about their persons as proof of their devotion and a symbol of the greater boons the White Queen has delivered unto them.
KEEPERS OF THE GATE OF GLASS
“Reflect and collect.”
Those who have foolishly been led
to even glance into the mirrors of the infernal Gate of Glass have seen the horror of their looming fate, the husks they will leave behind when their souls are torn free by the invading infernals. The Keepers of the Gate of Glass each keep a fragment alleged to have been broken from the infernal gate, a sliver of accursed mirror said to have the capacity to instill madness in those who look on their surfaces. Each shattered mind is vulnerable to the seeking dreams of the infernals waiting beyond the gate.
THE SOULBOUND
“Beyond suffering, beyond redemption.”
These cultists accept that their souls have already been claimed and given over to the infernal masters they serve and use this certainty to strive to be beyond most mortal needs, desires, and commands. They take greater risks on behalf of their infernal masters than most, accepting open assassination missions, invasive expeditions into well-protected locations, and other suicide missions intended to secure greater access to vital locations for their masters.
Notable Infernalists
Master Preceptor Orin Midwinter
Orin Midwinter is a man who has gone through several transformations in his checkered past. Some people seem destined to lead, others to serve, and Midwinter has always felt driven to assist those in power. Perhaps it was inevitable that he would become one of the most influential secret infernalists in western Immoren, playing a key role in the great invasion.
In his former role as senior inquisitor, Midwinter served Cygnar’s most notorious tyrant, King Vinter Raelthorne IV, using his arcane powers and intelligence to hunt illegal sorcerers. During the subsequent reign of King Leto, Midwinter became an outlaw wanted for past atrocities. These years were hard on him, and in time both his body and mind fractured. He contracted a severe illness and began to lose his sanity. It was in this dark time he turned in desperation to the infernals, initially seeking a solution to his terminal illness. His time as an inquisitor had given him access to forbidden lore, and he soon made contact with a practicing infernalist who could instruct him. He justified his actions as necessary to fulfill his oaths to restore Vinter as king. How would this be possible if he perished? This began a slow descent of systematic enslavement to his infernal masters.
Midwinter’s conversion was delicately handled by subordinates of Agathon, the Voice in the Darkness, who took an interest in Midwinter and foresaw his usefulness. Their future plans relied on a region in turmoil, a goal they expected would be facilitated by having an agent close to Cygnar’s throne. They originally intended to see Vinter IV restored, but events necessitated them shifting their focus to a new contender for the crown — Julius, the bastard son of Vinter.
It was in this way Midwinter was caught up in the Second Cygnaran Civil War. A former colleague, another senior inquisitor and powerful mesmerist named Wilkes Quinn, had been raising Julius in secret. Quinn used his powers to repair Midwinter’s fragile sanity but in the process imposed several mental compulsions, forcing Midwinter’s absolute loyalty. Quinn would meet an early end just before Julius won the throne, leaving Midwinter perfectly positioned as trusted advisor to the new king. The only difficulty was that, because of his compulsions, his mind was not his own.
Agathon came to Midwinter in his dreams and assisted the former inquisitor in breaking these chains, regaining his self-will while being reminded of his eternal obligations. In the months that followed, Midwinter played a key role in encouraging Cygnar to wage war in Llael again, preparing the conditions required to launch an infernal invasion.
Though Midwinter has been forced to reveal his nature, he has earned a special place of power and influence. He stands as one of the foremost collaborators with the infernal masters, and in doing so, he has earned the unending enmity of the rest of humanity. Whether he will survive long enough to collect his promised reward remains to be seen, but for now, he fights alongside the infernals, showing no regrets for his betrayal.
Great Princess Regna Gravnoy, the White Queen
That the infernals have their hooks deep in mortal affairs is demonstrated by their subversion of one of the Khadoran Empire’s highest-ranking nobles. Great Princess Regna Gravnoy has earned respect as the ruler of Gorzytska Volozk in northeastern Khador; she possesses proven intelligence as well as political acumen and undeniable ruthlessness. No one has suspected that for most of her life she has been a secret infernalist.
Rumors have begun to circulate based on recent events, but for the moment she retains her title and position. She is likely to become a prime target of the Order of Illumination as well as the empress herself once she abandons any pretext of secrecy.
Her father, Gorzytska’s former great prince, was a shrewd politician who cemented many strong ties and promises. His daughter retains those hard-won debts. In other regards, her accomplishments have outstripped her father’s in every way, particularly her feats of deception. Many aspects of her life have been hidden. This began at a young age, when Regna discovered her sorcerous gift, a talent widely reviled among the Menites comprising the majority of her father’s court. One of her tutors discerned her talent and introduced her to those who could teach her and help her conceal her gifts. In doing so, the volozk’s ruling heir was initiated into an insidious infernal cult.
Among her new friends, Regna delighted in her freedom and soon began to live a double life. Secrecy and lying became second nature to her after she was brought into the deeper layers of the cult and given access to forbidden occult lore. Her power grew, and she had become a formidable arcanist by the time she entered communion with Nabezeth, an infernal curator serving the Weaver of Shadows.
Regna was told that true power came at a price and that she must earn her keep and harden her heart for the tasks ahead. She would be enlisted to deliver a regular tithe of souls, attained however she might. But her first sacrifice would be the greatest — her father, whom she genuinely loved. She was tasked to deliver his soul and inherit her place as ruler of the province. This had to be done before an arranged marriage that would neutralize her worth to her masters.
Though the command shocked Regna and caused her grief, she did not hesitate. As much as she loved her father, she had chosen her path and accepted that nothing could stand in the way. Her father would perish sooner or later, as Immoren was slated to fall to the infernals. Only a chosen few would outlast the oblivion, and she was prepared to surrender everything to be among them. She gave her father a peaceful death — by poison — and captured his soul to deliver to Nabezeth.
From this moment, her pact was sealed, and she has served them ever since, grateful to sometimes walk alongside godlike beings like Zaateroth to experience their glory. She has perfected the rituals by which lesser horrors can be summoned and bound. She no longer remembers the grief she once felt for her father, as her world has been opened to new delights, such as the thrill of wielding hellfire to incinerate her foes. She no longer hides her darker impulses, and soon she will give up the pretense of fealty to the empress. She calls herself the White Queen and anticipates ruling what will remain of the frozen north.
Valin Hauke, the Fallen Knight
The greatest and most ardent adversaries of the infernals have long been the Morrowans, who have always viewed these beings as an existential threat. Indeed, the Order of Illumination was founded expressly for the purpose of ridding Immoren of infernalists, along with other practitioners of black magic. Valin Hauke was once one of their champions, a knight who had sworn solemn oaths to eradicate infernalism. A tragic sequence of events would lead to his undoing and rebirth. His subsequent rise as an infernalist would see him as committed to the Claiming as he was once devoted to praising the Prophet.
Almost without exception, those who choose to join the Order of Illumination are a passionate and zealous bunch, usually come to this calling after having first-hand brushes with black magic. Valin Hauke was a dedicated warrior who had been raised to believe in the Volition and the need to maintain vigilance. He lost his mother and one of his sisters to an infernalist, their souls offered up for some minor boon. Hauke immediately dedicated himself to the destruction of the person he thought responsible, an occultist referred to as the Tattered Monk.
He eventually succeeded in achieving his vengeance, confronting the Monk in a ruined mausoleum in northern Cygnar. In this victory, his satisfaction soon turned to ash. While studying the journals and tomes accumulated by his quarry, he discovered facts that entirely undermined his world view and soon shattered his faith. First, he came upon a persuasive account of Morrow’s involvement in the Gift of Magic during the Orgoth Occupation, including information suggesting collusion of the Prophet with Thamar’s infernal bargain. Second, he found fragments of partially burned journal entries that suggested the death of his own family was orchestrated by his superiors in the Order of Illumination as a means to ensure his dedication and to eliminate any distractions. Digging further, he discovered that the man he had slain had not been an infernalist at all but a pious hermit and ally of the Order.
The hypocrisy of his organization and their involvement with the destruction of his family annihilated Hauke’s sense of his place in the world and led him on an even darker and more extended quest for vengeance. This brought him to the Thamarites in charge of the Infernal Archive in Ceryl, where his eyes were opened to the world’s deeper truths. Rejecting their path as well, he found a patron and promised his life and soul to new masters, ones he knew had sufficient power to obliterate the Church of Morrow.
He has worked tirelessly toward that goal, bringing with him his considerable martial abilities. He has become a callous champion of the infernals, both reliable and unflinching in executing their plans. He is entirely sane, unlike many who surround him, though his features are sometimes touched by an echo of sorrow. The world of light he once believed in has been revealed to be an illusion, and he sees the coming darkness as the true reality. Hauke no longer cares whether his victims are innocent or guilty, as he no longer believes in innocence. The Church must burn, as must all who praise it. The world is already dead to him, and his time of grief is ended.
Eilish Garrity, the Dark Seeker
Nowhere is the potential scope of infernal corruption more evident than with Eilish Garrity, the once affable arcanist of the Black River Irregulars mercenaries. Those who were once his friends and allies cannot believe how far he has fallen in such a short time.
Eilish still sees in the mirror the man he once was. When speaking to outsiders, his charm can return, allowing him to present a smiling face to those who, moments later, are overwhelmed by his magic and offered to his infernal masters. He is addicted to power, with a thirst for hidden knowledge that took him down a path to disgrace and degradation. He has made bargains with unspeakable beings and has bound himself fully to their service. Worse, he has done genuine evil and killed good people.
Though he has put the Black River Irregulars behind him, deep in his blackened heart Eilish misses his friends. He has endeavored to avoid them, knowing the darkness he serves would delight in compelling him to prove his conviction by sacrificing them. There is tragic irony in this, as he first turned to black magic under the justification of serving the BRI by bettering himself. This would prove to be a thin and dubious excuse for a compulsion to master greater magic that became an all-consuming obsession, one that let him be exploited.
Eilish’s dabbling in black magic began after events in Llael where the BRI confronted a necromancer seeking certain ancient Umbrean artifacts. He had keenly felt his own limits and the shortcomings of his incomplete arcane education, and the dark power of the artifacts negated his weakness. Soon after this first taste, he sought members of secret cabals within the Fraternal Order of Wizardry, from whom he learned how to harness the power of death.
A subsequent run-in with Alexia in Ord convinced Eilish that necromancy was ill-suited for his needs. Having recovered several tomes of infernal lore, he decided to make contact with a patron, mistakenly thinking he was smart enough to retain his autonomy. This was the hook the infernal masters required to reel him in. They demonstrated what would be possible if he served them, and a pact was signed. They then began to require tasks of Eilish, tasks that started small but became increasingly dire. He was made to murder wanted criminals, then the cast-out and suffering, but soon his victims were blameless and innocent.
Eilish’s mind quailed at first, but as his addiction seized him, he convinced himself he was trapped by his contract. The killings came easier each time. Disassociation set in — it felt to him as though another will worked through him in these moments. It was not he who wielded the knife while cutting a throat but rather his master. All the while, his conscience withered within.
By the time Eilish realized the scope of the infernal threat to Caen, his soul was theirs. He was bound to Agathon, the Voice in the Darkness, who had appeared in his dreams in the benevolent guise of a spiritual being named Ashoth. Now he walks to battle alongside the infernals with an umbral guardian as his shadow, and he does what he is told. In battle, he is overcome by impulses he does not consider his own. He views this as a form of possession, where an evil being controls him like a puppet, but in truth this is his own divided mind. He has become a monster. His soul is marked for collection. There can be no return to the light.
Alain Runewood, Lord of Ash
No man serves more as a cautionary tale against the perils of infernal manipulations than Alain Runewood, who has long been archduke of the Eastern Midlunds and lord of Fharin. Once counted among the most courageous and loyal vassals of King Leto Raelthorne, Runewood has become entrapped by binding arrangements that have forced him to betray his nation and fight alongside the invaders. He did not knowingly begin down this path and only recognized the extent of his errors when it was too late to reverse them. Some might say his actions do not merely constitute treason against his beloved nation but a betrayal of his very humanity as well.
The seeds of this corruption were planted after one of Runewood’s finest moments in the Battle of Fharin, which ended the recent civil war. The archduke volunteered to lead a risky nocturnal raid against Vinter Raelthorne’s loyalists, during which he was mortally wounded by multiple gunshots. He languished for weeks, suffering from infection, his strength failing him. During one of his fevered dreams, he heard whispers, and the voice evoked his sense of honor and duty, suggesting the kingdom was about to enter a dark time, one where his absence would be keenly felt. He was offered a second chance, if he would agree to certain conditions. A debt he would have to pay. Desperate to return to his duties, Runewood accepted, eager for anything that would let him live. His miraculous recovery was immediate, and shortly thereafter he was contacted by Orin Midwinter, who served as an intermediary for his new dark masters.
With his king abdicating the throne and Cygnar’s future uncertain, Runewood was convinced his strength and wisdom were needed to help keep his nation from the brink of destruction. He hoped to mitigate any harm that might be caused by his promises, so he was willing to accept a dark fate for himself as long as he protected others. But as the months went by, Runewood found himself caught deeper and deeper in the infernals’ grasp. By the time he realized the nature of the insidious plans the infernals had for Caen, he was theirs. He requested one final and most binding pact, signing his name in blood to keep several family members — as well as his old friend, Lord High Chancellor Leto — safe from the dangers to come.
Now, Alain Runewood’s thoughts are consumed by anguish and guilt for his part in the invasion. He has tried taking his own life, but this has not availed him. He has been forced to lead armies of cultists and horrors from beyond, turning the lands once entrusted to him by the crown to ruin. Every day, he sees his once-proud legacy turned to ash; bitterness and despair have become his constant companions. His only consolation is the knowledge that his family, though they now despise him, will be spared eternal torment.
Nicia, Hound of the Abyss
In the darkest moments of her grief, Nicia often wondered if her love for her dead husband truly outshone her love for the Creator. In the last few months, her actions and her subsequent transformation have left her no doubt. Once a devout and zealous member of the Daughters of the Flame, Nicia was known as the Tear of Vengeance, bringing swift death to all enemies of the Protectorate. Her skill was nearly unmatched, her dedication to the cause so all consuming that Feora, Priestess and Protector of the Flame, considered Nicia the natural successor to lead the Daughters of the Flame should anything befall Thyra.
Unbeknownst to those around her, Nicia’s fervor became less about serving the Lawgiver and more about taking vengeance on those who had killed her beloved, Heltus. This darkness in her soul drew the attention of infernal agents, who saw in her an opportunity to make inroads to the Protectorate. Using no small amount of resources, they orchestrated an assassination attempt against a Cygnaran officer known for taking a notable part in the invasion of Sul.
Nicia took the bait, and after eliminating her target, the cultists made their move. Having already converted another Daughter whom Nicia knew and trusted, they convinced her to come with them and to listen to their words. Among them were arcanists who had been given powers over the mind, and they filled Nicia’s with visions of Heltus, who claimed Menoth knew her heart was impure and would never allow the couple to be rejoined in the City of Man in Urcaen. Distraught by what she learned, Nicia slipped into madness. She was convinced the infernals were her only course to rejoin Heltus, who had already gone to them and who might be restored to life if Nicia did as they asked.
After sealing her pact, Nicia sought out other mentally vulnerable members of her order, bringing them into the cult. Within a few short months she had established a burgeoning network of infernalists within the Flameguard and soon discovered the infernals had made other inroads elsewhere within the Protectorate. Imbued with a dark new purpose, Nicia has become one of the most efficient agents of the infernals on Caen, who have used her true love for her dead husband to transform her once profound fury and faith into a merciless and cold pragmatism.
Fonte: Warmachine Oblivion
