The abbreviated history of Rodekas, Death Lord of Zorak Zoran

[Golbraith]

Below are a piece of art commissioned from the wonderful Katrin Dirim and an accompanying tale written in tandem (in a rather frenzied burst of creativity). Moderators, if inappropriate/unfitting in any way to the forum, please feel free to delete.

A mural located in the now-dilapidated temple of Iregaze in Old Tarsh, depicting Rodekas, a human Zorak Zorani Death Lord and founder of the aforementioned temple, slaying Tholm Sun-Touched, a shargashi hell priest. Above looms a depiction of Zorak Zoran assisting his devoted by breaking the hell priest’s spear and sending a fire elemental to assist, while the death lord’s giant beetle mount joins the assault. Likely commissioned from an unknown esrolian artist in the temple’s heyday.

Based on the surviving records that concern him, Rodekas was born in a small village in the more forested lowlands of Old Tarsh; his mother was a daughter of stickpickers, his father a farmer. The village no longer exists on any map, as it was destroyed in the conflict with the lunars, most of its inhabitants slain or driven off into slavery – while the yanafal tarnilsi commanders would not have perpetrated such cruelty, the shargashi battalion that formed part of the assaulting army were not so inclined. While he almost never spoke of the day himself, the records imply that Rodekas, no older than 18 at the time, himself once admitted he only survived due to hiding in a small pine grove next to his family’s stead, and witnessed his father’s torture and murder by the bloodlusted shargashi berserkers. Having lost his home and family, Rodekas aimlessly wandered east with naught more than the clothes on his back and his father’s spear, half-mad with grief, despair and hatred, before eventually making it to the borders of Dagori Inkarth. It was there he befriended a troll with offerings of food he had managed to gather and was eventually pointed towards Redstone. While the exact details of his initiate years are unknown, it is clear that he was initiated by a Death Lord some time after serving as a lay member and distinguished himself in the service of the Lord Demon of the Legions of Death. All accounts agree that Rodekas was incredibly devoted to Zorak Zoran, seeking to honor him with both word and deed: he could recite nearly all his known myths by heart and took great pleasure in doing so. Rodekas was not a big man – unlike many of his hulking brethren (both man and troll), he stood at a modest 5’7 (roughly SIZ 12) and while many zorani take pleasure simply in frenzied destruction, Rodekas meditated greatly on his god’s aspects of hatred and vengeance: he was especially fond of the tale of the Three Curious Spirits, and took strength and comfort in equating his own traumatizing experiences with those of Zorak Zoran. As a devout follower of the Lord of Hatred, perhaps his most unusual aspect was his affinity with the rune of Harmony (it was Harmony, along with Death and Darkness, that defined him most) – those who knew Rodekas described him both in his years as an initiate and a death lord as a quiet, sometimes even slightly friendly man who did not seek out pillaging and trouble for its sake alone (as many other zorani often do). As the years went by and his loyal service continued, he eventually achieved the rank of Death Lord and was granted command over a company of followers.

Having received permission to found a temple in his homeland from the Lord General of Death and the accompanying rank of Death Captain, Rodekas returned to the lands near his family home, and it was then that the temple of Iregaze was founded in the name of Zorak Zoran - standing between a pine forest on one side and a small bog (of which the death lord was conspicuously very fond and liked to take extended periods of solitude in) to the next. Surrounding the temple were two small villages and some outlying steads, which Rodekas often visited to converse with and aid the locals and upon which he forbid his followers to visit their destructive impulses. As a result, he became so well-liked the local farmers and hunters that they eventually swore loyalty to Iregaze in all but name, causing those who disliked him or his uz retinue to refer to the area as “zorani’s marshland”. Rodekas titled his followers at Iregaze the company of Wild Wrath, comprising roughly equal parts human and troll initiates. The Wild Wrath, contrary to its name, became exceptionally well-disciplined for a Zorak Zorani company due to Rodekas’ influence, and it was feared for both its success on the battlefield and utilization of (what many considered, especially for zorak zorani) cunning tactics and ambushes.

Some years after the founding of Iregaze, a shargashi force that was part of the army stationed near Bagnot made its way to the West Bush Range. Led by Tholm Sun-Touched, a distinguished and incredibly capable Hell Priest of an old Dara Happan lineage, the force cut a swathe through the lowlands. While not part of the forces that were responsible for the sacking of his home village many years before, lunar sources had let out the fact that the man was related by blood to another shargashi commander that took part, and the force may have included old veterans from the raids. As the info made its way to him, Rodekas ordered a forced march and made his way to the shargashi in the vanguard of his army. His fear – and after it, hatred – for the shargashi was great, and he took contentment, if not pleasure, at the prospect of carrying out vengeance against the faithful of the war god of the Red Planet. Tholm’s forces fought with great determination, and more than a third of the assaulting zorani force was slain or crippled, but the shargashi eventually found themselves outclassed in both number and ferocity. After a prolonged duel between the two commanders of Darkness and Sky, Tholm found himself at death’s door – his spear broke without an apparent cause (as if Zorak Zoran himself had snapped it in his hatred, the god’s faithful later said of it), and as he was assailed by both his adversary and his insect mount and fire elemental servant, the Sun-Touched met his end at the end of a mace. Rodekas did not skin his face, as he often did with enemies of prolonged personal feuds, but he stripped the once-proud Hell Priest of his gear and what he did not eat of his flesh, he fed to his beetle.

While well-liked by the zorak zorani under his command, the villages under his protection and those who treated him with respect, Rodekas found himself with increasingly more foes as time went by. It was no secret that the man cannibalized his enemies, a habit reportedly adopted by even his human followers and which many thought attributable to his influence by the Uz – naturally, it was also seen as a dangerous indication of potential chaotic inclinations. While purported to be quite likable when approached amicably, Rodekas held petty grudges and treated his enemies and those he considered to have wronged him with exceptional cruelty: his forces regularly performed human sacrifice, and his habit of skinning captured enemies (especially those who had perpetrated (or he believed had perpetrated) abominable acts against his kin) alive made him especially reviled - and skirmishes between Zorak Zoran’s servants at Iregaze and the followers of the Reaching Moon temple became increasingly more common as time went on. Infamous for flaying the faces of his most hated enemies, Rodekas strung them on a belt made of entrails, and there were disturbing rumors of him allowing a worshiper of Ikadz to dwell in Iregaze in the twilight years of the temple. A favorite argument of both his local and sartarite detractors was Rodekas’ company’s inaction during the Battle of Grizzly Peak, where he refused to aid the forces of Tarkalor due to his friendship with the trolls. Some later claimed that the Death Lord saw the battle as a conflict between two ultimately unsympathetic sides, and when discussing his plans to attack survivors of both lunar and exile-sartarite armies in whatever chaos forms after the battle, even compared himself to his god, going so far as citing the battle of Hate Kills Everything (if true, then a statement incredibly insulting to both sides of the conflict – even lunars wouldn’t appreciate being equated with Wakboth/Kajabor). The Wild Wrath company was later seen scouring the battlefield and its members (including humans) were reported to gorge on the remains of the fallen. An incident even some of his most loyal local allies and surviving kin had great difficulty accepting was his insult to a priestess of the Shaker Temple visiting Iregaze: while mushroom- and smoke-addled during a feast, Rodekas declared Maran Gor and her servants to be impotent and unable to truly protect everyone under the shadow of her mountain, otherwise the village of his birth and those who dwelled there would still live and breathe. This proclamation permanently stained relations between Iregaze and the Shaker Temple and deprived the former of a great deal of potential local support.

Iregaze came to an end in 1601 when a lunar expediton headed by a yanafal tarnilsi scimitar known as Left-Hand Parendos and a force mostly comprised of the followers of Yara Aranis and Shargash sacked the temple. While they did so with heavy casualties (including a priestess of Yara Aranis, a shargashi commander and over half of their rank-and-file) and Parendos left the ruins of Iregaze as a crippled man, they were successful in their work. Very few zorak zorani managed to escape and the vast majority of the temple was put to the sword. While at least one shargashi claimed to have slain Rodekas himself, he could provide no proof to attest to the fact, and neither the body nor the possessions of the Death Lord were recovered. The great gate at the subterranean level of the temple was the only place the lunar force could not breach, and it was buried under rubble as an alternative solution. These few Wild Wrath members who escaped with their lives found refuge with the followers of Storm Bull or returned to the place of their slain master’s initiation at Redstone. While some have tried to ply their more disciplined brand of following Zorak Zoran to other initiates, they’ve yet to find any success.

Rodekas was a loyal friend to the trolls of Dagori Inkarth and spoke fluent darktongue. As a result of taking a sporadic interest in scholarly matters, he also managed to learn to read and write passing tarshite. The time he didn’t spend training or commanding his troops in battle or fighting, he spent in solitude ruminating on hatred and vengeance.

Edited January 2 by Golbraith