Lone Wolf The Darklands.pdf

LONE WOLF The Roleplaying Game

The Darklands

August Hahn

2 Introduction to Evil

Layout & Design

Ian Belcher

4 Geography of the Darklands

Cover Art

Ralph Horsley

25 Helgedad – The Eye of Evil

41 Darklands Characters

Interior Illustrations

Tony Parker

68 The Darklords

Studio Manager

Ian Barstow

90 Tools of Evil

104 Creatures of Darkness

Production Director

Alexander Fennell

122 Darklands Character Sheet

Playtesting

William T Blackburn, Adrian Czajkowski,

Gloria Egner, Mark Gedak, Tammy Gedak,

Michele Langston, Vivien Lorelied, Matt

Williams

124 Designer’s Notes

125 Index

127 License

Proofreading

Ian Finch

128 Map of Helgedad

Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the

publisher is expressly forbidden. Lone Wolf, The Darklands is presented under the Open Game License. See page

127 for the text of this licence. With the exception of boxed story text and character names, character creation rules

detailing the mechanics of assigning dice roll results to attributes and the character advancement rules detailing

the effects of applying experience, all text within Lone Wolf, The Darklands is declared as open content. Printed

in Canada.

Introduction to Evil

Welcome to The Darklands , the book about a most terrible

country and the vile beings that rule that blasted scar on

the face of Magnamund. This text will definitively list the

Darklords in all their ebon glory, with their powers, their

provinces and their 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.

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 all 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.

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

that is 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.

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 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.

It is only when one Darklord, such as Zagarna or Vashna

before him, rises to such pre-eminence that none of his peers

dares 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 that end, he has committed time and

time again the greatest bulk of his power towards the goal of

Magnamund’s conquest.

He exerted himself in such a manner once when he crafted

the false persona of the Scarling and slew Kai’s true son over

the molten beginnings of Magnamund. He did so again when

he corrupted the dragons and set them against their own. He

reached forth a third time with a son of his own, Agarash the

Mighty, 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

Ah, you are awake. That is wonderful. I was afraid you would sleep for another day and we would have to start the

process without you. No, don’t try to talk. The pins in your jaw will only pull out with tremendous force and even if

you could do it, the blood loss would likely kill you. Besides, the mask keeps your mouth closed in any event. Do not

worry; I’ll do enough talking for both of us.

You are probably wondering how you got here. That’s a fair question, especially from someone like you. Let us just

say that we have a number of tools here. Some blunt, while others are very subtle. I’ll show you the one we used to

get you. See this? It’s called a zejar-dulaga, which means ‘swift stillness’ in our tongue. You were apparently felled

with one of these by our scouts. A most fortuitous find, I must say, and quite the boon for him. I understand he is

with Kraagenskul now receiving his reward. I do hope he survives the process; he is too useful a hunter to lose.

Ah, yes. You are wondering about the wound. Do not worry. If we had wanted you dead, you would be. There are

other arrows for that. No, we have something much better in mind for you. Well, better for us. I am afraid for you,

this will not be pleasant at all. Do not worry. By the time we are done, you’ll have a different perspective about all

this. A very different perspective indeed…

So came the Drakkarim. Warriors from another world,

brought to Magnamund through a powerful gate provided by

Naar himself, the forces of Drakkar were a nearly unstoppable

force for destruction from the moment their legions appeared.

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.

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.

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 that 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.

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. 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.

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.

That might was Vashna. With his great axe of power and his

deadly dagger of lethal venoms, Vashna carved his way up the

ranks of the Darklords and seized control of the Darklands for

himself. Every territory, from the vast mines of black ore to

the sulphurous pits of the Burning Rift, 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. At least two other Darklords learned

this as their final lesson; their blackened bones still grace the

throne as a symbol of their folly.

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.

The loss of Vashna at the Battle of Moytura Pass 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.

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?

The Sommlending and Durenese forces that defeated Vashna

were not foolish 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

Dare you enter the Darklands?

Geography of the Darklands

By looking at any human-drawn map of Northern

Magnamund, the Darklands are just a blackened patch

of scoria and ash separating Sommerlund from the

western coast. This is an understandable assumption for

cartographers to make, especially given the difficulties

explorers would have trying to get a better idea of its

topography. The Darklands are not a safe place to travel

even for the evil beings that scratch out their existence

there, much less fragile humans with ink and parchment

looking to draw a more accurate map.

Travel through the Darklands for anything not sponsored

or created by the rulers of this waste is nearly impossible.

There are military camps scattered throughout the

Darklands, many of which block the only passable routes

through the land. Mountain gaps are guarded by fortresses,

roads that might once have entered the land are long fallen

to disrepair or completely subsumed into guard towers and

patrolled trade lanes. While it might be possible to pass

through the country in disguise, many of the sentinels of

the Darklands are equipped with magic or can read minds;

it would be nigh-suicide for any but the most powerful and

prepared to even contemplate such an act.

The Darklands are more than just a blighted realm on the

face of Magnamund; they are the physical signs of Naar’s

power and claim over a small part of the world itself. The

Darklands are physically contiguous but, like the nature of

evil, not simply one type of terrain. This is as much an

echo of the many Darklords themselves as it is a matter

of topography. It has been suggested that in the millennia

since the coming of the Darklords, the Darklands have

shifted to suit the foul entities that hold sovereignty there.

The only beings old enough to truly know are the Shianti

and the Elder Magi, but the former are in exile and the

latter are strangely silent on the matter.

There is also an eldritch power that pervades the Darklands

– one of despair and misery. This land is not simply a

land of evil; it is evil incarnate on Magnamund. The air

is oppressive, acrid and stifling. The ground is soaked in

the blood of innocents and as black and barren as cinders.

There is no direct sunlight, casting everything in an

eternal dusk. More than this, there is a constant presence

that lingers throughout the land. The Darklords call this

‘vaktaga negethrak Naara’ – the Black Will of Naar.

The land itself is like a scar; it resembles the rest of the

healthy world but it is twisted and warped until much of

the geography of the Darklands is hardly recognisable as

land at all. There is very little life in the Darklands that

is not some hideous creation of the Darklords or mutated

into something evil by their mere presence. The touch of

Naar is everywhere and while there might be the extremely

occasional plant or animal in the Darklands, it is very much

endangered and is not likely to last long.

At the heart of this twisted realm lies Helgedad. While

there are many small settlements in the Darklords, none of

them matter to the will of Naar as much as this blackened

mass of spires surrounded by a lake of roiling flames. One

look at this shadow city and the constant vents of fire that

hurtle into the sky and explode amid the thick clouds that

constantly shield it from the sun is enough to make a brave

man weep and rob the hope from any armed force. In its

entire history, Helgedad has never seen military action; no

army has ever ventured close enough to do so.

You will want to close your eyes for a moment. There is not much light out there but it will still be a shock to your

eyes. Oh, I forgot. Let me remove these. There… now you can close your eyes. Ready? Good. I will just pull back

the curtain and give you your first real look at our homeland. Glorious, isn’t it?

Well, I would not expect you to have much of an appreciation for Zhingdarad yet. Hmmm? Oh, that is the name

we use for all you see out there. No, it is not the only name for this great nation but it is the one my people use.

It means… well, that is not really important. All you need to know is that there are many faces to what you would

call the Darklands. Darklands! What a gross oversimplification for our country but I really cannot blame you. As we

discovered yesterday, your kind have a very simple brain. I see the bleeding has stopped. Good.

Now, while you watch the fire vents light up the night sky, I will explain just how complex Zhingdarad really is to you.

I think you will see a whole new ‘Darklands’ when we are through. Of course, this will be the last time you see it with

those primitive human eyes but the principle is the same.

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