d20 Mongoose Publishing Infernum Volume II - Book of the Tormentor.pdf - Mongoose Publishing - R5700

Contents

Gareth Hanrahan

Credits

Contents

Editor

Richard Ford

The Breaker of Oaths

Cover Art

Tony Parker

Introduction

Logo & Cover Design

Anne Stokes

History 12

Interior Illustrations

Eric Bergeron, Chaminou, Ryan Horvath, Kythera,

Tony Parker, Gillian Pearce, Chad Sergesketter,

Christophe Swal

Infernography

Studio Manager

Ian Barstow

Factions & Powers

Production Director

Alexander Fennell

Adversaries

172

Proofreading

Ron Bedison, Mark Lewin, Sarah Quinnell

Campaigning

235

Playtesters

Tanya Bergen, Mark Billanie, Andre Chabot, Mark

Gedak, Tammy Gedak, Robert Hall, Daniel Haslam,

Mark Howe, Trevor Kerslake, Patrick Kossmann,

Kent Little, Alan Marson, Alan Moore, Murray

Perry, Daniel Scothorne, Mark Sizer, Sam Vail,

Michael J Young

Index

254

License 256

Open Game Content & Copyright Information

Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden.

Infernum – Book of the Tormentor is presented under the Open Game Licence. See page 256 for the text of the

Open Game Licence. All text paragraphs and tables containing game mechanics and statistics derivative of Open

Game Content are considered to be Open Game Content. All other signiﬁ cant characters, names, places, items, art

The Breaker of Oaths

THE BREAKER

OF OATHS

Pandemonium, Ninth Circle of

Hell. 1 st Inferno, Ninth Hour of the

Witching.

With a roar, the Oblurott cavalry charged. Huge spawn

with plates of bone bolted to their hides lumbered

down the slope. Oblurott demons with lances and bile

riﬂ es clung to their ﬂ anks, their eyes grimly ﬁ xed on

the Sturrach lines. The ranks of the Sturrach lowered

their guns; ﬁ ve hundred hellcannons, bile riﬂ es and

shatterguns were levelled at the rushing cavalry.

Crowded into the narrow valley, there was no chance

of missing.

‘It’s ambitious.’

The demon Beleg spoke quietly, and kept to the

shadows cast by the eerie towers of Pandemonium.

A talisman of warding against magical surveillance

hung from one horn, and it had Covenanted guards

watching every approach to the meeting place. Still,

it glanced nervously up at the clouds above, as if

expecting a legion of ﬁ ends to descend upon it.

The Sturrach commander barked the order to ﬁ re.

The result was less than impressive, as guns choked

by congealing fat misﬁ red or exploded in the hands

of their users.

‘Of course it’s ambitious. Audacious would perhaps

be a better description.’ The second conspirator’s

voice was loud and conﬁ dent. He had no fear of

discovery; his current body would be discarded in a

gutter as soon as their conversation was over.

The bulk of the Oblurott cavalry smashed into the

Sturrach line. Lancers skewered ﬂ esh and armour

with equal ease, while a burst of bile riﬂ e ﬁ re seared

and melted the thick hides of the Sturrach brutes.

The spawn added their terrible strength to the melee,

‘If you can do it, then you can call it whatever you want.

Have the heralds trumpet it from the rooftops, or have

some lickspittle prattler write a play commemorating

your glorious victory.’

‘That might raise some suspicions.’

‘Because none of the rest of it will.’ Beleg shook its

beaked head. ‘Very well. We’ll make the attempt. At

the very least, we’ll kill many while failing dismally.’

‘One must have faith, after all.’

Valley of Gyash, Fourth Circle of

Hell. 23 rd Inferno, First Hour of

Daylight.

The attack came at dawn. Globules of boiling fat were

spat from Oblurott artillery on the hillside, raining

down on the Sturrach positions. The fat seared ﬂ esh

and reduced a few of the damned outriders to pools of

sticky plasm, but the demon warriors who made up

the core of the army shrugged off the attack. Fat ran

off their iron armour in sickly gobbets.

The Breaker of Oaths

their huge teeth and claws slashing at the demons

beneath them. The Bloody Army was not broken by

this assault – their discipline and their pride carried

their front lines bravely into death – but they were

pinned down by the charge, giving the Oblurott foot

troops time to push into the valley and encircle the

Sturrach lines. By the time the Sturrach hulks had

torn the spawn cavalry to pieces, there were hundreds

of armoured Oblurott warriors ready to join the ﬁ ght.

hood ornament of her car as a talisman around his

neck, which still made her laugh. He reminded her so

much of some bizarre infernal Tarzan, with his naive

earnestness and wild appearance – and here she was,

a shotgun-toting Jane in Hell. That thought made her

laugh too.

She treasured funny thoughts. The alternative

viewpoint was skulking in the corridor ahead of them

– a drawn and tattered soul, little more than a wisp of

ectoplasm with a scarred face. It had been tortured

for so long it had quite forgotten its own mortal name.

It now called itself Leaven, when it wasn’t moaning

and clawing its own eyes out over and over again.

It beckoned to them and whispered in a voice like a

scratched record.

The wars of the demons are surreal nightmares.

They are fought with sword and claw, but also with

mutation and hellbroth. Agony-crazed berserkers

danced through the carnage, their bodies healing

ecstatically as swiftly as they were injured. Swarms

of shrunken imps buzzed like ﬂ ies around the heads

of larger combatants, vying for possession. Demons

tore each other apart with tentacles or broke the minds

of their foes with psychic assaults or spat gore and

hellﬁ re in each other’s faces.

‘I can feel it, like a… wind through me. It’s not far.

Come.’

The Sturrach troops were hardier and better trained;

the Oblurotts had greater numbers and a superior

tactical position. In the iron-hard skulls of the Sturrach

warriors, combat glands pulsed a chemical analysis of

the tactical situation and they all instinctively knew

they were doomed unless reinforcements arrived.

Fal shrugged, drew his sword and followed the

damned soul deeper into the tunnel.

‘Lead on, Gollum,’ she muttered and hurried to catch

up. Shit. She’d never see the third one of those

movies now.

A single Sturrach ﬁ end broke out of the melee and

shot into the skies, its mighty wings carrying it swiftly

over the mountains.

Gardens of the Palace of Salt,

Seventh Circle of Hell, 2 nd Inferno,

13 th Hour of the Day.

The Tunnels, Beneath the Third

Circle of Hell. Approximately 2 nd

Inferno, Hour Unknown.

She was a succubus of House Riethii and therefore

a living weapon, as tempered as any sword. The

delights she promised were more lethal than any

wound from blade or gun; she could subvert a foe,

make him beg for her touch, make him her creature

with nothing more than a smile from her perfect lips.

Her masters in House Riethii had trained her in their

arts, augmented her with their magics and ensured

her demonic form had blossomed with the devilish

beauty she was heir to. She was to have been the

perfect weapon.

‘Are we lost?’

Fal of the Branded shook his head. ‘No. These tunnels

are unmappable. They change with the passage of the

hellworms.’

‘I’m going to take that as a yes, if you don’t mind.’

Annabel stopped to take a drink from her waterskin.

She didn’t feel especially thirsty and wondered if that

was due to the time-sapping effect of the tunnels or

just because she’d grown used to toil and suffering

without water. Unlike her companions, she was a

newcomer to Hell, drawn in by a hellgout scarcely six

months before.

The trouble with living weapons, of course, was that

they have minds and wills of their own. She could

not have resisted her masters’ orders while they lived,

of course – the Covenants they had laid on her would

have ensured that. Amusingly, the assassin who freed

her from their bonds did it out of crazed love for

her; back then she’d been incapable of even thinking

disloyal thoughts.

That had been a fun ride. One wrong turn and she’d

driven into the underworld. Fal was wearing the

Now, she was free. She called herself Dancer. The

price on her pretty head was quite staggering; Purity

himself, it was rumoured, had vowed to peel the skin

The Breaker of Oaths

from her body and parade her through the Riethii

gardens before her execution. For her to return to

the Seventh Circle was a great risk, but she could

not resist. Desires like lust and addiction she could

control with perfect precision, but tweaking the

noses of her former masters – she was helpless when

tempted by pure malice.

when its gaze passed over her again. Again and

again, she moved forward when not being watched

and pretended to be an unmoving statue when she

was.

She arrived at the edge of the road just as a carriage

rumbled by.

Current fashion among the Riethii called for modest,

concealing clothing at social balls; an affectation of

course, but one that would be religiously followed

by the House until the next craze caught on. Dancer

preferred the traditional garb of the succubi; she was

naked beneath her black cloak.

The guard blinked seven of its eight eyes. It could

have sworn there had been a salt statue on the roadside

a moment ago…

Free City of Dis, Sixth Circle of

Hell, 5 th Inferno, 3 rd Hour of the

Witching.

Carriages approached the Palace of Salt along a

road of skulls. She watched them rattle along the

road, passing by dark gardens decorated with frozen

white statues and pillars of salt. At the end of the

road was a low wall and a guard post that lead to the

inner gardens. A guard stood atop the wall, scanning

the road and gardens for intruders. Dancer started

creeping forward, staying low to the ground, then

reconsidered. When none of the guard’s dozen eyes

were facing her, she cast off the cloak and darted

forward, freezing into position next to a salt statue

‘Citizen, you have been called for–’

A tail, tipped with a spiked sphere of bone, shot out

and smashed the Respected Civil Agent in the left

face. The right head continued talking.

‘–Public Service for a term of one month. The nature

of this service has been–’

The tail lashed out again, stunning the right head,

but the left head spat broken teeth from its bloodied

mouth and took over.

‘–determined by the City Council of Dis to be military

service on the walls of the city. For assault on a Duly

Bonded Agent of the City, this term of Public Service

has been extended to three–’

Smash.

‘–Nine months. Further resistance may result in an

extension of your Public Service… you stinking puke

stain. Hit me again and you’ll do your service on the

walls without limbs, let alone a wormy tail.’

The tailed demon stopped thrashing and collapsed

back into the gutter, clutching its assignment papers.

It began to snivel pathetically. The two-headed slaver

turned to the rest of its Public Service Committee.

‘Right lads. That’s the last of the war heroes. Now

just grab…’ It consulted the list of those needed for

service. ‘Grab half a dozen dead and tell ‘em they’ve

got a date with a torturer.’

‘Iliaster Rectiﬁ cation Specialist, sarge. The Council

says ‘torturer’ is a demeaning term. We’re not

torturing ‘em, we’re helping them actualise their

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