The Big Villains Thread

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
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Villain of the Day: March 4  (Archive)

As a librarian, Tina Grant had dedicated her life to the acquisition and preservation of knowledge.  As a burgeoning sorcerer, her mission has not changed...

Tina Grant had not been exposed to the arcane or occult throughout most of her life.  When hired into the University of Megalopolis' Library Special Collections department, she was placed in charge of the Armitage Memorial Book Reserve:  a depository of ancient texts from around the globe.  Always a gifted student and a prolific reader, Tina found her reading speed growing exponentially as she sat in her new position.  Soon, her reading and processing speed baffled both her coworkers and herself--she could easily scan a page for mere seconds, able to recall the words by rote with ease.

In actuality, Tina was a latent Omega; while others gained more flashy abilities, the Isoflux Alpha particles from her water-bottle provided her an absolute eidetic memory coupled with a verbal-linguistic intellect unmeasurable by current rating methods.  This, in and of itself, would be remarkable, had Tina not discovered something strange in the Armitage Reserve.

To the best of her ability, the strange book was a copy of the mysterious Execration Texts, written by Farooq Aman Ali am-Dhaegar, a 6th century Islamic sorcerer responsible for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria while serving under the Caliph Omar 'Amr ibn Al-'As.  The Execration Texts contained a number of powerful spells, including those summoning energy and beings from a realm that am-Dhaegar referred to as "Beyond the Mirrors".  

With that reading, Tina went utterly mad.  The words of the Execration Texts burned in her mind, coupled with an inhuman thirst for additional forbidden knowledge.  However, she was a creature of jealousy.  Tina burned the Armitage copy of the Execration Texts and left that very night.  Taking the name Archive, Tina travels the globe in search of arcane texts and forbidden scrolls.  Each time, upon finding such a text, she destroyed it, ensuring that she could serve as the gatekeeper to all arcane knowledge in perpetuity.

And next on her list?  The lost Tome of Elder Magic, held by the mistress of magic herself, Nightmist...

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"The Execration Texts" is maybe the best name for a tome of dark magic I have ever seen. :D

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Villain of the Day:  March 5 (Apep, the Devourer)

"Why is Ra?"

Since the initial rise of the Ennead and their takeover of Egypt, many scholars have asked just this question.  Why do Ra and the other members of the Ennead exist?  Why this set of deities and not, say, Zeus, Odin, or Coyote?

The answer is as simple as it is terrifying:  Apep.

In centuries past, the sorcerers of ancient Egypt began to draw power from a being now referred to--in the few sources one can find to discuss such a horrific place--as the Cthonic Realms.  Within, there lurked a creature of utter darkness and malevolence, a creature of infinite hunger which desired nothing more than to eat and to be worshipped.  Those misguided souls knew him as The Devourer, Apep, later known as Apophis.

Now, the ruling dynasties of Ancient Egypt were no stranger to superhuman abilities.  Oftentimes, great Pharaohs would, in fact, be metahumans of no small part.  One of them, wielding fire as a weapon, named himself Horus, Lord of the Sun.  Horus led a great purge of the followers of Apep during his rule, pursuing the Teeth of the Devourer across the land, driving them into the desert and into Nubia.  Horus gathered unto himself others like him, bestowing on them titles and wealth for their assistance in destroying the cult of Apep.  Among these were Nephthys, Shu, and the most powerful among them, Atum.

However, the reach of these cultists was long, and Horus and his band were soon at the mercy of the Teeth of the Devourer.  Using a fell ritual, they called upon the might of Apep and stole away the powers of Horus and his Ennead, sealing their strength into weapons that they, themselves could use against their enemies.

The Teeth of the Devourer, though, did not bank upon the might of the average Egyptian soldier.  Horus' chief general--Akhenaten, who later became Pharoah--led a sortie against the Teeth of the Devourer, driving them back into the depths and preventing the cultists from claiming the artifacts that they created.  While Horus and his Ennead died, Akhenaten took those relics and placed them in places of great honor, permitting their power to those who could use them in defense of the Nile and of Egypt.

Since those days, the Teeth of the Devourer have waged a silent war against the various incarnations of Horus.  At times, they seem to vanish; at others, they seem to snuff out any hope of Ra or Horus returning.  At their strongest, they assembled a great library in the depths of Alexandria, hidden beneath the more public library.  Within, they began to assemble a ritual necessary to bring forth Apep from his Cthonic prison.  However, an invasion from nearby Islamic forces crushed their hopes and cost them much in men and power as the library burned.

To this day, Apep thrashes against his bonds in the Cthonic ether.  Someday, when the relics of the Ennead are assembled, the Teeth of the Devourer will crush those bonds and Apep will emerge to devour the sun...

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If there was ever one of your villains I wanted to be canon...

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In case people didn't realize it, this one's actually based on a real event.  Except only 8 people died in our universe's version.

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I know. I grew up in Derry. insert dramatic music riff

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Oh cool!  I live in a small town in Pennsylvania too, so I knew Derry was a real place, which made me curious if that event was real too.

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Villain of the Day:  March 6 (Warcaster Xemox)

In the floating cities of ancient Lemuria, the title of Warcaster was reserved for those few mighty arcanists capable of matching their occult skill with tactical acumen and martial prowess.  The Lemurian Warcasters led the charge as they cast down the now-sunken kingdom of Atlantis, ensuring that floating Lemuria would retain dominion over the Earth for all time.  In times of peace, though, the Warcasters served as the Imperial Vanguard for the Council of the Enlightened.  The Warcaster known as Xemox was not pleased with this lot in life.  He wanted more.

The OblivAeon crisis gave him just that chance.  As the skies burned and their reality was ended--merged with one in which Atlantis never ceded its dominion of the Earth--Xemox called upon a ritual that had been reserved for none but the most scholarly and discerning.  With the other Warcasters leading the charge against OblivAeon in the ur-Space beyond reality, Xemox entered the Council Treasury and absconded with a series of scrolls known as the Lexicon of Enigmas.  There, as the Lemurian capital crumbled to the earth, Xemox enacted a ritual to allow him to traverse the dimensions.

He ended up just outside of Rook City.

Warcaster Xemox has confronted the newfound Sentinels of Freedom numerous times, each time fighting the group of heroes to a stalemate.  Xemox wields a glaive with deadly strength, casting potent discordian spells with naught but a gesture.  However, Xemox has been at his most dangerous when attempting to enact spells from the Lexicon of Enigmas itself.  In each case, a powerful discharge of eldritch energy has been released, leveling buildings and utterly disintegrating any living beings within the wave of power.  These discharges seem far from the results that Xemox seems to be expecting, as each time this happens, he flies into a rage, attacking any present, blaming them for their interference.  

Harpy and the Argent Adept have posited that Xemox, along with Levistus of Thule, have been marooned in this reality following the destruction of OblivAeon.  However, their arcane energies simply do not mesh with the natural ambient magic of this reality's Earth.  Where casters in this reality are attuned to the natural ebb and flow of arcane energy along ley lines, these interdimensional interlopers call upon energies previously unseen, along ley lines that simply don't exist here.  Because Xemox and Levistus are forcing arcane energy along non-existent ley lines--or, worse, overloading the ley lines that do exist--their arcane abilities tend to have unpredicatble, wild results.  

However, while Levistus has sought to pursue this reality's arcane artifacts, Xemox has much more pragmatic aims.  Once he properly transposes the Lexicon of Enigmas into this reality's "lingua arcanum", this world will be his to rule.  Lemuria will rise once more, with Warcaster Xemox upon its throne.

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I was born in Latrobe, but moved to Derry in 5th grade.  My parents own a horse farm there, so I get back into the 724 about twice a year.

Also, for those so interested:  http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_585822.html

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Villain of the Day:  March 7 (The Hitchhiker)

Gerald DuTraitte died for the first time in 1844.

The Caribbean-born son of British landowners in the Virgin Islands, Gerald lived with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.  His father owned and managed a large sugar-cane plantation, with Gerald's elder brother the likely candidate to take over the plantation upon their father's death.  As such, Gerald lived like one with all the money in the world, spending most of his time in debutante balls and gambling halls, drinking and womanizing his way through his sizable inheritance.

One such encounter, however, led to Gerald's first death.  An argument over a game of twenty-one with a Frenchman led to a beachside duel at sun-up; never a great shot nor quick on the draw, Gerald took a pistol shot to the gut.   The Frenchman stood over him as Gerald gasped for air, trying to hold in his innards.  With a derisive snort, Gerald's opponent quipped, "You might be a cheat at cards, but no one manages to cheat death."  Gerald's last words were a two-word reply:  "Watch me."

Gerald's consciousness awoke hours later, though not in the same form as previously.  Looking down, he found himself in the body of a native islander, living in a hovel outside his father's plantation.  Gerald panicked; he could hear the voice of the native somewhere nearby--the former consciousness of his new body imprisoned while he piloted the body like a ship.  Gerald immediately went to go home, but was dismissed almost immediately.  After all, who was this strange person claiming to be Gerald?

Over the decades, Gerald found that he could drift from person to person, suppressing that person's ego while he took control of their body and mannerisms.  While the original consciousness remained aware of what this strange Hitchhiker did within their body, they found the memories hazy and not easily accessed.  If his host body died, he merely would drift through the ether until he could find a new person in which to inhabit.  By 1900, Gerald managed to procure a sizable cache of hard assets, easily accessible through any of his temporary proxies, so long as he was in control of the body itself.  In 1948, Gerald took control of his first metahuman--a Golden Age heroine named Miss Marvelous, capable of superhuman strength and speed.  He spent nearly 15 years inhabiting her body, which explains her abrupt retirement and a sudden interest in the Hollywood social scene

Today, Gerald DuTraitte continues his life of hedonism, drifting from body to body, drinking in all the wealth, gratification, and pleasure he can.  He prefers metahumans over all other subjects, enjoying the increased power held by such individuals.  Detecting the Hitchhiker is difficult enough on its own; the question remains--how do you get him out?

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Villain of the Day:  March 8 (Harold the Many)

Harold Bailey's head is full of demons.

Of course, he wasn't always that way.  Growing up in North Carolina, Harold's childhood was punctuated by tent revivals, summer church picnics, and a home life dominated by his Baptist mother.  Like most teenagers, Henry spent his adolescent years rebelling against his family's influence, dreaming of a life away from his one-horse town, perhaps to that glittering city of Megalopolis.  Upon graduating high school, Harry's wish was about to come true.  He was accepted to University of Connecticut--Megalopolis, into their creative writing program.  Despite his differences in views, his family was proud of him, throwing him a sizable graduation party on the grounds of the family's church.

Enter Amit.  The enigmatic gatekeeper of the underworld has continually worked towards sowing chaos throughout the world and releasing the denizens of the Abyss back into the waking mortal world.  Hoping to establish a fear locus in the American South, Ammit just so happened to release a group of slaving spirits into the cemetary adjoining to a certain North Carolina Churchyard.  And, as fate may have it, Harry happened to have taken a walk through that cemetary to get away from his overbearing relatives.

The abyssal spirits, hungry for blood and marrow, thundered into the graveyard, eager to possess the corpses therein.  Instead, they found Harry.

The denizens of the underworld range in both intelligence and in appearance.  Some are canny and calculating; others are savage and animalistic.  All of them are possessed of a singular desire--if a demon wants something, that demon will stop at nothing until it has the object of its desire.  For the 14 demons that Ammit released, that object was Harry.  The spirits descended upon him with a ravenous hunger, all intending to ride his body, using it for their dark purposes.

As you might figure, being possessed by 14 demonic spirits simultaneously tends to drive one mad.  Locked in conflict with the various demons, Harry has spent the last several years attempting to suppress the spirits as best he can, to little avail.  Each time a new demon takes ascendence in his consciousness, its personality overpowers the others, exhibiting a whole new set of abilities, personality quirks, and more.

The most domininant spirits within Harry are known as Baalphregor and Thall-Unturbek.  Baalphregor manifests as a brash, domineering demon who craves destruction and bloodshed.  It tends to favor traditionally demonic powers:  flight on bat-like wings that sprout from Harry's back, gouts of hellfire, and bloodstained talons.  Thaal-Unturbek, conversely, reveles in temptation, corruption, and decay.  As Thaal-Unturbek, Harry gains a dessicating touch and the ability to teleport through mirrored surfaces.

To this day, Harold the Many still strains and struggles against the 14 interlopers in his mind.  On the rare occasion that Harry regains control, he unfailingly contacts the Sentinels of Freedom, hoping that he can be captured and contained.  However, each time he has contacted them, one of his inner demons takes control, resulting in a phenomenal clash of sorcery and might.  One such clash utterly leveled the suburbs north of Richmond, Virginia, while another left the harbors of Baltimore decimated.  The only hero to have managed to make it to Harry has ben the new Legacy, who managed to lay a single hand upon his shoulder, before he lost control once more, tears streaming from his black, brimstone-limned eyes.

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Villain of the Day:  March 9 (The Plague Doctor)

Dr. Marcus Nicholson doesn't believe in the supernatural.

A noted emergency physician at Overbrook Medical Centers, Nicholson has been witness to all manner of weirdness in Rook City, but any time that he has been confronted with something of arcane origin, he has done his best to come up with a 'rational explanation'.  In some cases, this has been entirely plausible:  tentacular wounds attributed to an aggravated rope-burn, cases of blindness brought on by radical sudden-onset hysteria.  His own abilities, however, have totally befuddled him.

Nicholson was on third shift late one night, when an two orderlies came charging into his wing with a patient on a gurney.  Catching just a glimpse as they rushed past, Nicholson reflexively gagged:  the patient's face and exposed skin were a tumorous mass of cysts, one of which actively moved as Nicholson watched.  The doctor shook his head, unbelieving, and the orderlies dashed through a set of double-doors.  Snapping to, Nicholson chased after them, "Wait, where are you...?"

As Marcus passed through the double-doors after the orderlies, the place in which he found himself was something of a horrific reflection of Overbrook Medical.  Hacked doors hung from rusted hinges, the muffled sobs of the agonized dying filled the air, and a pale green glow dimly lit the whole area.  Nicholson skidded to a stop.  Turning around, the door behind him was gone.  Ahead of him, the orderlies rushed their patient into a surgical arena, and Nicholson chased swiftly after.  Inside the arena, Nicholson found no trace of the orderlies; rather, only the patient remained, writhing on the table.  As Nicholson moved to examine her, she let loose a hideous scream, bursting into a pustulent mass of ichor and bile...and everything went black.

Marcus awoke on the floor of an unoccupied ER room back in Overbrook Medical.  Three nurses, two orderlies, and a security guard clustered around him; a nurse asked him, "Doctor, are you okay?  You collapsed in the hall, screaming!"  Nicholson attempted to explain himself, but none of the individuals on duty nor any other patients claimed to have seen anything that he related.  Citing exhaustion, Marcus headed home to get some rest.

Over the next few weeks, though, something changed in Marcus.  He found himself with able to perform miraculous treatments:  simply by standing near a patient, he could cure their disease...at the cost of physically taking it onto himself, in the form of a grotesque cyst somewhere on his body.  However, just as easily, he could pass on that disease to an unwitting person, simply by touching that person.  Marcus knew there was no scientific explanation for this; this was something entirely new...

Since that day, Marcus has spiraled quickly into madness.  He believes himself dealing out something of vigilante justice, literally stealing the diseases from those in his emergency room and inflicting them onto those he believes deserving.  Donning the mask of The Plague Doctor, these infections have only grown more virulent and powerful, often resulting in hospitalization and death from conditions that began as innocuous as a mild fever or sinus infection.  Nicholson, meanwhile, only views this as an enhancement for his powers.  Soon, he'll simply start to spread...

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Harold the Many sounds like a really fun character to play around with.

Having a doctor be the one to get the Plague Doctor's powers pretty much makes him as dangerous as possible.  Makes me wonder it that was just bad luck, or if someone/something planned that...

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Villain of the Day: March 10 (Miriam Keziah Whateley)

The Overbrook Sanitarium has one notable blemish on its long and storied history. That blemish is Miriam Whateley. Born to a noted family from Arkham, Miriam's parents were both cultists of Gloomweaver, who fled Massachusetts when police activity started to expose a series of thefts at University of Boston at Arkham. Moving to Rook City, her parents soon worked to establish a cult chapter in Rook City's south side. In fact, Miriam's parents were directly responsible for creating Missy the Maw... directly in front of poor little Miriam.

Her parents slain by a partially manifested eldritch horror, Miriam became a ward of the state, bouncing from foster home to foster home for years. Each time, her foster parents noted that Miriam was quiet, sullen, and ill at ease, complaining of strange noises behind the walls of her bedroom. Over time, her outpatient therapy proved to be insufficient, and she was remanded to Overbrook. There in Overbrook, Miriam first entered the Cthonic realms. Claiming that she was taught to escape by a creature called Brown Jenkin, Miriam soon started to threaten staff members, attacking orderlies with savage bites and even a stolen hypodermic needle. Three staff members chose to leave Overbrook sooner than deal with the unruly preteen.

The day Miriam turned 18 was a day soaked in blood. Miriam burst free from her cell, raving of "the world behind the mirrors" and of her devotion to one Shan-Ehwhar, the Broken One. Flinging aside medical equipment with eldritch force, she fled into the Rook City night... Fourteen patients were injured, two more killed, during Miriam's escape. Most frightening of all, though, was Miriam's nurse, David, who remained partially eaten in her cell.

Still living, trying to hold on his innards before breathing his last, David gasped, "I see it... the world behind the walls... it's beautiful..."

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Villain of the Day:  March 11 (Mother)

"Mama's gonna make all of your nightmares come true...  / Mama's gonna put all of her fears into you..."

It was never meant to be this way.  Lydia Montauk was never meant to live this way.  She'll tell you that, herself.  However, during Apostate's attack on a mega-church in Kentucky, something happened to Lydia.  Something unspeakable.

Lydia was pregnant with her fourth child when Apostate rained down hellfire and brimstone onto the Sacred Cross Temple and Sacristy.  Her first child was born during her senior year in high school; that same year, she married Daryl, a construction worker who had graduated two years ahead of her.  She'd spent most of the next five years pregnant and as a homemaker, though that suited her just fine.  Her mother was a homemaker, and she rather enjoyed taking care of the kids while her husband hung drywall and mixed concrete.

While the Prime Wardens managed to thwart Apostate, driving him off, the cost in lives was high.  Over forty people died in the packed pews; another 87 were injured, many severely  One of Apostate's demonic servants crushed Daryl against a marble pillar.  Little Ollie and Jerry fell beneath the shards of a crystal chandelier, while Lydia clung to two year old Lisa.  However, Lydia locked eyes with the one-winged angel, and something inside her...changed.

Daryl's life insurance policy managed to keep the lights on in Lydia's trailer, though she was a woman consumed by her grief.  Spending nearly all her time in her bed, Lydia became sedentary and corpulent.  Child and Family Services began investigating Lydia after she failed to pick up little Lisa numerous times from her daycare, finding the child living in filth and disaster.  

That's when Lydia gave birth.

However, when Lydia locked eyes with Apostate so many months prior, it opened her mind up to the vast array of The Host.  And, with her husband and sons literally dying in front of her, Lydia was immediately set upon by a spirit of Grief.  That spirit changed her, altered her, seeing her pregnancy as a way to manifest the multitude horrors that Lydia had lived through.

The thing that became Lydia's fourth child had no name, nor did it resemble anything remotely human.  The foul, slavering being set upon the CFS agents, tearing them to shreds.  Lydia, now well over 500 pounds, fled the trailer, with her new 'child' in tow....but the horrors did not stop there.

Lydia, fully enmeshed with the spirit of Grief, has become nothing short of the Mother of monsters.  Each creature she births is a strange and foul reflection of her unresolved sorrow and her rage at the travails that fate has dealt her.  And while Lydia herself might be able to be talked down, the spirit of Grief within her certainly cannot...

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Well that's disturbing.

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Villain of the Day:  March 12 (The Redblade)

The circles of the occult only rarely speak of The Redblade, and even then, only in hushed whispers.  The Redblade is a mage-hunter, his motives as simple as this:  magic must end, and those who wield it must die.

Clad in a long coat and a full face-mask, The Redblade takes his nom de plume from his signature weapon:  a red-steel blade, capable of cleaving through any arcane barrier or defense like shears through silk.  While The Redblade prefers this weapon, his arsenal contains weapons of both technological might and occult power.  Some say he carries a silenced pistol, loaded with the bullets melted down from Judas Iscariot's thirty pieces of silver.  Others claim to have seen him wielding two swords--his signature red-steel blade and Joyeuse, the mythical blade of Charlegmagne.  Still others claim to have seen such forbidden relics as the Chains of Carcosa, The Right Hand of Doom, grenades capable of shearing open miniature dimensional gateways, and the arcane focus known as Maerlyn's Grapefruit.  

The Redblade is methodical and thorough, preferring to stalk his arcanist prey for days before choosing the appropriate time to strike.  Skilled in stealth and surveillance, The Redblade treats a hunt much as he treats combat, using a combination of scrying spells and modern surveillance techniques in tandem to learn his prey's habits, only striking when they are most vulnerable.  Now and again, The Redblade will assault a full group; some believe that The Redblade is single-handedly responsible for destroying the Cult of Gloom sect in Kingsport, where they had been entrenched for over 200 years.  

The true identity of The Redblade is a mystery--no degree of scrying has been able to determine his name and no force in any known dimension has been able to truly locate any records about him.  His full, red face mask immediately bears resemblance to that of the late Jack Donovan, though The Redblade exhibits none of Spite's mania.  The only current clue as to The Redblade's name came from a chance encounter with the Time-Slinger, formerly known as Chrono-Ranger.  When The Redblade attempted to assassinate The Harpy, Time-Slinger managed to interrupt the attempted murder, slowing down time just long enough to tear away a portion of the stranger's coat.  Inside the torn section, a label read: Hubert & Sons Leather Goods, Ponderosa Pine, New Mexico....just a few miles away from the site upon which Silver Gulch once stood.

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...Oh tell me they're related. XD

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Villain of the Day:  March 13  (Kommandant Diederich Siegwalt)

The year is 1940.  Doctor Diederich Siegwalt sits at the head of a conference table.  A long scroll lays before him, an archaic map of Europe crawled upon its surface, labeled in spiky, Arabic penmanship.  Several aides cluster around the table, arguing over various points.  The Furher's war has begun in earnest. Shells fall upon London like rain.  France is all but under the heel of the Third Reich.  However, Siegwalt and his Seltsammacht have set their sights outside of Europe as we know it.  Siegwalt has found the legendary Thule.

The year is 1943.  The tide of the war has begun to turn.  The German military now faces the once-dormant American juggernaut.  Rommel has been driven from Africa.  Mussolini is on the verge of being outsted.  The Furher, if he was ever sane, has begun a sharp descent into mania, dispatching additional naval forces to escort Kommandant Siegwalt to the midst of the Atlantic Ocean.  There, upon the wine-dark sea, Siegwalt began to chant the words from am-Dhaegar's thousand-year old scroll.  A craggy island arises from the depths.  Siegwalt and a handful of his most elite Seltsammacht take a single motorized boat ashore.  Four hours pass.  The island sinks once more.  Siegwalt is not seen again, and the Seltsammacht dissolves.

The time is incalculable.  Siegwalt and his men make their way into a cavern beneath the mysterious crag that Siegwalt maintains is the gateway to Thule.  His men grow nervous, hands drifting to sidearms and rifles.  Before them stands a massive stone doorway, a strange glowing seal stamped across it.  Siegwalt raises his arms, chanting in a language that leaves his men screaming in agony as his words echo through their minds.  The seal flares with energy, flying towards Siegwalt.  The Kommandant raises his arms, but to no avail--the seal buries itself in his forehead, its glow changing from a sickly green to a rust red.  His men, flung aside from the flare of energy, begin screaming, as their life energy visibly flows out of them and into Siegwalt.  As the Seltsammacht wither and die, the door to Thule opens.  Siegwalt walks through and vanishes.

The time is two months ago.  The Brandenburg Gate is full of tourists, all dead.  One man, dressed in the uniform of an SS officer, emerges from the center of the courtyard, with a glowing metal seal implanted in his forehead.  Life energy streams into him, lending him strength, agility, and durability.  A police officer moves to strike the interloper, who ducks underneath a billy-club strike, flinging the officer against one of the pillars, breaking his back.  The stranger dashes off into the depths of the city, vanishing before he can attract further attention.

The time is now.  The St. Gallen Abbey Library in Switzerland is robbed, its map room ransacked.  Kommandant Siegwalt emerges, his destination clear...

 

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Villain of the Day:  March 14 (Albemarle)

Albemarle dictionaries are arcane tomes, hidden in plain sight through the act of hiding one text within another.  Possibly used by arcanists in centuries past to hide their tomes from witch-hunters, Albemarle dictionaries have been passed from person to person for years, with many not realizing their true nature.  On occasion, however, the incantations within such a book take on a life of their own. Perhaps this comes with the nature of the magics themselves.  Historians and scholars disagree as to what gives these magics sentience, but both agree:  Insinuating magics can quite literally take on a life of their own.  Sorcerers, beware a spell come to life.

Sister Rebecca Buchanan was one victim of such a creation, having found an Albemarle dictionary in amongst the church hymnals at St. Aloyisus on the Cross.  The spell within set her aflame in the church sacristy.  Immolating, she found herself unable to extinguish the fire as it consumed her.  Rebecca died in the streets, none knowing the true cause, until some mystically-aligned heroes began to investigate.  Shockingly, the hymnal itself was nowhere to be found.

Harpy has attempted to catalogue all known Albemarle dictionaries, to little avail.  Each time she locates one, two more seem to pop up.

Would-be arcanists prize Albemarle dictionaries as a quick short-cut to power.  If one were to fall into the hands of a caster like Levistus of Thule or Warcaster Xemox, though, the damage might be untold.  Legend speaks of a whole library of these texts, hidden away in africa.  Lost cities may be have risen and fallen based upon the incantations within these books.

Rook City's Dark Watch, under Harpy's supervision, has begun an all-out manhunt for any who may be associated with using an Albemarle dictionary.  Identifying these tomes has been difficult, as time must be taken to decode each text in a different manner.  Such work is tedious and difficult, thwarting all but the most skilled cryptologists and translators.  Even still, if these tomes remain on the streets, none may be safe for long.