Cruel, barbaric, and infused with the blood of demons. The First Darkness lives again!
Introduction
Centuries ago, a great shaman of an eastern human tribe of the Loth K’har fell to darkness and became a pawn of the Ynfernael. His name was Llovar Rutonu, and he destroyed his people. Under his influence, barbaric warriors of the Uthuk drank the blood of demons, then spread the taint throughout the Loth K’har by means of depraved blood rites. Soon, the Loth K’har were gone; only the Uthuk Y’llan remained. Their new name meant Locust Swarm in the language of the plains people, and it was a name the Uthuk earned in blood. When Llovar took his hordes west with their Ynfernael allies, it was the beginning of Mennara’s First Darkness.
Ultimately, the First Darkness was defeated by an alliance of all the free peoples of Mennara and the great wizard Timmorran Lokander. The Uthuk Y’llan were broken, then hunted down and destroyed...or so it was believed.
In truth, some of the Uthuk escaped Timmorran’s armies into the Ru Steppes. Their bodies had been twisted and tainted by the demon blood that runs through their veins, and that curse or gift has been passed down for generations. The Uthuk are now something both more and less than human. Faster and stronger than any mortal man, their bodies are twisted by spurs of bone that sprout from their flesh. These spurs are a source of pride to the Uthuk warriors, a mark of the strength in their blood. The Uthuk have grown strong once more in the demon-tainted wastelands that were once the home of the Loth K’har. Their warriors hunt and tame the feral demons of that land, and drink their blood, renewing the ancient compact with the Ynfernael. The warlocks and blood sisters cast the bones and seek omens in the entrails of their prey, prophesying a time when the Uthuk Y’llan will rise again to cover the world like locusts.
Now they gather in great, but secret, warbands and strike out into the civilized lands, killing or enslaving all they find. Only when they are numbered enough to reveal their presence will their assault on the west begin in earnest. The devastation they leave in their wake is dismissed as the work of brigands or rogue orcs, for few are willing to contemplate the truth: the Uthuk Y’llan have returned, and a new darkness comes with them.
Lords of the Ru
East beyond the careful watch of Hernfar Isle in Terrinoth's northeast, and as far south as the edge of the Aymhelin, the sun-bleached steppes of the Ru gleam across the wide Lothan River. Stretching as far into the east as anyone has dared to range, the inhospitable Darklands are home to the vicious demon-worshiping tribes of the Uthuk Y'llan. The parched ground of that realm has known more blood than rain throughout its shadowed history.
Somewhere within the unending wastes is said to be the dreaded Black Citadel, the mythic fortress purportedly constructed by Llovar Rutonu with the blood and bones of captives taken during the First Darkness.
Nothing but harsh scrub and thorny trees grow in the Ru Steppes. Fell energies leach from hidden valleys containing rifts into the Ynfernael itself. Once the Ru was a sea of wild grasses from horizon to horizon, but the foul touch of dark masters has corrupted the land, rendering what was once green now brown and sere. Today, to venture into the Ru is to take your life into your hands. If its howling, blood-starved creatures do not kill you, the land most certainly will. Worse, dark rumors forebode the return of an ancient enemy from unknown exile in the distant east.
Rise of the Locust Swarm
Llovar was a shaman of the Loth K'har, or "Dream Walkers." On the night that Timmorran, son of Llovar's brother Llander, was born, the dark shaman embraced the evil which would forever stain the Uthuk. Some scholars suggest that Timmorran's magic was the antithesis to the darkness wrought by Llovar that night.
And what darkness it was. After wiping out or annexing all rival Loth K'har tribes, Llovar's horde became known as the Uthuk Y'llan, or "Locust Swarm." A bonewitch named Q'aro Fenn purportedly attended and advised him, and reference to others in Llovar's court may be found scattered across the histories: Melinesh the Terrible, Nashaia, Da'Roul Bonesplicer, and Kul. Corrupted and bodily twisted by Llovar's demonic magic, the Uthuk Y'llan set their sights on the west and began a bloody invasion of Talindon, the Dunwarr Mountains, and even the eastern eaves of the Aymhelin. Combined with the dread might of the Orcs and the revenants from the Misty Hills, the Uthuk threatened to consume and destroy all. Thus began the First Darkness.
The realms of humankind, elves, and dwarves stood against Llovar's hordes as well as they could, but all seemed destined for collapse. Yet, as the hour grew darkest, Timmorran returned to Talindon from his hiding place in the Sunderlands to stand against his kinsman's onslaught. He brought with him powerful allies such as Ashan the Elder, and Waiqar Sumarion.
After much effort and much tragedy, including the end of House Penacor of Talindon, the tide of the Uthuk Y'llan was slowly turned. After years-long struggle, the war came to its climax as the remnant forces of the free lands clashed with Llovar's great host at the charnel pit known to history as the Battle of the Locusts. This was where Timmorran slew Llovar, and that battle is believed to mark the end of the First Darkness. The Host of Thorns, gathered to the dark shaman's banner, was shattered once its leader fell.
Some exaggeration must be assumed in the later retellings of this event. Since all surviving documents agree that the demonic host could have wiped out the lands of the humans, elves, and dwarves, the idea that slaying a single man ended the threat seems romantic at best. On the other hand, it is well understood in scholastic circles that the runebound shards are but fragments of a magical orb of power wrought by Timmorran. If Llovar had power on a similar scale, then one can only be glad he was cast down, so that the darkness could be destroyed.
Passage into Legend
Llovar's followers have not been heard from since the end of the First Darkness and the scouring of the Ru that occurred in the years that followed the Battle of the Locusts. Just fifty years ago, the Wizard Rhys performed a study of the Ru, but he was unable to confirm the existence of the old enemy, nor any significant population to speak of. Despite no record remaining of where Llovar was taken after he fell in battle, the most respected scholars believe that the seeds and legacy of the First Darkness has passed from the world into legend - Llovar's people, the demon-tainted lineage of the Loth K'har, no longer exist.
Some recent observations of the Ru have yielded reports of Uthuk sightings. This news is widely dismissed in Greyhaven as mere gangs of bandits or perhaps isolated groups of savages that may have taken refuge in those forsaken lands. The true Locusts, the Y'llan, were arrogant in their power, their numbers legion, and they were accompanied not only by bloodthirsty witches and warlocks, but by powerful Ynfernael Demons. Not a single reliable report of true blood sorcery or the presence of demons can be found today.
If the impossible did happen, if the terrors of the First Darkness were to return, the Baronies of Daqan would almost assuredly fall. It was said that the Uthuk's numbers were so great, they blackened the land like a blight on a field of grain. Demons as tall as castles attended the commands of the Uthuk lords. On top of that, their strength was beyond that of mortals, and injuring them only seemed to increase their power thanks to their foul blood magic. Indeed, humanity must be grateful this threat on its existence lives on only in books, for today there are none as great as Timmorran, and such Ynfernael powers as wielded by the Uthuk would destroy all.
Ynfernael Sorcery
Llovar Rutonu doomed his entire people when he struck a pact with the demons that had called to him from a forgotten Ynfernael rift. As Llovar's corruption bled into the great eastern plains, it seeped into his people, and the very bodies of the nomadic tribesmen would twist and change as talon-like bone-spurs grew to protrude blasphemously from their skulls and bodies.
In some, the malignancies became the fuel for the dark Uthuk magic so feared on the battlefield; bonewitches could twist the bones of their followers into weapons or break the bones of their enemies. Bloodwitches could heal themselves and their minions with the spilled blood of their enemies, or sing their foes' blood to boiling in their veins.
But the true might of the Uthuk's power lay in the demons that march with their hordes. According to the writings of Brother Ayden of Vynelvale, demons and other Ynfernael abominations manifested through dark rituals performed in secret by warlocks, likely involving blood sacrifice. The more cunning demons could wield powerful sorcery of their own, while the chaos lords acted as siege weapons or assault forces to break through defenses. In battle, these demons were rare but nigh invincible, and they inspired terror in any who gazed upon their horrible forms.
Warlords and Warbands
The Uthuk Y'llan hordes differed from the Orcish tribes of the Broken Plains in the rage and bloodlust of their warbands. To herald their own arrival, the Uthuk carried not banners, but grisly pikes adorned with the bones and scraps of their victims. Fueled by bloodshed and dark magic, Uthuk attacks were especially devastating against the peasants and general citizenry. Unlike most military forces, which would attempt to capture resources, the Uthuk Y'llan seemed to revel in sowing suffering, fear, and despair. They left only blackened soil and ash in the wake of their hordes. Survivors who begged for mercy were slaughtered or taken prisoner to be tortured or used in rites of blood or bone.
The Uthuk hosts seemed fueled by the death and fear they sowed, not as one, but as dozens of war hosts. They were as likely to prey on each other as to do battle with armies of humans and their allies. The demon-touched barbarians looked to the strongest among them for leadership. Tension often existed between the strongest warriors or the demon wranglers of a warhost, and the host's shamans and witches, who drew their powers from the Ynfernael.
What the warriors lacked in magical prowess, they made up for in their sheer speed and ferocity. The berserkers served as the shock troops, seemingly undeterred by any attempt to stop them. Archers from the Viper Legion tipped their arrows with the heads of snakes to deliver painful poisons. Massive Obscenes paved the way for the ensuing blood bath, their corpulent forms capable of withstanding blow after blow from an entire unit of infantry. Nipping at their heels were the fearsome Flesh Rippers, beasts the colour of blood that would kill and consume all in their path.
The weapons carried by the Uthuk Y'llan were curved, barbed, and wicked-looking; they were usually fashioned out of bone or some mysterious, dark metal. The hordes clad themselves in harnesses of leather and bone - both animal and human - to strike terror into the hearts of their victims, and to let the blood from the hordes' wounds fuel their leaders' evil sorcery. In some cases, it was impossible to tell whether the spikes protruding from the barbarians were a part of their armor, or instead some by-product of their corruption. The strange foci of the bonewitches, fashioned from horn and fang and claw, could be horrifyingly potent, and the demons summoned from the Ynfernael wielded eldritch weapons of their own.
References
- Rune Age
- Runewars Miniatures Game