Malificant:
The Dawi-Zharr of The Underworld Passage
There is a dark legend among both the Dawi-Zharr and the Karak Dawi of the west, a legend of an army of restless dead-not under the command of an evil necromancer or vampire, but returned from death by their own willpower. This is their story…
An army of Dawi-Zharr warriors, having broken and routed an invading force of the northlands, plunged deep into the heart of the chaos wastes in hot pursuit. Their leader, Dread Lord Torgut the Malificant, would bear no force having knowlege of passage into his realms. His men were fiercely loyal to Torgut, willing to follow their leader to their death…and back. The northmen fled into the very heart of the wastes, to the vortex of chaos, praying to their gods for aid. Torgut’s headstrong nature got the best of him, and he moved his men in for the kill. Just then, the northmen’s gods answered their calls. The vortex of pure chaos energy becan to pulse in and out, and suddenly swelled to engulf all of both forces. Torgut and his men were consumed, cast into the vile darkness of chaos.
In this abyss, Torgut and his forces were subjected to all of the unimaginable horrors of chaos. Lesser beings would have given in to dispair and perished, allowed their sould to be consumed and their bodies possessed. Torgut fought. His men fought. They waged a war of spirit against the amassed forces of The Four, on their ground, in their domain. Daemonic energy fought to warp and twist their bodies. they resisted. Daemonic fires consumed their flesh. They fought on. Daemons vied to possess their bodies and devour their souls, but Torgut’s borthers were masters of daemon binding and flesh weaving. Gaala and Baalbound the daemons to each soldiers own spirit as the forces of chaos fought to push their souls out. now those daemons foolish enough to attempt possession were trapped. under the superior willpower of the Dawi-Zharr. This daemonic energy sustained them; it did not manifest itself as horrible mutations or daemonic power, merely resiliance. Somehow Torgut’s men were more than immortal now-they were Undying. It is such that they drew the Four to a stalemate.
In and eruption of anger and frustration The Four violently expelled Torgut and his men from the Realm of Chaos, inflicting ungodly pain and suffering upon each and every one of their undying bodies. When they emerged, they found themselves in a land much like their own-only on the other end of the world, the other side of the great mountains. Torgut had arrived in The Old World. The volcanic mountain was amiss in this land-sheltered in a mountain range much unlike itself. It was as though the mountain itself was corrupted by their expulsion from the Realms of Darkness, warped by The Four into this volcanic wasteland. Torgut surveyed his forces that had survived. The Dawi Zharr had been changed; charred beards hung from skeletal faces devoid of flesh or muscle, daemon fire burned in the eyesockets, unearthly in it’s glow. The enslaved orcs which had survived were changed as well, less gracefully so. Fused now with their beast of burden into something resembling the lowly boar centaur, however Torgut recognized two distinct differences: they maintained their orc like agressivness and warlike capabilites, and their sojourn in the vortex had hardended their minds.
Torgut realized he had no bearings on returning to the Dark Lands, and quickly set about shaping the mountain into their citidel. His forces quickly enslaved a native greenskin tribe to act as scouts, as they knew the lay of the land. Torgut’s men fashioned the mountain into their new fortress: Darkenheight, Bastion of The Dread Lord Torgut th Malificant.
It if from this mountain that Torgut strikes out at the Old World, pillaging for slaves and resources. Free from the edicts of the Sorcerer’s Council, alone in his conquest of this realm. Darkenheight marks an unholy blight upon the lands of the Dwarven Karaks, one which no thane or lord has ever taken the burden to destroy. His army of The Undying are truely immortal; when a warrior perishes, his soul is still entwined with the daemon when it returns to it’s master’s realm. Once again the Dawi-Zharr is subjected to the unspeakable cruelty of the Dark Masters, and once more is he cast out of the Realm of Chaos. every warrior who dies will one day walk back through the Great Furnace in Darkenheight to rejoin The Dread Lord once more…