Ma'Shalled

Today, Narbuk is a blight on the map. The ash and rotting timbers of the city that once stood there are long gone, but among the rubble and ruin that remains are a few scattered shrines and temples – the only things that the Sacred Order permits to exist on this once-holy ground. Centuries ago, during the Age of Hellfire, Narbuk was the birthplace of the Church of Lumaya. The Church’s promises of abstract blessings and absolution were not enough for some, and the greedy formed the Bone Temple. The Bone Temple worshiped the bones of saints. They believed that these relics could imbue blessings and holy magic upon those who held them – and they were right, but only because their practice was not holy at all. The Bone Temple was a necromantic cult. Most did not realize it, but at least two men knew better: a corrupt Sacred Order inquisitor named Losan K’Leth, and a high-ranking Lumayan cleric named Usol Ma’Shalled. They were rivals for control of the Bone Temple – K’Leth concealed their true rituals from the eyes of the authorities, while Ma’Shalled was the chosen leader of the cult. The two clashed right up until the cult was discovered during the Sacred Order's Red Crusade. Crusaders hunting Orcs, Ogryn, and Skinwalkers arrived in the city, and their interrogations uncovered some of the lesser members of the Bone Temple and piqued the deadly curiosity of the inquisitors. The High Cleric of Narbuk was terrified that the sect would be discovered – many members were influential in the Church, and the High Cleric feared that the Temple’s fall would crumble the Church as well. And so the High Cleric approached Ma’Shalled and K'Leth with an offer: accept exile, and have the Temple flee in silence. Ma’Shalled refused… but K’Leth accepted. The highest ranking members of the Bone Temple escaped the city, but the Sacred Order had already found too much evidence of it. A scapegoat was needed. And so K’Leth orchestrated Ma’Shalled’s death, hoping to pin all the blame on him. But K’Leth was foiled, in part. Ma’Shalled had lived a life for himself, a life of greed, opulence, and power, all at the expense of others. When the assassin’s blade plunged into Ma’Shalled’s heart, Siroth’s voice reached out to him between his final heartbeats and asked just how much Ma’Shalled would be willing to take from the world to survive. Would he kill, just to live another day? Every day? Forever? Overwhelmed by his rage at K’Leth’s betrayal and desperate not to pay for the sins of his life, Ma’Shalled said yes. And so, in that instant of his death, Ma’Shalled became a vampire, bound by Siroth’s magic to drink the blood of the living to survive. Ma’Shalled’s first victim was the assassin sent to kill him, but it would not be his last. For months, Ma’Shalled prowled the streets of Narbuk, feasting on any who stood in his way. Any other year, he would have been found and stopped, but in the dark days of the Red Crusade a few more deaths among the city’s poor were barely worth a shrug to the city guard. Not, however, to the canny Losan K’Leth. K’Leth had managed to pin the blame for the Bone Temple on Ma’Shalled even without a body to hand over, but he remained terrified that the temple’s former master was still out there. When he heard of the murders among the poor, he investigated in person. Ma’Shalled was thrilled when he discovered this, and he stalked his old rival for days before finally closing in for the kill. But Ma’Shalled had been tricked, this time by Siroth himself. For, while a vampire might look and sound alive, they are, in truth, Undead, and no Undead can resist the will of a powerful necromancer. When Ma’Shalled lunged for K’Leth’s throat, K’Leth responded with a spell of domination. He took control of Ma’Shalled’s corrupted soul, turning the vampire into an obedient servant. And so Ma’Shalled became the greatest protector of the Bone Temple, then later the Knights Revenant. When the Sacred Order tried to destroy the Knights Revenant by burning Narbuk to the ground, it was Ma’Shalled who protected the cult's necropolis beneath the city from intrusion. K’Leth kept Ma’Shalled intact and sane through regular feeding, but, with Narbuk destroyed, importing victims became inconvenient. So he stopped. Deprived of blood, Ma’Shalled was twisted into a horrifying monster, hungry beyond measure and absolutely mad. All vampires are wretched creatures, in truth. But none are more wretched than what remains of Ma’Shalled, now and forever bound to guard the catacombs of Narbuk – forced to protect the secrets of the Knights Revenant, and the man he so despised.