The Calamitus

The story of the dark spirit known as the Calamitus is one of horror and abomination. Conjured from the slaughtered remnants of a hundred battlefields, it is a hideous amalgamation of doomed souls, bound and caged within a husk of dead meat. It is clad in the livery of the tomb-yard and bears iconography of doom, and wields a pair of cruel scythes, their blades etched with ruinous sigils that weep a sorcerous miasma. But it has another, more grotesque form as well… that of a grievous specter, shrouded in tattered vestments and crowned in grave-iron. Regardless of which way it presents, it is a terrifying avatar of death itself. The Calamitus was created by Losan K’Leth to be an undying hunter of souls, and a relentless collector of fresh physical vessels for his Cult. The ritual used in its creation cost the lives of hundreds of K’Leth’s most loyal servants, as their black souls were used to quicken the gestalt monstrosity they had helped fashion. K’Leth had discovered the method of creating and binding such an entity in his studies of ancient lore and cruel arcane experiments, and was eager to see whether such a thing could truly be accomplished. Storms raged for days, battering the isolated tomb-yard in the Stormwind Wastes which the necromancer had chosen as the perfect site to perform the necessary rites, so as to draw on the death-energies that permeated the region. Slowly, painfully, the Calamitus coalesced in a cocoon of graveyard dirt and bloody burial shrouds, growing stronger with every soul, until at last it was strong enough to erupt from this horrid womb and kneel before its maker. Though some among K'Leth's followers muttered at the cost, the end result was worth it, as far as he was concerned. The Calamitus is a yawning abyss of a creature, ever-hungry and ever desirous of its next meal of soul-matter. This unceasing hunger was all part of K’Leth’s design; he reasoned that the creature would be more efficient if its own survival was predicated on the successful completion of its tasks. It has no mind of its own; its head contains only the screams of the army of souls it has devoured. The will that drove it, and the purpose it fulfilled, were both K’Leth’s. The Calamitus was nothing more than a grotesque tool of the Cult’s founder. He dispatched it to scour the land for ready vessels and when it found them, it rendered their spirits from their bodies. The Calamitus struck army encampments, bandit lairs, isolated farms, harvest festivals, and even ships at sea, anywhere it could collect multiple souls at once. It had no subtlety, no wariness. It was an elemental force, aimed by its master at potential targets and let loose to do its worst. Afterwards, it greedily consumed the wailing souls it had culled, using them to fuel itself, and left the empty husks for waiting Cult members to collect. This state of affairs continued for some time, but K’Leth’s creation of the entity had not gone unnoticed. Indeed, the mystic ripples caused by its conjuring echoed even to far Anathraad, where Siroth took note and observed, idly at first and then with greater interest. Finally, he decided to act, to wrest control of the Calamitus for himself. Whether this act was motivated solely by enmity, or because Siroth thought the Calamitus might be useful in his own schemes is a matter of some conjecture among those few members of the Cult of K’Leth who are aware of the truth of what followed. Regardless, Siroth stretched out his mind and sought to usurp K’Leth’s command of the entity. K’Leth, recognizing the threat, resisted, albeit more out of pride and anger than any true hope of success. And in that moment, when the attentions of both its would-be masters were upon each other… the Calamitus slipped free. The days that followed were filled with horrors beyond imagining. The Calamitus, mad and directionless, rampaged across Peltas with neither purpose nor pattern. Where it went, death followed. Even the servants of the Cult were not immune to its frenzy, and more than one secret shrine and soul gem repository was made into a mausoleum as the Calamitus devoured all of the souls within, both those with bodies as well as those without. Soon, the Calamitus’ fury drew the attention of a Lightbringer known as Gariel; one of those who had chosen exile to the wild places of the world following the Red Crusade. Gariel set out to slay the entity before it could cause any more harm. Finding it proved no difficulty, and soon Gariel, iron-winged and bearing a spear of celestial flame, was swooping down upon his quarry in the badlands of the Krokhan Desert. There were no witnesses to the clash that followed. Some Nomad tribes speak of a night of great thunder and flames in the clouds, but beyond that, the battle went unseen. Yet at its conclusion, Gariel was no more, and the Calamitus had become something much worse. It rose up on new wings, wearing the tattered, blackened vestments of Gariel, with a scream of hunger that echoed in the soul of every living thing in Peltas, as well as in the mind of Siroth. Following the scream back to its source, he struck and took control of the rampaging monstrosity, bending it to his will even as K’Leth felt his defeat. In those first moments, Siroth studied his new servant with a curious eye, for the Calamitus had changed greatly, not just in form but in hunger… it desired another soul like Gariel’s. So much so that it looked greedily upon his Demonspawn, who, for their part, had no desire to be anywhere near such an abomination. Siroth was pleased, for the Calamitus might well prove to be the answer to his eternal stalemate with the servants of Lumaya. And if not, well, he would ensure it was, at the very least, well-fed…