Who's the Darklord? [2]

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Vaedn Bloodhawk does not doubt who the Darklord is. And it's not him! It's the bad one, the maddened Sheepman who infected the herd; it's the Stickman.

Everything was fine before the Stickman came. Vaedn's people would sail the wild, grey seas. They did business with the strong and took from the weak, as is natural. Sheep Island was a regular stop.
The Sheep People were small and fearful. Vaedn's people would raid their little towns, took food and lumber and anything else they pleased; made merry with Sheep Women and the beer brewed by the Sheep priests in their stone church; they would sell their captives as slaves across the wild, grey sea.

Such was normal and such was natural, for Vaedn's people were tall and strong, children of the Howling God of wind and wave! -- and the Sheep People were small and fearful, and their god was small and fearful.
It was all in accordance with nature and tradition.

Then came the bad one, the mad one.
Vaedn was leader that year. He led his ships onto Sheep Island's shore under cover of fog, and they caught a whole village in one go!
Vaedn led the sacrifice to the Howling God himself, for such good fortune must be a divine blessing! He killed the old and the weak, all the ones who would not survive the trip to market.
And Vaedn led his men in merry-making. They drank the beer and toasted the Sheep People's hard work. They dallied with the pretty women and made the men play music. They re-dedicated the temple of the Sheep People's little god to the Howling God, washing the altar with sea water and blood and tears.
Such was in the order of things!

Then the winds would not blow, so Vaedn's troop was stuck on Sheep Island. Vaedn led his men in more raids, but the Sheep People had run into the forest. Such was only natural, but it did leave Vaedn's men bored. So he ordered them to scout the island. It might help on future raids, after all.
On one such trip, Vaedn first saw the Stickman. They were separated by a gorge, a deep gap in the low mountain at the heart of Sheep Island: too deep and too wide to cross.
Across the gap, Vaedn saw the little Sheep Man with his stick walk up to his own fine, tall kinsman Jarri. Jarri roared with laughter and asked whether the little man was offering him kindling.
And against all reason and nature, the Stickman attacked Jarri. The two of them fought. And Jarri was knocked down.
Vaedn and his companions groaned with sympathy, because tradition said Jarri must call a man who beat him fair blood kin and welcome him. Jarri did start to congratulate the Sheep Man, started to joke he would not call him brother... and the unthinkable happened.

The little Stickman killed Jarri by crushing his throat.

Clearly he was mad. Killing the old and the weak was as nature intended. But a strong, healthy fighting man? That was blasphemy!
Vaedn ordered a hunt for the Stickman, but things started going more and more wrong. His tall, armoured warriors walked into pit traps and snares in the woods. At night, flying rocks and burning arrows were flung at the becalmed ships. A madness, a wicked evil had gripped the Sheep People, and the Stickman was the craziest of them all.
They killed; he killed; not the weak and elderly, but the strong and prideful. And they did not care how they killed. They grew more and more brazen, and the winds... would... not... come!

In the end, Vaedn decided to end the battle by killing all of the mad Sheep People. He had the captives, the slaves, sacrificed alive one by one, let their screams echo across the grassy fields and the dark forest and the low mountain. He expected the foolish Sheep People to come.
And they came. Under cover of darkness, covered in black mud, wielding poisoned weapons. Vaedn waded through the battle, sword in hand, the screams of mad Sheep People mingling with the screams of his brothers until he could not tell them apart.
Around him, the town burned. The ships were burning. And then there he was.
The Stickman.

Vaedn remembers the unnatural hatred in his enemy's face. He remembers running the little man through. He also remembers the crushing blow to his throat. It is a miracle of the Howling God that he survived, even if his voice has been weak ever since and it hurts to feast and drink.
According to his men, the Stickman survived as well; carried off by his men. Vaedn hopes to meet his enemy again, so he can offer him up to the Howling God. Maybe then the deity will lift his curse of endless fog on the horizon, of winds that only blow inland and a tide that leads nowhere.
Yes, killing the monster who made everything go wrong must be the key.
But the years move on, and the island is wrong. Some of Vaedn's men have deserted, built little towns and cautiously trade with and do work for the Sheep People. The madness is in all of them now, for they say vile things about Vaedn, call him a monster, praise the Stickman as the leader of their Resistance.

Yes, they are mad.
The Stickman is wicked and mad, a breaker of the cycle of nature, a murderer of strong fighting men.
Vaedn is the hero.

Don't you agree...?

Who's the Darklord?

[Mistmaster]

Vaedn no doubt, I'd say the Stickman could even be the lightlord.

[The Lesser Evil]

I would tend to disagree, seeing Vaedyn as the darklord, minus other evidence. Like Adam's backstory, the account given here is obviously from Vaedn's perspective and thus favors his accounts. Even taking that into consideration, there could be a breaking with tradition in that he took a whole village, rather than leaving behind survivors to continue existing and thus provide a bounty for later raids. As depicted, his people were plunderers, killers, and slavers, but not wholesale conquerors. So we could see Vaedn's actions as going by the barbaric standards of even his own people.

Vaedn's actions also came before the Stickman's arrival in the story, so the Stickman (along with the weather that trapped Vaedn's people there) could be seen as the first manifestations of Vaedyn's curse.

On the other hand, we know very little about the Stickman, as in the story he's almost described as a figure of myth. He could be a darklord if what is left ambiguous by the story was filled in by the right details. What were the Stickman's motivations and goals? What were the actual specifics of his actions? Was the "madness" of the sheep people actually just resistance to the unjust, or did the Stickman truly bring some unnatural spell to afflict the sheep people? (thinking of Sir Torrence Bleysmith's precedence here). If Vaedyn's story is accurate, the Mists could have been enveloping Sheep Island even before Vaedyn's arrival

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

No one listened to Recost. Each time the pirates came, he would suggest a contraption, fortification, or tactic to repel them in the future. Each time, his meek fellow islanders called his designs hubris. They were not placed on the island by the Eldest to work against the turning of the world. The pirates would come, the Children of the Eldest would run and hide, and eventually the pirates would pass. Nothing was wrong that did not last.

Each time, Recost threw up his hands and walked away. The spectre of the pirates lasted, but the others were too small-minded to think about that. Only he thought beyond the pathetic teachings of the Eldest. Only he wandered to the forbidden places.

At one of these places, the summit of the Bald Knoll where the dead were said to be dragged by the high winds, Recost learned to make these winds listen, and he knew that someday, he might make his fellows listen too.

One day, the winds told Recost that the pirates were coming again, and he bade the winds to drag the clouds down, hiding the pirates. When they came to shore, the Children of the Eldest were taken completely by surprise. The village he grew up in was sacked, and the temple of the Eldest was defiled by the pirates in the name of their wind god. Recost laughed at their misplaced gratitude, and he told the winds to be still for terribly long. The pirates would last this time, and the Children would suffer for their stupidity.

When the pirates came into the forest to look for the redoubts of the Children, Recost stalked them. Catching one alone, he approached, wielding a branch pulled from the Grasping Tree, which defied its fate to tumble from the edge of the South Cliffs. The pirate man taunted Recost, and Recost bade the branch to strike true as he lashed out. In defiance of the odds, Recost and the branch overpowered the burly pirate man. The pirate man admitted defeat, but Recost made the branch strike true once more, staving in the man's windpipe.

Across the gorge, Recost heard the pirate leader roar in fury, so he took his branch and disappeared into the brush.

With the blood of the pirate on his branch, Recost returned to his fellow Children of the Eldest. The pirates lasted this time, but he had the power to harm them. Now the others listened. They took to the construction of his designs, building traps that foiled the roving pirate bands, and weapons to strike at them. The Children had been twisted to a new, violent purpose, and Recost thought he would have their ears forevermore once they had driven the pirates to extinction.

The pirates retaliated, cruelly murdering their captives to draw out Recost and his followers. Drawn out they were, but still with the aid of Recost's tactical mind. The battle was fierce and merciless, ruining the earth with heel marks and blood. In that battle, Recost came face-to-face with the pirate leader. He told his branch to strike true, but in so doing, it did not knock the pirate's blade aside. There was no time to tell the blade to turn, and Recost was mortally wounded.

When Recost miraculously awoke, he found himself a hero. Their violence of the pirates subsided, and over time, they made peace with the Children. To the Children, the long threat had passed, and Recost could not get them to listen anymore. Revered, and yet powerless, he hopes the continuing threat of the pirate leader will one day make his people listen again, but his old enemy has lost much power as well. Mayhap Recost will need to draw new threats to the island.

Now who is the Darklord?

[Mistmaster]

Still the pirate; Recost in this version is certainly on the good path to become one, but Recost was a well intentioned extremuist, not a blood-thirsty marauder.

[brilliantlight]

Vaedn no doubt, I'd say the Stickman could even be the lightlord.

Agreed, he did nothing but help free his people from slavers.

[brilliantlight]

Still the pirate; Recost in this version is certainly on the good path to become one, but Recost was a well intentioned extremuist, not a blood-thirsty marauder.

Yep, his motives are still better. He wouldn't be in your Lightlord category any more but he is still clearly better.