Lord of Necropolis (Item)

Lord of Necropolis is an in-game book. It is a forged and calumnious autobiographical parody of the life of Azalin Rex. Its true author remains unknown (to the public at very least). He or she revels in exposing Azalin's true undead face. The work appears subsequent to the publication of Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, although it includes accounts of many events the predate that work. The king of Darkon is attributed a wry sense of humour and is seen to spend a great deal of his time taking out his frustrations upon ambassadors and other noteworthy foreigners.

Excerpts

“So this is the work of the Whispered One, of the Breaker of the Chain. But it is artless! There is almost none of his craft in it. It is a child’s toy, a witless plaything, a distraction from THEM. It is fit only for Ezrite terrifying, ogre throwing, treant wrestling! Or to receive the new Lamordian ambassador . . . .”

-“Your highness, the lost cast of Le Ballet National du Dementlieu, it’s fate, learned I have, I think.” stammered my new Master of Ceremonies.

-"By the dying darkness of the dawn, how delicious, do tell." I said with feigned indifference.

The elf continued with little more composure, “After its command performance, that is to say its commanded performance, I mean its shambles of a command, commanded performance, it somehow took a horribly wrong turn and got itself into the Boglands, where - I can’t say or imagine how - the members have become, well, mounds of plant matter in want of firm roots."

-Dryly I remarked, "How unfortunate." Then asked sternly, "Are you certain?"

-He screwed up his scant courage and dared look me in the eye socket as he replied: "It is them lord, for the things, or at least the most lucid of them, were performing Vacheq's Raven Field with the same improvisations that had so utterly incensed, so rightly, utterly incensed, your august person.”

-Whereupon I permitted myself the thought of the thinnest of smiles and said flatly: "Inform the ambassador of their location but not of their condition."

“Fearweed", Runco vereor, is something of a misnomer. Unfortunately, madness weed, Runco rabies, is little better. In any case, the candles were the success that I had expected. For obvious reasons living bees would not readily do the work thus a hive was slain and infused with my potency. Its members gathered the pollen, embedding it in their wax. The wax was cast into shape, the steak knives were honed to a razor’s edge, and thus I was well armed to meet over dinner the arguments of La Société de la raison éclairée.”

“There are people in this existence who just don’t want to be helped. Take Drakov. After the first of his preposterous invasions, to spare everyone any further annoyance, I took the remains of a handful of his beloved zweifalk, stripped off a bit of their plumage, wove runes upon the bared flesh, and infused them with my undying potency. The resulting creatures were dispatched to the frontier to maim, magically and mundanely, any Falkovnian soldiers who so much as looked upon Darkon. But did the great leader take the hint? The oaf launched four more invasions, as though a mosquito could prove its superiority over a rock by bashing itself to death upon its face.”

Authorship

Lord was Necropolis was created by cure as part of a contribution to John W. Mangrum's Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror project (posted on the Fraternity of Shadows message board).