Tressac

Tressac is a Necropolitan (from the Libris Mortis: the Book of the Undead, p.114) Wizard first introduced in Quoth the Raven Issue 29.

History

Tressac was guided by a dream of Irul, a mythological land where monsters were the citizens of the dark capitol Helsion and had an unbroken history of power and glory. In his quest to find Irul, he guided monstrous beings like himself in a mad war against the nations of mortals, killing, looting and burning freely in his search for lore to corroborate his vision. His crimes and the crimes he encouraged his followers to commit became so heinous that the Mists came for him, and he was deposited in pre-Scourge Arak.

Undeterred by this setback, Tressac continued his quest for lore and clues to lead him to Irul, only to meet the Red Haunt in Forlorn in 622 BC. The two villains did not like each other, but appreciated the opportunity to discuss with a fellow scholar. They agreed to meet again in the future, to trade more lore. As they both brought in others - some monstrous, some not - they co-founded the Scions of Irul.

Tressac wanted to take control of the Qabal and use it as his personal army in his quest for Irul, but the other members were never quite as enthusiastic as he had hoped. The Necroplitan suspected the Red Haunt of undermining him - only partially correct, as the Devoratrix was more interested in the exchange of lore and barter in magic items among the Scions than she was in his deluded dreams - and grew increasingly frustrated with the gatherings.

Tressac finally managed to seize control over a nominal portion of the Scions in 740 BC, capitalizing on the absence of the Red Haunt and the chaos of the Grand Conjunction. He drove out those Scions of whom he disapproved, and guided those he managed to convince or control through magic in slaughter and theft as he had done on the Prime Material Plane. He would repeat this pattern in 744 BC and 748 BC, convoking the Scions under his sway and leading them in attacks on human settlements so he could steal books and scrolls from the rubble. His power grew, but at the price of pain and a gruesome change, signifying failed Powers Checks; his undead body started to produce an endless supply of live maggots, especially when he spoke.

Unfortunately for Tressac, the Red Haunt announced her return from the Wartorn Cluster to all the Scions in 748 BC, calling upon them to meet her in Cortton in 751 BC. Even those Scions who had been bound by magic abandoned Tressac, fearing punishment at the Red Haunt's hands. This drove the Necropolitan over the edge of madness; when he arrived in Cortton to witness the Red Haunt's formation of the Centurions of the Night, he was corrupted in mind and body both. Believing the Centurions to be the Red Haunt's final power play in stealing the Scions away from his dream and corrupting its message to suit herself, Tressac attacked the Red Haunt head-on. The Centurion casually defeated him and struck him a blow that should have destroyed him... but the Dark Powers had other plans for him than oblivion.

Current Sketch

Although he is permanently wounded by the Centurion's strike, his body constantly hurts and maggots keep welling up out of his flesh, Tressac continues to (un)live. He awoke in a Domain of his own, although he is unaware that he is its Darklord. The Domain is a sunless land whose residents identify it as Irul, and Tressac is a resident of its greatest city: a dark metropolis named Helsion, where monsters rule and enjoy an unbroken history of power and supremacy.

Unfortunately for Tressac, this version of Helsion is not sovereign upon the land; its undead residents trade with nearby communities inhabited by more 'normal' species, providing them artificial sunlight so they can stay alive in return for a steady trickle of living people prepared to be fed upon and turned into undead. Except for Tressac, the undead residents of Helsion are susceptible to gradual decay over time, and they acknowledge their minds are not as flexible and creative as those of the living. Unlike Tressac, they acknowledge they need the living in order to sustain their unbroken history, and they refuse to listen to his ranting and raving about cleansing their civilization of the mortal taint.

Tressac is so obsessed with his attempts to cleanse the city and the nation of his dream that he has not even realized yet that he is trapped within the Domain, nor that he is its Dark Lord. He does not yet know that he might have the ability to close the land's borders, and dismisses the sensation of Outsiders or Paladins when they cross over into the Domain as a side effect of the maggots cavorting in his body cavity.

Darklord's Curse

Tressac's greatest curse is that he can never be happy or find acceptance in the land he spent so much time trying to find. His appearance is loathsome to even the most accepting of the city's residents as his body heaves with maggots, which escape through his unhealing cut and from his mouth and nostrils. Tressac's way of thinking strikes them as deluded and insane, as they accept that their existence is prolonged but not eternal and they need to maintain good relations with the living, which is something he refuses to accept.

The maggots fill Tressac with horror. While he was initially content to accept their presence as their appearance accompanied an increase in his arcane might due to his failed Powers Checks, he now feels repulsed by the knowledge that life is forever teeming inside him, feasting on his undead body. He has not yet realized that for all their gnawing, the vermin have miraculously failed to actually consume him - and they likely never will. When he is not orating to the people of Helsion or plotting ways to stop mortals from coming into the city, Tressac researches spells and potions meant to kill off the infestation he forever feels crawling and writhing in his flesh.