Another Grim Misadventure is upon us. Last time, we talked about the dark past of the Black Legion, the imperium’s elite. Today’s update is going to introduce you to another of our factions featured in Act 3: the enigmatic Order of Death’s Vigil.
While the Black Legion enjoyed the adoration, and fear, of the populace, the Order maintained a shroud of secrecy around its activities. They had little choice in the matter. To be discovered meant certain death in an empire that shunned most arcane practices. In truth, even amongst their sorcerous brethren, the magic wielded by the Order is considered taboo.
The Order of Death’s Vigil
For the Order of Death’s Vigil deals in that ultimate fate which binds all men. They are necromancers, reapers, the embodiment of mortal desire to understand the inevitable. Though the art itself is as ancient as man’s control over magic, the Order owes its origins to just one man: Uroboruuk.
Uroboruuk is perhaps more legend than man and no one knows in what distant time and place he was born but his name has reappeared throughout the ages and is central to tales of the downfall of Arkovia centuries ago. Under decree of the Arkovian Oligarchs, all suspected practitioners of the necromantic art were to be taken to the Steps of Torment, a vile prison where doomed men were left to rot in the darkness of the depths of the earth. Uroboruuk, who then had a powerful following in Arkovia, was betrayed and handed over to the Arkovian torturers. However, he was not like any man they had ever met. It seemed Uroboruuk could not die. His skin would not burn and his wounds would not bleed.
Unsurprisingly, this drew the attention of the oligarchs, who craved such power for themselves. Under their command, Uroboruuk was subjected to the most brutal and imaginative forms of torture ever conceived. His immortality had worked against him.
Ultimately, the necromancer agreed to their demands and offered to perform the ritual which would make the oligarchs immortal. The oligarchs had assumed his will broken and greedily accepted. Indeed, Uroboruuk granted the people of Arkovia the immortality they so craved, but it came in the form of a devious curse. They still suffered from the ravages of time, but the merciful release of death would not come. They became trapped within their physical forms, even as their bodies disintegrated and turned to dust. The remnants of the once great Arkovian Empire still roam the world as mindless ghouls and tortured spirits. But that is another tale, one which you may learn yourself as you journey through Cairn.
Shortly after the ritual was complete, Uroboruuk vanished from the clutches of the Arkovians. It was centuries before he resurfaced again. With the systematic extermination of his necromancer brothers and sisters, Uroboruuk represented one of the last threads by which the art of necromancy still existed within the world of Cairn. He swore to restore necromancy to its former glory, to engrain the pursuit of knowledge and life’s mysteries into a new generation. That was the day the Order of Death’s Vigil first came into being.
Uroboruuk recruited eager students wherever he traveled, taking in young arcanists and occultists to join his secretive society. Onto them he passed on most of his knowledge. I say “most” as not once did he reveal the true nature of his immortality, not even to his most prized students. Whenever he was asked, he would merely point to the history of the Arkovians and exclaim that this was the fate of those that craved eternal life. Uroboruuk would use the Arkovians as an example of injustice and imbalance in society and that the Order should strive to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. Over time, maintaining the balance of the world became one of their central tenets.
Uroboruuk remained as the Order’s leader up until several years before the Grim Dawn, when he mysteriously abandoned his students in the night, never to return. None know for sure as to the whereabouts of the immortal necromancer. Some believe he had ascended, his time on Cairn concluded. Others still believe he is out there somewhere, traveling the world on a journey of enlightenment. Many acolytes of the Order consider it a rite of passage to travel the world and seek out their lost master. After a year of fruitless wandering, they would return, wizened by their travels and no closer to uncovering the truth behind Uroboruuk’s disappearance.
When the Aetherials and the Chthonians made their mark upon Cairn, the Order of Death’s Vigil rose to oppose them. Now they are one of the last groups of humans still standing against the seemingly unstoppable might of the invaders. It would seem foolish to turn down the power of death in the battles ahead, but as you may soon discover, there are some still left alive in Cairn who would see the world brought to the brink of annihilation before they would even consider an alliance with the Order of Death’s Vigil.
Will you join forces with the Order of Death’s Vigil? Or do you find their disregard for the sanctity of death an unforgivable crime? Decide for yourself in Act 3.
Our next dev update is on 11/24/2014!
