Personal NPC and LORE inspired fantasy character builds

MARGARET CONTINUES HER QUEST FOR VENGEANCE;

As she crept out from beneath Burial Hill, Margaret was exhausted. Having found Francis dead, it was as though she had been possessed by some kind of inhuman motivation, bent on vengeance, with only one purpose- to destroy the source of the Aetherials around Devil’s Crossing. Now that she had extinguished the threat, her killer instinct had receded and left her completely drained. She hadn’t slept since fleeing the outskirts of Malmouth, and it was catching up to her. She needed to find a safe place where she could sleep without fear of being attacked.

Trudging back the way she came, Margaret made her way through the ruins of lower Devil’s Crossing, and without the fight or flight instincts flooding through her she was painfully aware of the thorough destruction that had been unleashed upon the Crossing. There was not a single structure that had escaped serious damage. Buildings churned with fire, and corpses littered the streets. The stink of bloody death hung heavy in the open air, a testament to the butchery that had befallen this quiet southern village she once called home, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Upon arriving at the old Prison, she was met by a welcoming party of a townsman turned mercenary, crossbow raised in her direction, his expressions an agonizing mixture of fear and hatred.

“Who goes there! If you’re human, respond, or I shall take you for the living dead and open fire upon you!”

“My name is Margaret! For gods sake I used to LIVE here! They killed my…” She suddenly felt very heavy, and struggled to inhale the air required to finish her sentence. Her chest felt as though it had been bound tight and was being squeezed in a vice, in a matter of mere seconds Margaret had become breathless, and drew in several gasping, panicked breaths, gulping at the air in an autonomous behavior she could not control. Between her sharp breaths, she spit out fractions of the remaining sentence as best she could before being overtaken by fits of uncontrollable sobs and wails, tears running down her face “My husband! Francis!!! They killed Francis!!”

She fell to the ground, her palms bracing the fall and fingers curling into the dirt, pulling at the grass and roots as if in a mad attempt to dig down and retrieve Francis from the land of the dead. Throwing her head back she screamed to the sky, demanding the gods of Cairn answer and explain why they had taken Francis away.

The guard lowered his crossbow, now confident she was not a threat. Squinting, he noticed her features, she looked familiar.

“Wait a minute… My god… Margaret?? Is that you?!” The guard asked, but Margaret was in another place by then, completely overcome with grief and fatigue, and she collapsed in the dirt before the guards could get an answer.

When she awoke, she was inside the old prison, where firelight threw strange shadows across the surrounding prison structure, now in shambles. She reached to her hip and, not finding Francis’ gun there, sat up with a start sending the blankets shed been draped in flying off of her. A few people huddled around the nearby campfire looked over, startled by her sudden movement.

Margaret spared a short moment looking at them, but immediately returned to her panic- where was the gun! Patting her hands on the ground around her as she swiveled her head left and right, sweeping her vision around, her right hand touched the familiar sanded wood of Francis’ gun, and she let out a sigh of relief. The gun had become her only solace in this wild world, and the most precious thing to her. She brought it up and clutched it to her chest with both hands like an infant, snuggling back down into her resting position, and falling into a dream.

She dreamt that Francis was still alive. In the dream, they were walking. She couldnt quite determine where, but it appeared to look like Malmouth. There were great pillars of Aetherial growths clinging to the structures they approached. Margaret held Francis close, onto his shoulder and walking behind him as though he was a shield. The Aetherials noticed them, and as they did so, turned to face them. As Francis approached one of the clinging Aetherial masses, he took Margaret’s hand and raised her arm, pointing her finger towards the peak of the mass.

“This is the way inside” he whispered into her ear, and slowly wrapped his hand around the back of hers, his fingers tracing over her own, and making a finger pointing motion. Suddenly the world began to shake- she was being woken up! No! Just a little more time with Francis… Just…

Her eyes opened and John Bourbon had a hold of her arm, which was currently outstretched, pistol in hand and aimed directly at him from across his table.

“What the hells gotten into you, woman?! First the dead attack our village, and now youre sleepwalking, waving this pistol around-” reaching for Francis’ gun, John Bourbon found only air as Margaret spun away from him.

“Dont you TOUCH my gun!” She shouted, the weapon held level with Bourbon’s head in the ironsights. Bourbon had always been a good man, a friend to Francis in the days of yore. He was surely only trying to help, but Margaret would not let anyone take her gun away from her. Bourbon simply raised his hands, brandishing his own pistol

“Come now, Margaret… There is a much more pressing threat to all of us, surely you have encountered it? The dead walk among us, and worse, there are numerous abominations at large in greater numbers than we could ever hope to match. We need to work together if we want to stay alive”. Lowering his own pistol, and placing it on the table as a sign of trust, he backed away from the weapon entirely.

Margaret dropped her gun arm and slumped down against the wall, sobbing.

“I’m so sorry, John. I don’t know what’s come over me. My husband Francis, those THINGS, they killed him, and now I hear him speaking to me in my head. I was so exhausted, I just fell fast asleep, and the next thing I know I’m holding a gun to your head.” Bourbon helped Margaret back to stability, and explained the situation, and when Margaret told him she had slain Kyzogg, Bourbon’s response was one of shock and relief.

“A creature was doing this?!” He said with disbelief, but noted that the attacks had lessened since her reported slaying of the Aetherial monster.

It made sense. These couldnt be the only Aetherial monsters in Cairn, though. The others would need to be stopped before the people of Cairn would be safe. This was a great victory for Devil’s Crossing, however, and bought Margaret great acclaim with its residents.

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AETHERIALS, RIFTSPAWN, BANDITS, AND BOSSES

The more Aetherials, beasts, bandits, and bosses Margaret slew, the more she could feel Francis’ Gun becoming a part of her- like an extension of her arm, with a fiery heart all its own, its sandalwood grip enmeshed with her flesh, so familiar to her touch that she could swear it was a part of her hand. And so instinctively, Margaret was able to manipulate the weapon’s modification to fire on demand every time.

One bandit lands a lucky strike, swinging blindly into a cloud of fire and blood, and knocking Margaret’s shot astray at the last second

It is not enough to save him, however…

A peculiar change begins to take place inside of Margaret, with each enemy death, a fire burns hotter, brighter, and more wild inside of her. As she became more adept at lobbing flaming rounds into her enemies, the binding between the very spirit of the gun and her own grew deeper and more thorough. She began to hear Francis’ own thoughts on the edges of her own, beckoning to her, whispering long hidden secrets and occult mysteries- things he had always read about late into the night, his attention always immersed in his books back when he had lived- much of this material had been the stuff of fantasy, she had always thought, before the Aetherial Invasion. Now, though, she understood. It was very real, and with this epiphany, Francis’ consciousness flooded into her mind as though it had always been there.

Suddenly she found that sometimes it was no longer the gun lobbing flaming ammunition- Her bare hands appeared to be summoning whirling, fist sized spheres of isolated combustion and projecting them out to engulf the Aetherials. She could not determine how she was doing this, or when this change had happened, only that it had. She was glad for it. Francis was glad for it.

A bandit takes a gamble, striking out at her as she is distracted by this shocking, inexplicable phenomena

An unlucky turnout sees Margaret dodge the attack, her gun arm swinging up like a pendullum to blast the opponent in the face with fiery ordinance before continuing her rampage

It turns out, a small band of individuals were being kept as slaves by the bandits she had slain. They call themselves Rovers, and are thankful to be set free. Margaret seems to have made some new allies, a thing in short supply in this haunted reality.

Exiting the cave, she is surrounded by Slith. She bristles at the challenge, loosing her newfound powers upon them

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Soon thereafter, Aetherials block the path, nothing but target practice for Margaret thanks to her new abilitiy- The force of her fireblast sending corpses of the monsters sailing through the air

Still, Margaret will never forget the gun!

MILTON HART APPROACHES! Challenge accepted- Fire fire with fire!

Milton falls, and others follow in his death throes

Sending a blinding bitch slap of heat into Neegan’s face, Margaret stuns him

With her right hand, she commands the flames to rise, materializing from the atmosphere surrounding Neegans head.

She then commands the fire to enter into Neegan’s chest, where it begins to cook him from the inside

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Neggan stumbles, dark smoke pouring out his mouth and nostrils in long black tendrils. Margaret sees the opporunity and siezes victory, using the fury of the fire to propel herself forward in a supersonic attack using her left hand. The sheer speed of the blow sending fire blowing out behind her, and utterly crushing Neegan’s chest cavity.

The beastkin fare no better, Primordian taking a fatal dose of led and cinder

margaret takes a moment to investigate the strange shrine the beastkin appear to use, perhaps there are some clues here on the originations of these Aetherial abominations…

She is rudely interrupted by a horned horror! She tries to shoot it, but the beast moves quick and rams its head into her gun arm, knocking her shot away

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Perhaps it is best to run, but she quickly finds herself lost in the caves…

Taking what appears to be a wrong turn, Margaret awakens an ancient terror! A large boulder seemed to be growing out of the ground, its bulk rolling up through the surface of the cave until it stood tall, three times Margaret’s own height, with arms and legs and even two beady little eyes. The rocks of it’s mass infused with swirls of what appeared to be some kind of ore deposit that glowed in the low light of the cave. She heard Francis whispering inside her skull, mentioning this was a trait known to belong to creatures of the Eldritch realm. Likely a fact he picked up somewhere from one of his books. His latent thought murmurs were a welcome comfort in this now cold and cruel world, giving her an advantage with which to fight against humanities enemies.

The Eldritch creature, clearly disturbed by Margaret’s trespass into its territory, assumed a hostile posture, stomping its way towards her with destructive intent. Margaret would have been shocked in disbelief under normal circumstances, but after everything that has already happened- the undead coming back to life, hulking mutated creatures defacing the land with bright shards of pulsating emerald energies, Malmouth under attack, Francis’ death- what was one more oddity to her already shattered comprehension of the Cairn.

The hulking mass attempts to grab Margaret with a wide swipe of its rocky fist, margaret running to evade the grapple

Aggravated, the terror pistons its left rockfist towards Margaret, but she is just out of reach.

A few rocks fall from the roof of the cave, nearly flattening margaret as she runs to stay out of the enemy reach

Enraged that it cannot catch her, the Shambling Eldritch hulk cries out in fury and smashes the ground, sending out a massive shockwave and leaving a crater of devastation beneath itself.

Using a fallen boulder as a projectile, the Eldritch creature sends a mankilling ball of stone careening through the air towards Margaret. In a desperate attempt to shelter herself from the deadly attack, margaret uses her Fireblast in the hopes of eviscerating the flying boulder…

The blast hits the Eldritch, but fails to break the boulder, which smashes into Margaret, petrifying her in place.

Managing to crack herself out of the petrification by heating the rock, Margaret launches a counter-attack- A well placed fireblast weakens the monster’s core

As it staggers, Margaret instantaneously produces the pistol, loosing the fatal round into the monsters weakened center

With the beast felled, she finally finds the exit and discovers a corpse with some valuable information… She may be getting closer to the source… NEXT TIME! MARGARET ADVENTURES INTO BURRWITCH!

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Those fire blast effects really bring the game alive these days.

All the effects do now, man, the game looks fantastic. Got some pretty good shots coming up of Margaret’s ascension to fire bending lol. Shes actually become my most unique character in that her story is on a really decent path right now and the direction I’m going to take it in is going to be relatively easy to translate into in-game elements. Not to spoil it, but- Aetherfire.

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MARGARET’S JOURNEY TREADS FORTH, TO BURRWITCH;

As she exited the caves, Margaret came across a corpse- searching the corpse, she found some notes on the state of the surrounding areas gathered during some recon. She was getting closer, Mud Row was near and just beyond that, Burrwitch. She could hear voices, low and cautious and carried to her in spurts by the wind, dropping fragments of the speech whenever the breeze shifted direction. They sounded close. There was a small clearing up ahead and what appeared to be hastily crafted makeshift walls, slabs of sheet metal erected between trees and foliage, using them for balance to support the barriers most like. Hues of bright gold glinted off the edges, shrouding the blockades in a divine halo effect. The source was no doubt a fire, and where there was fire, there were humans.

Having encountered bandits earlier in the day, Margaret was wary to get closer to the camp, however these voices did not sound like bandits- they were meek and humble. Frightened. Weak. They reminded her of who she had been, no more than a day ago. The shock of her radical changes still numbing to her, obscuring her perceptions and obstructing her normal emotional responses- this situation Cairn was in, it was not normal. This kind of stuff just didnt happen. It was all so sudden and unnatural that most living things lost their minds just from witnessing the twisted Aetherials and beasts flooding into reality from Cairn’s collective nightmares. The people in this group were no exception.

“They fear us”, she heard Francis begin to whisper in her mind. She pushed past the thought, unable to find how that was applicable in the current moment. His words trailing off, quieter and quieter. The last thing she heard him murmur “you will understand, in time…”.

The group turned out to be several weary individuals in shabby, soiled, and torn clothing, and looked to have just recently marched straight through the East Marsh. They were sorely out of place in this environment, not the kind of people you would expect to come across bushwhacking around Burrwitch. They were led by a charismatic young Blacksmith named Duncan, who was searching for his master.

Duncan’s search was motivated by his need to succeed his master so that he could protect the people, as opposed to bringing the war directly to the enemy as his master was seeking to do, leaving the people to fend for themselves. Margaret was torn on who to support- Duncan or his master. After all, it was being left to fend for herself that she had found her own strength… But who she used to be wished to help this man. She was once weak like those under Duncan’s protection and this part of her was summoning sympathy for the down-trodden. Francis’ spirit roiled inside of her, though… a force of will all its own, urging her to take the fight to the enemy- it was the only way.

Margaret was not Francis. She would not lose herself in this possession of Francis’ will. Her choice was to aid Duncan, and aid him she did- finding his master, retrieving the hammer, and granting Duncan and his refugees safe passage back to Devil’s Crossing, where Duncan would immediately begin smithing for the small band of adventurers now aligned with Bourbon’s cause.

Pushing north to Burrwitch, Margaret encounters steep resistance, championed by a slew of Aetherial Alphas. She meets them with fury and fire, her pistol roaring and flaming hands blazing, the fierceness of her enemies only serving to stoke the fury of her flames, and evolving the infernos, infusing them with temporal energies, causing those ablaze to become slowed by golden veins of electric light

Francis’ pistol howling in her hand, singing the song of fire, burrowing killing rounds into the flesh of the beasts, and felling them like rotted trees

Entering Burrwitch at last, Margaret expected nothing less than what she saw- It was hell on earth, revisited. Devil’s Crossing to the 10th degree. A veritable breeding ground for the monsters, the dead heaped in piles and graveyards, reanimated and walking the earth in the distance, alive in fires of their own. Attempting to remain unnoticed, Margaret sneaks around the long way- through the boarding house.

At the center of town, she dispatches a lone Aetherial and is suddenly caught unawares by an string of ambushes- The risen dead, come again to erase her from the earth!

“Come then, let them try it!” Francis mused from within her mind. The Aetherials did not disappoint, but Margaret was ready…

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The flames erupted in coiling streams and dazzling coronas, encircling her and shielding her from harm while bathing enemies who got too close in cleansing fire at the wave of her hand, her control of the inferno reaching preternatural levels. Not only was she able to cast fire projectiles in aimed attacks, she had also ceased to feel the slightest tinge of pain from the sweltering heat which flowed about her, like waves of a jagged blood-orange tide, directed from her every gesture.

The fire-breathing Aether spawnlings that arose spewed their own white hot firestreams directly onto her, showering chaotic magma all over her body…

…Margaret chuckled, merely shrugging off the blazebath, wholly untouched by the flames, her own infernos absorbing them into its mass. Brandishing her pistol as though nothing but a breeze had just swept over her, she quickly fires an explosive fireball from the gun into the closest monsters skull at point blank range, shattering it in a cloud of gore before turning on another to repeat the tactic, her flames looping round to engulf the corpse and consume it post-haste

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For a moment, she becomes wholly one with the fire, her limbs and flesh and bone searing heat and bellowing with exultation.

She whirled and spun, maneuvering through crowds of enemies, weaving patters in the air with her hands like the famous ballerinas she had seen and always dreamed of becoming as a girl, and the fires moved as well, shadowing her movements, following their every whim. Margaret would become so comfortable at this performance that in time she would call it “Firedancing”, paying homage to her artful fantasies from her previous life. Residents of the Crossing appropriately naming her the “Fire Dancer”. As her dance wound down, she slowly raised her arms from within the blaze, no living thing in sight, and her flames consuming all but leaving her untouched, making Sephiroth proud.

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Riding high on the waves of heated stimuli, Margaret loses herself in the purifying of the Aetherials, going on an all out purge, burning a cataclysmic path across Burrwitch and through the Burrwitch Estates;

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The firedance grows more elaborate by the kill, Margaret learning new movements having new effects on her victims- snapping back her arm in a fierce left backhand motion causing a rippling shockwave of fiery temporal energy warbling through the air, blasting back her foes and sending them sprawling to the ground

An insatiable hunger within her rages on, she continues her incendiary rampage

Suddenly the air pressure shifts violently, imploding before her in a small shockwave of Aetherial energies, knocking her off balance and causing a lapse in her firedance.

Enraged, she sends a return shockwave of her own, filling the air with rapid heat, staggering the Alpha and blowing lesser Aetherials off their feet before resuming her pyrotechnic performance

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Untouchable by the heat, its unchallenged master and commander, Margaret pushes back with all her fury and the might of a thousand suns to overcome and obliterate the Aether alpha in her path, sending a coruscating pillar of emerald green energy whooshing into the air showering pieces of the monster down around her.

More of them fall to her flames

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The Aetherials of Burrwitch could not hope to stand against her flame-wake, melting before her advance and offering next to no resistance. With every sweep of her hand, and every strike of her fist, flames whipped and shot out, and each time an enemy transformed into cinders she could hear Francis laughing. It was a bit unsettling, at times to such a degree that she would lose concentration, causing a lapse in the ring of fire that accompanied her. In these moments she thought hard, shouting at Francis through the veil, ordering him to be silent and bending his will to her own. It was during a moment like this, battling through the Warden’s Estate and his Underground Transit system, that she experienced something profound.

She had been lashing out with fire to strike down a particularly stubborn Aetherial when she felt Francis’ psyche approach, as she grappled with her own mind, struggling to simultaneously focus on the battle at hand, she became exceedingly frustrated and angry. Keeping her vision locked on the Aetherial before her, she punched out at it, expecting the flames to leap towards it and engulf it. The flames never came. Well, not THOSE flames. One moment she was staring at the enemy, and the next a long, wispy stream of shimmering green energy arced off her hand, jumping onto- and INTO- her target. The monster had no time to react. In a split second it went from being whole, to being a cloud of blood and guts.

Margaret’s mouth fell open. She stood there, frozen in shock, as the meat and bone of the butchered monster hit the ground with dense, wet smacking noises. She had never experienced anything quite like this before in her life. So what else is new… Fire was one thing, but this… This green energy… It was something Aetherials did. She’d seen the aberrant crystalline growths send the same streaming coils of Aetheric energy out- hell, shed even been hit by them once or twice, though strangely she couldn’t recall what that had felt like…

“It burns. Constantly. Forever. An unending inflammation.” She could hear Francis saying, calmly. She could feel him beside her, almost see him, his features half crystallized in a pulsing emerald glow. “Do not be afraid, Margaret. You are not alone”.

“I… I dont understand… WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!” She cried out, Aetherials turning towards her, swarming to her now. This time, Francis took over, the distress too much for Margaret to handle. She could feel herself falling back, deep into her own mind, and Francis’ will passing over her, flooding to the fore. She watched, now an observer, her body piloted by Francis’ possession.

The green energy streams shot out from her hands in controlled, methodical barrages, pulping and disintegrating whatever poor souls sat at their destinations. Bolts of emerald firesparks leaped from foe to foe, kissing hordes with unmaking energies, causing them to explode on contact. The power- such POWER! It surged through her… Through him! Fully unleashed, he tore a bloody path through the Warden’s Laboratory, indiscriminate in his utter carnage, and dispatching Zanbrandt

Francis’ fury, focused and tempered though wild and potent, discplined and shaped into writhing streams of Aetherial energy, crackles rippling across the room to tear and shred through the flesh of their enemies

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A small contingent attempts to stop her, but they cannot stay the fury of her flametide

Zanbrandt, the last obstacle to stand between Margaret and the source of this scourge in Burrwitch, is met with Francis’ loosed Aetheric overloading power, cutting him down in mere minutes

She watched herself lay waste to an entire horde of aetherials, her fire now empowering the green energy, gaining increased range and deadly efficiency. She could feel something in her shoulder harden, warm and numb, and humming as though electrified. She searched her mind, and could see it lodged within her- a tumor, a growth of some sort… Oh god… No! She could see it now! It’s dull shimmering barely visible in her minds eye, low and dark, but green none the less… Francis’ possession seemed to be fueling its growth, accelerating it into realspace, into her shoulder! She had to put an end to this now!

“NO MORE!” She shouted, her consciousness flying back into control, the words bursting out her mouth in potent delivery and echoing off the walls of a now silent chamber, but for the occasional crackles and pops of lazy fires dying, their feeding frenzies at an end, full on corpses, and laying their ember eggs behind. She looked down at her steaming hands in wonder, which felt no pain at the extreme levels of heat they had just been generating.

“It will come easier now. You will learn, you will learn” she could hear Francis murmuring as his will drifted off into her subconcious.

NEXT TIME; MARGARET FACES OFF AGAINST THE WARDEN!!!

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That Aether Tendril looks cool. Never used that component for a main attack - looks like a useful damage dealer in these scenarios, especially if you have it attached as a configured alt with weapon switch, Very handy to have on tap if you come across a fire resistant monster - give him an Aetherfire headache?

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Could actually become a viable concept? I am a long time veteran player of the card game “Magic the Gathering” and own many of the fantastic published books that are based on characters and lore within their universe. Grim Dawn has the potential to achieve a similar sort of success. It just needs some dedicated players and fans who can envisage and put the in-game stories, quests and lore into a book or story format. I am no author by any means, but some players like KNIFE, (Sorry I dunno how to add a link to your account - some help here would be appreciated), clearly have the ability to script the narratives required. In this day and age maybe printed books are not an option anymore, but there must be an E-Book or web based alternative?

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So much potential here guys !!!

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Hah! It figures you’d write this, man. You and I are a lot alike! I, too, am a longtime Magic player! Been playing since the mid-90’s! If I’m not playing Grim Dawn, there is a good chance I’m on MTG Arena. Favorite colors are blue white and green, I am all about tempo control (NOT counterspells, but lots and lots of bounce). The example of the MTG novels is good, I would also use the Warhammer 40k novels as a good example of this. I own about 30 or so Horus Heresy books, and am working my way up through them- Currently just finished Wolfesbane, which was an awesome book! Made me want to hop on GD and build Leman Russ! 2h Warder, or Conjurer… Savagery FTW, briarthorns/hellhounds for freki/geri!

Theres a lot of potential here, and ALSO in the CCG realm. In my spare time I like to play with designs for CCGs, for fun. I study a games mechanics and enjoy the process of translating them into card game mechanics and effects. I do this on my smartphone in notes while riding public transportation, and its a great way to pass the time.

I think with the right support and fan contributions, a Grim Dawn CCG would be awesome. There are a bazillion things you could do with it. I have brainstormed one, and would gladly share it however I dont think this post would be the right place to do it. We could start another post in the ideas sections, or whatever section would be most appropriate for that. I want to be sure were respecting the forum rules and everything and really I am a noob at this so. Yeah. But I am totally down to share the idea and brainstorm it with the community, all for Crate’s use as they see fit.

Also down for writing expanded lore based on the world of Cairn, for Crate’s use as they see fit.

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Right on!

The computer RPG gaming world opened up the awesome ability for us to realise and play out our card based game battles like MTG, and even the older board and text games like Dungeons and Dragons etc. in real time. These turn based battles are now resolved with lightspeed animations in our modern RPG games.

The computer RPG is actually like playing your hand of set cards against each and every enemy you encounter. Some you win, some you will lose. This also helps to explain why some builds in Grim Dawn have problems with certain bosses. In MTG and other card games, if you unfortunately encounter an opponent that has immunity and other counters to your deck build - YOU ARE GOING TO GET BURNED!

Playing a card based game like MTG is like taking a single battle with say “The Warden” and every hit,damage and counter etc. is evaluated on each card played and will continue until one of you are dead!, almost like a slow-slow motion frame by frame breakdown of how the fight would ensue in your Grim Dawn encounter with your current resources and skills set you chose, much like a card deck build you would have built for an anticipated card battle game.

I am an avid fan of all aspects of the RPG world, whether they be card, board or computer based, and to me they ALL are related and have a place in this platform.

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MARGARET’S SHOWDOWN WITH WARDEN KRIEG;

Having returned to Devil’s Crossing to repair her damaged equipment, replacing that which had burned or melted off and was no longer salvageable with new, heat resistant armor specially crafted for her by Duncan- A token of the people’s faith in their newest Champion to arise from the death and destruction unleashed in Cairn’s Grim Dawn, she was ready to return to the Warden’s Hidden Laboratory and dispense the people’s justice.

Francis hadn’t lied. It came easier to her, filling her veins with surges of power. Closing and opening her hands, she could feel currents of the Aetherfire coursing through her physiology, pulsing out from the small Aether Cluster that had begun to grow in her shoulder. The feed spread all the way down her arms to her hands, even threading out to her very fingertips where small coronas of emerald green energy flickered into existence and sent bewitching shades and shadows spilling onto the passageway marking the boundary to Warden Krieg’s Solar. Reaching forward, she slowly pressed her hand against the barriers that barred her path. The Aether sparks danced across her fingers, venturing out in attempts to explore the new surface before fizzing into nothingness, vaporized with subtle hissing wisps of smoke.
Two large doors stood before her, lined with hard Iron, and creaking intermittently under the stress of an unknown weight. They were cold to the touch. Margaret could feel the presence beyond them, writhing in the atmosphere, the source of the Aetherial invasion in Burrwitch county. The source of her torment. The source of Francis’ ire. He was there with her, now, though not as a creature of tangible form. It was his spirit that loomed inside her mind, bourne from the mysterious tumor in her shoulder. Never-the-less, there he was in her peripheral, scowling at the entrance to the Warden’s study.
“It’s time, Margaret. Let us end this cursed Warden, once and for all”. He said with grim finality.
Clentching her hand into a fist, the Aetherflames swirled into life around it. She would see how the Warden liked a taste of his own medicine, for a change. She placed her hands on the doors and pushed. They were heavy, but with each step the give was there, minuscule vibrations pebbling up her arms as the tight-fitting passageway protested their movement. As soon as there was enough momentum to carry the doors the rest of the way, she dropped her hands, instinctively raising her pistol to the darkness that lay beyond, sweeping her vision across the room to scan the area as she took slow, deliberate steps into Krieg’s sanctum.

He boots made soft echoes as she padded her way towards to opening in the center of the room. It was dim, but for a few lone candles. A large table was barely visible in the middle of the floor, with various unidentifiable objects on it. Margaret did not risk a focused glance at them, though- she knew Krieg was here- she could feel him in the air, in her mind. His very consciousness bristled in the company of a source of Aetherial power that he did not control. Suddenly, she saw a hulking form ponderously wander into view, and her stomach lurched. Francis’ choler was rising within her, to bolster her resolve in the face of this terrible monster.

Warden krieg was encapsulated in a seamless suit of onyx armor, with gold trim. A light sheen of the same green light that Margaret could shoot from her hands danced about his form delicately like drapery, or a veil. He wielded a large pointed mace in his right hand, imbued with an Aether crystal twice the size of the cluster burrowed in her shoulder. In his left hand, he held a gigantic slab of steel nearly half her height. The shield was forged with the utmost attention to detail for optimum performance, its face lined with studs down the front, spikes on its edges, and a slit which could be used to simultaneously block without losing sight of the enemy.

“Ah… I’ve been exPECTing you” Krieg called out, raising his aether mace to the sky in challenge.

Margaret said nothing, instead raising her own challenge by moving straight into the offense, wisps of the aetherfire beginning to circulate her limbs, her hands burst into flame and she loosed the first stike- A simple fireblast, to test the enemy’s skill and resilience.

The fireblast landed- A direct hit! As the flames cleared, she saw Krieg had raise his shield to deflect the blow. Not misseing a step in his stride, he began to lightly jog towards her, hefting his plate shield to chest level for protective coverage. Margaret loosed another blast.

but Krieg’s shield met the blast head on, seemingly absorbing the ball of flame into itself. unfazed by the blast, he raised his mace now moving with the full momentum of a creature easily twice her size. Margaret had to move, but Krieg’s speed was inhuman and before she had realized too late. The mace swung down upon her with oppressive force, and she slammed her eyes shut shouting out, holding her hands up as if they would protect her from the attack…

Francis’ preternatural command of her Aetherfire acting on instinct had saved her. At the last second her left hand had moved at the same unnatural speed as Kriegs, hurtling a fireblast to knock the blow away in a small shockwave that sent the wake of Kriegs Aetheric power warbling through her body in a flood of nausea and disorienting her. Krieg did not escape the maneuver unaffected either, his attacks stunted by her flames which burnt all over his armor, attempting to consume it.

As she gathered her senses, Francis took over, and she saw her arms raise before her, palms outstretched as if to grab onto something. An enormous heat was being generated, building up in her arms, and her hands, the air around her turning into purple fire as it sucked the excess Aetheric energies out of the air and drew them into her body.

With a crack, Francis shot her arm out, delivering a blinding blast to the Warden’s core, the armor there buckling under the pressure, but refusing to break. The overflow of the blast sent roiling to either side of him and causing the flametide to arise.

This time, Krieg did some of his OWN absorption, pulling the cloud of flames directly into his buckled core, restoring it to full operational status and extinguishing the flametide before stiking Margaret’s fiery hands away with his mace.

With the energy he absorbed, Krieg let loose a wall of pure Aether energy straight at Margaret. Francis’ otherworldly reaction speed saved her yet again, sending her into a rolling evasion and diving to the right, just out of the attacks path. Raising her pistol, Francis stared the Warden down in defiance.

“You tried to kill me once, and failed. Now you try again, and now you will fail again!” He shouted at Krieg through Margaret’s being. Krieg, still flaming with excess Aether energy, simply raised his mace in her direction.

“So, it is you, after all… Some grudges transcend the bounds of space and time, let ours be one in the same! I SHALL END YOUR PITIFUL REBELLION HERE AND NOW!” He shouted in a voice that was not his own, but came from somewhere inside of him, much like Francis’ voice came through Margaret as he piloted her actions… Could it be, that the presence in her peripheral was not just Francis?

[Now you are beginning to understand] A voice boomed through her entire being. “I have been trying to show her” She heard Francis say. She wanted to understand, but this was no time to puzzle it out! Krieg was in the air, and coming in fast with a brutal leap attack! Without hesitation she loosed two quick fireblasts, faster than ever before, but the Warden’s shield was there to meet them both, and inhaled the fire into itself like it was alive, a beast of some forgotten age. He raised his weaponry and let out a bloodcurdling roar.

Margaret took this for an opening, and unleashed a supercharged fireblast, laced with eldritch energies and the aether of her own design. A blinding heatlight enveloped her

As the light faded, she could see Krieg huddled down, defeated, and ringed by his OWN flamewake, only his flames were made of pure Aether, not watered down by actual fire. Had she done it??? Was he defeated?

“No… No, you’ve not done it… It’s not over yet- Margaret, take cover!!! He is coming now!” Francis’ voice seemed to trail off into the distance

[This is not your fight, mortals. I must face him without your meddling.] the strange voice returned in the forefront of her existence. Francis was beside her, and both of them were holding hands, observers of this third possession- a pure possession… She could see the Aether cluster in her shoulder shining bright hot, and growing, growing throughout the body that had been hers.

Suddenly there was an exxplosive shrieking that rang throughout the entire dungeon, and Kriegs back arced. The same mutations that were taking place in Margarets physiology were occuring tenfold in krieg’s, overflowing and erupting through the surface of his skin causing his armor to bind to his flesh and his shield to shatter, falling back into the skin and forming a crude, spiked, blunt instrument out of the end of his left arm. The transformation neared its completion, creating large shimmering Aetheric patches of tissue which bled with burning electrical energy. This creature grew to twice the height of the Warden she had defeated, dwarfing her, easily 3 times her height, truly a terror to behold.

It moved twice as fast, and hit twice as hard, but neither Margaret nor Francis could feel the blows, they sat imprisoned as these two Aetherial entities fought an age old battle, likely one that had started at the dawn of time.

The entity in control of Margaret and francis was trying its best, but even after unleashing its true power, Margaret had not been a strong enough vessel. Her body was not taking to the Aether as her spirit was. A true vessel needed to do both. It used its cunning in an attempt to turn the tide of battle, but Francis could tell the creature possessing Margaret was far weaker in her form than the one in possession of Krieg’s was in his. He slowly brought Margaret into a comforting embrace.

“I’m sorry, for everything”. He said.

“Hush now, I’m not finished yet, I can still-”

“Margaret, no. You cant” He said, and drew her into himself, the two of them becoming one, and transferring into the very corporeal fabric of the Aetheric entity in possession of Margaret’s body, unveiling the mysteries of a thousand ancient secrets and histories as the battle raged on outside

As Margaret’s body reached it’s limits, Krieg took no time to hesitate, winding back and delivering a brutal blow that shattered bones, throwing the Aetherial entity in possession of her body into a stupor.

Recovering too late, Margaret, Francis, and the Aetherial entity all strained in unison to force Margaret’s broken, bloody body to hobble away from Warden Krieg’s final attack…

…Margaret, Francis, and the Aetherial entity failed in unison, the wardens deathblow pulping her organs and sending Margaret’s corpse sailing over his desk and across the room to land, a bloody broken heap.

As the life left her body, Margaret could feel Francis beside her, the two of them absorbed into the Aetherial entity… This battle somehow was not the final one they would fight, but it would not be in this vessel…

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BASED ON NPC LORE: Lokarr, and the Crucible

Frederick Longshore had never known fame or fortune. He had only ever known the hunt. He was a middle aged hermit, who lived off the land in solitude. He would find fame (if his destiny could be considered such) in his new life, however. When the grim dawn fell on Cairn, Frederick found himself awakening as a prisoner in the Crucible- a temporal plane, in an isolated dimension under the control of it’s sadistic master, Lokarr. The Crucible realm was one of horror and barbarism, but also had it’s moments of beauty. Lokarr had gathered hundreds if not thousands of rare specimens- creatures drawn from the Aether and Extracted from Cthonic voids alike. Forced to fight for Lokarr’s amusement, Frederick endured the melees against man and horror alike, fighting his way to freedom against a variety of nightmares in the pits (clearing the first 10 waves in Crucible as his game start).

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In time, Frederick earned an audience with Lokarr, and pleaded for his freedom. Lokarr obliged, with but one single stipulation- Longshore would become Lokarr’s logistical middle-man wherever his menagerie was concerned. So long as he would deliver a steady stream of live specimens to Lokarr’s rifts, he would have his freedom. Frederick agreed- a life of taking captives and delivering them to Lokarr was still a life lived in Cairn, far from the horrors of the Crucible realm. For his pledge, he was most graciously rewarded with a masterfully crafted rifle Lokarr dubbed “The Huntsman”, to aid in his quests hunting new specimens. In addition, he was gifted a great horned helmet adorned with the giant antlers of some beast of legend, and a suit of armor crafted from the remains of the wild beasts Frederick had slain in the melees. Lokarr also gave Frederick his choice of a melee weapon from an assortment which belonged to previous “Participants”, as he called them. A brief meal was then facilitated for him before he swore an ancient oath and was loosed into a rift to Lokarrs parting words.

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“I shall send my hounds to aid you, to act as though your minions, but do not forget- These minions, as all those you shall gather in your duties henceforth, belong to me. You may be leaving the Crucible, but your service to me will never be over. My eyes shall always be upon you…” The last thing Frederick heard was Lokarr’s maniacal laughter as the rift closed around him.

Frederick returned to reality with a whip and a crash, dropping out of the rift and into the wilderness from whence he had been taken, however long ago. The true duration unknown to anyone, save Lokarr himself. Time was its own puzzle in the Crucible realm. He rose to a crouch in a broken and deformed version of the Cairn he had known before. The surrounding landscape seemed… Darker, somehow. Even the trees had been affected, their trunks nearly the color of onyx. An avid hunter, Frederick knew many ways to track and hunt the beasts of the wild, and yet he failed to find any for days as he made his way to the closest civilization to the South. Ones he did find, he did not trust to be edible, and was unfamiliar with the worth of any materials their corpses might yield. Of civilization, signs of its presence had all but vanished, and those few that did remain along the way were fundamentally changed, each of them overtaken by the shadow of fear given name. Its name? Wendigo.

This name meant little to Frederick, for he was unfamiliar with the Wendigo. His mission was to function as Lokarr’s chief trapper in the physical realm, however. As such, he felt it only prudent that he make note of it, and drew a marker on his map. He would return here in search of the Wendigo, once he had the proper provisions to support an investigative hunt. First he would need to take stock of all the ways in which the land had grown since hed been taken, in order to identify a modernized collection of supplies which he might need for such an undertaking. He found himself wondering about Lokarr’s hounds. Perhaps they would aid him in this venture, but he had no idea where they were or how to call upon them. That would have to wait as well.

Frederick Longshore maintained his southern route for the closest bastion of mankind- Burrwitch. As he made his way south, hoof prints took on new shapes and sizes he had never seen before. Vines twisted into large plant-life, which moved of its own accord, spewing out fountains of toxic ichor that hit the forest floor with thick splatters, every surface it covered sizzling and appearing to decompose before his very eyes. Almost all the birds were gone, save the ravens, who watched him with keen eyes, their calls echoing to and fro throughout the drafty heights of blackened timber. Whole sections of the forest appeared to be rotting in some places, infected by hues of dark purple, deep maroon, and eerie green. The entire foundation of the wilderness seemed to have been shifted by an unknown force, and utterly reshaped, the twisted evolution annihilating more than just the game, but the very way of life Frederick had been privy to. He would need to brave new waters to survive, for there were new beasts that needed hunting now, and he was up for the challenge.

Leather in his gloves creaking with tension, he tightened his fingers around the haft of his bearded axe, giving it a few idle swings and each time feeling more accustomed to its weight and blade.

“Very well, then”. He said, and ventured out from the Gloomwald.

AND SO, THE TALE OF FREDERICK LONGSHORE, MORTAL TRAPPER AND BEASTMASTER OF LOKARR’S MENAGERIE BEGINS…

@Maya this is in honor of all that you do!

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Fantastic! Love reading this.

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R.I.P Margaret. Some great shots of evading those lethal Aether shotgun blasts. Hardcore with a classless build can be really punishing in the boss fights. One mistake or a step in the wrong direction and it is over in seconds.

Another issue is that you can also die very easy when trying to capture the opportunistic screen snapshots you are looking out for. Dunno what the answer to this is unless maybe a mod can start and stop a snapshot sequence when requested

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No answer needed. Punishment is life. I am loving it!!!

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FREDERICK LONGSHORE MOSEYS INTO BURRWITCH;

As he entered Burrwitch, he was unsurprised to find it a smoldering ruin. Malformed bodies littered the roads, their corpses recently slain… Whatever had killed these creatures must have been close-by. Longshore relied on his hunter’s senses. He could smell nothing but ash and blood. The bodies of the enemy lay burnt to cinders, shattering into flakes of soot and carried away on the breeze as he walked past. Whoever… WHATEVER did this… Longshore was relieved to have missed it. Otherwise he might be a charred corpse as well.

This close to Gloomwald, the best place to start his hunt was the Warden’s Estate, which he was unsurprised to find vacant but for the dead. He made his ways through the hallways and passages of the underground transit system, unsure why the Warden had such an elaborate facility built beneath his Estate. This uncertainty faded when Longshore entered the Hidden Laboratory, learning the true purpose of the facility- harvesting bodies of criminals and other… “Donations”… To serve as vessels for the Aetherials.

Longshore was not new to this phenomena, nor was he new to the practice. He had fought against these monsters during his time in the crucible, and Lokarr was taken to using the bodies of fallen pit-fighters in the same way the Warden apparently had been using those of convicts and low class citizens. For Lokarr, the Aetherials were a blessing, a renewable resource that would sustain itself for as long as his bloody melees provided the bodies of the dead. Somehow, in this, the Warden’s hidden laboratories were a crude, untempered, and altogether amateur enterprize compared to Lokarr’s tyrannical dictatorship in the realm. The Warden’s fancy surgical equipment and devices that crowded the place had all been dismantled- each and every one. Lokarr needed no equipment or devices to conduct his surgeries.

Longshore travelled deeper into the facility. His footsteps echoing along the dark hallways, here and there dampened by piles of burned flesh, or smashed decor. A few lone fires still burned, announcing themselves with straggling cracks and pops and casting slippery light on blood spattered walls and leveled surfaces, the accidental victims of catastrophic impacts- death blows executed too fast, or extended too far. At long last, Longshore reached the Warden’s solar. He raised the Huntsman to his chest, and crept inside to catch his first target…

…but the room was empty, save for some shattered furniture, and broken weaponry. He slung the Huntsman over his shoulder, returning it to its position. There was a human skull sitting near the fireplace in a pool of blood. His hunter’s instincts kicked in, and he crouched down next to the crimson spill, no doubt where a body had been just hours earlier- the blood was still wet. As he rose to his feet, he found the skull in his left hand- evidently he had picked it up without realizing it. Strange. Stranger still, it was warm to the touch and humming with some kind of mysterious energy… It was as if… As if it were WHISPERING to him…

Putting the whispering voices out of his mind, Frederick made the long walk south to Devil’s Crossing, urged on by a sudden, unsettling intuition, that he was meant to go south. Something was telling him his target had passed through the Crossing, and into Arkovia.

“Give him a chance” Longshore jumped, startled by the whisper. He spun around, but nothing was there… How very curious… Was Lokarr attempting to contact him somehow?

Upon entering the Crossing, the residents there were shocked by his wild appearance, and the guards mistook him for an enemy creature, firing at him before he shouted out “Im human!! I mean you no harm! Please!”, the guards slowly lowered their weapons and brought him to John Bourbon, who was relieved, if not unnerved, to hear about the disappearance of the Warden. The settlement was overcome by sadness when he explained the skull- he told them how he’d found it there, and Bourbon had him bring it to the spirit guide, who spent many hours performing rituals around the skull until she finally was able to communicate with it.

The skull was Margaret’s. Bourbon wanted to bury it and build a shrine around it, however Longshore felt that would be a waste- something urged him to oppose this. He needed to bring the skull with him, of that much he was sure, though he could not say why.

“In time… All in good time…” Was all he heard in the back of his mind…

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LONGSHORE HUNTS HIS MARKS;

Urged onward, Frederick Longshore follows a weaving course through Arkovian lands, intermingling with beasts and bandits alike, periodically overtaken by fits of deja-vu, visions of having crossed these lands before, though he never had…

He encountered sparse resistance- Most of the bandits were already dead, slain by a previous traveler. What remained were loosely organized bands of cowardly fighters who harried him but would disappear, fleeing into the hills whenever confronted head-on. One such group had taken refuge in a nearby crumbling structure. Frederick pursued them into the structure, setting it ablaze and purging it of all signs of life. When he climbed out, he was on the other side, free to roam the Arkovian plains.

The plains were filled with the dead, but these were not Aetherials risen again to fight him- These were the undead. The long dead citizens of Arkovia, ascending through stone and sand and breaking free from the earth in an outrage at this intruder. Their numbers were so great, Frederick feared he would soon be at the end of his trapping days. He wondered what horrors would befall him if he should fail Lokarr without having delivered a single worthy specimen.

“Focus!!!” A strong womanly voice commanded from within the skull. And so he did, his sights set on the enemies before him. Rifts opened up beside him intermittenly, spitting out Lokarr’s faithful Rifthounds, who tore into the enemy without remorse. They fought alongside Frederick seamlessly, as though they’d known him all his life, and defended him with their own;

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Free to focus on one enemy at a time, Longshore made swift, clean, and efficient death-work with his bearded axe, light catching on its razor sharp edge through clouds of gore, glinting off it with omens of bloody murder. He fought on, through to the Bandit’s hideout, the hounds possessed by the bloodlust of Lokarr himself.

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A long bandit attempts to stop Frederick Longshore, but he is easily outmatched by the veteran hunter, whose bearded axe slices a chunk out of the bandit’s chest and left arm, sending blood spouting out of the wound. Stunned by the sudden deathblow, the bandit staggers leaking blood for several seconds before keeling over in a cloud of festering doom

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When Frederick reached the end of the old bandit’s hideout, he found it deserted. Someone had already avenged the innocents here…

…But Margaret’s skull pulsed in his hand, the closer he got to the wall, a beacon to a shimmering green light- Aether-light- through some broken wood planks set recklessly in the wall. Frederick hacked them away effortlessly using his axe, and stepped into the hidden room…

Bathed in the emerald shine, a gentle glowing wind encircled him, emanating from the skull. He watched it swirl around him, the forms of a man and woman in somber embrace.

“Frederick… You must take of the crystal. You must feed us. It is your destiny, and without it, all three of us will be gone forever. When the time comes, you will thank me for this…” The man and woman confessed, speaking in unison. Frederick used his axe to shatter the crystal, taking a couple of chunks of it for himself, and placing them inside the skull.

Where before the skull had been only a distant entity on his awareness, once implanted with the aether clusters, it became fully alive- Moving and talking of its own accord! Fiery green light spilled out from its eye sockets, illuminating a trail of footprints made of illusionary Aetherfire. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times to make sure he wasnt imagining it before tracking the set of footprints to a hole in a broken mineshaft.

“Go on” the skull said, and Frederick Longshore did.

The land beyond had been savagely vandalized, a bridge utterly destroyed, forcing him to fight through swathes of the undead and brave the depths of the Arkovian Undercity and the abominations in the Broken Hills, and Smuggler’s Pass before getting back on track. Lokarr’s hounds fought like demons beside him, working in threes to dispatch great monsters and horrors.

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With each enemy laid low, the skull grew ever hotter in Frederick’s hand. He could hear a sickening suckling sound radiating from the flickering bone. When he looked down, to his amazement, he saw the skull itself was SUCKING THE SOULS out from the slain enemies. Spectral wisps circulated through the air, drawn into the mouth of the skull.

“We are so hungry…” He could hear the voices say. He would give them a banquet.

A quick stop for some long forgotten treasure would go a long way in improving his status with Lokarr on his next delivery…

Who was this “Ulgrim”? And how in the world did he know that Frederick Longshore had been taken by Lokarr?! NO ONE knew about Lokarr… How could they?

Longshore put his questions away, and went back to the bloodshed in search of his Marks. The time was drawing near when he would need to make his first delivery…

The closer he got to Homestead, he could sense his Marks.

“To me, hounds!” He cried out, calling the Rifthounds to his side, and running with his pack, the spirit of the Rifthound flowing strongly through him!

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Together they met the tide of Aetherials on the frontline with a crash, engaging in a brutal struggle for dominance on the field of battle

“THERE!” Margaret’s skull violently cried. “The first mark!”

Longshore reached over his shoulder and unslung the Huntsman, drawing down on the mighty Aetherial hero- A fine specimen indeed! Lokarr would be pleased.

“Thats one down” Frederick said to himself in satisfacton.

“Dont get cocky- There are more here, and they are close… I’m sensing theyre at the gates of Homestead…” The skull replied.

“Ohhhh, what a beautiful creature…” The skull exclaimed, clearly enamoured with the specimen before them.

“Yessss… But another rises!!! WATCH OUT!”

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The net barely fit over Harrath, the hulking war-beast straining to break free, twine and strands of rope began to thread and come undone with each turn of its weight and movement in its limbs. Letting out a shout of pure rage, it threw its arms up, tearing the net to shreds, and charging at Frederick with reckless abandon. Longshore shifted his weight to his hind leg, preparing to dodge and stike out with a rapid counter attack, he lowered his center of gravity and focused his breathing, eyes locked on harrath and unaffected by the sounds and smells of the surrounding battle- Just like being back in one of Lokarr’s melees. Nothing to it! He was comfortable in this environment. He tightened his grip on his axe, eagerly anticipating the moment he would strike the killing blow to Harrath’s soon-to-be vulnerable neckspace…

Suddenly one of Lokarr’s hounds burst out from a rift and struck a mortal blow to Harrath behind his shield arm on his unguarded quarter, laying him low.

“Damn you. I had him… Greedy little hounds…” Longshore cursed, frustrated at the stolen glory.

With his marks delivered, Longshore thought back to the Wendigo… He’d grown accustomed to battling in Cairn once again, and felt it was time he return to seek out the mysterious Wendigo… Just to collect information. He was not ready to hunt it yet. Returning the way he came, Frederick Longshore trudged across to Gloomwald once again…

Might as well collect some specimens while hes in the area… This plant life was unreal…

Taking a moment, Frederick cut several pieces off of one of the slain plants, which rapidly began to decompose before his eyes.

“Stunning…” He relented.

He’d been so engrossed in his investigations that he failed to notice his movements had attracted the attention of the blood cults and deranged locals…

“The cluster… Take of it. Swallow it. NOW.” The skull demanded. Longshore did as he was bid, breaking off a shard from the Aether cluster in the mouth of the skull and swallowing it. It burned his throat and he swore he could feel it tearing him open from the inside. It was a horrible pain, but he had no time to consider that- Enemies were closing in, and they wanted nothing more than to make a sacrifice out of his body…

Without warning, stakes rose up out of the ground, and barbed wire constricted around him- Frederick Longshore, the trapper, had been trapped! The wire cut into him, spilling his blood and sending crazed incantations to the skies from the cultish revelers pouring out from the nearby broken down structure. Frederick could feel his strength fading. He struggled to break free, worsening the cuts and deepening his wounds. His blood now flowing openly over his armor, Lokarr’s hounds powerless to reverse the effect, he bucked and kicked down the trappings, clumsily throwing the wire off of himself just before a round fired from one of the cultist’s guns bored straight through his chest. The pain was incredible, but Frederick endured it… He just had to, get close enough… And then… He could…

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As his vision darkened, the last thing Frederick Longshore saw was the boots of his enemy, still at least 2 feet away.

The skull moaned, and wisps rose from Frederick’s lifeless corpse, sucked into the mouth, into the Aether crystal that remained, and the skull shattered into a bright blue orb of light, floating away, off the ground, up into the trees.

Frederick was floating. Looking down he could see the cultists making off with his corpse, stringing it up into some kind of diabolical ritualistic pose before disembowling it. He watched it in serenity, wholly unaffected by what he was seeing. And he was not alone. Two others joined him at his sides… A man and a woman… Somehow, he knew their names were Margaret and Francis.

Lokarr’s melees did not satisfy him that day. He could feel that something was amiss… What had happened in Cairn?

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ENTER DEVON THORMANE, Master armorer, and apprentice blacksmith of the Crucible realm

BASED ON NPC; Lokarr, master of the Crucible

GRIMDAWN LORE;

Devon Thormane hadn’t set foot in Cairn for what felt like a century. This was, of course, impossible to determine from where he stood in the grand scheme of things. As with all souls that found themselves imprisoned within the Crucible realm, Thormane lived in a timelessness that stretched on and on with torturous excess. One did not age in the realm, and there was no night or day, only constant unending waves of war-games, for Lokarr’s amusement.

If you happened to be a “participant” in one such war-game, it was very likely that you would die, and for most that was both a dream, and a reality. Many of the pit-fighters wished for death in the melees, fighting suicidally and hoping for a glorious end to their torment. Thormane had witnessed several come and go in this manner, but had never joined in their pursuit of eternal silence for one reason- There was another way. Rather than carelessly throw his life away, he had always fought with control and tenacity

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As a pit-fighter participating in the war-games, Thormane had excelled, gaining enough experience to learn that slaying your enemies might bring some peace of mind, the feeling that the next melee would surely exhaust Lokarr’s collection of specimens. After all, exactly how many monsters could Lokarr possess in his reserves? A commonly debated mystery amongst those pit-fighters capable enough to survive the initiation melees was that there must be an end to the inexorable tide of minions Lokarr used in these melees. Thormane always sat quietly on the sidelines while other fighters shouted out guesses and hedged their bets, wagering that this next wave must surely bring about an end to the Crucible’s sadistic games. It never did. Eventually, Thormane learned why.

Time and again, Lokarr would choose amongst the most capable pit-fighters in the Crucible, and elevate them to a higher status. This higher status would grant them duties and responsibilities performing various administrative tasks in the realm, awarding them certain “freedoms”. These freedoms often ranged from upholding specific functions in the Crucible, and at times even involved in the authority to leave the realm for purposes unknown to any save Lokarr and his retinue- the Immortals.

The Immortals were powerful beings, each of them serving a different purpose in upholding specific functions to keep the melees operational. These were functions beyond the capabilities of any of the mortal pit-fighters, who were routinely assigned more menial tasks such as cleaning up the battlefields after a melee, setting up and tearing down totems, and other miscellaneous chores. Thormane had been appointed as a journeryman apprentice to Lokarr’s Immortal Blacksmith, for instance. The souls of these Immortals were bound to the Crucible realm, and to Lokarr himself. They could not ever set foot outside the Crucible realm, duty-bound for all time. As such, Lokarr took to enlisting his favored mortal pit-fighters for far-reaching operations that required his extended influence beyond the Boundaries of the Crucible from time to time.

One such pit-fighter was a man named Frederick Longshore. Longshore had arrived many (estimated) decades after Thormane had already been favored by Lokarr and chosen as his keeper of the Armory. Later, when Thormane was elevated to his apprenticeship, he watched Longshore rise and flourish in the realm, winning many melees. Longshore’s skill was impressive enough to win Lokarr’s attention, and he was eventually elevated and chosen as a transient for operations in support of the realm in Cairn. Thormane, chief armorer of the realm, had been the one to present Longshore with his prized helm, armor, and bearded axe before Lokarr hosted the great feast and sent him packing.

That had been many and more years ago, Thormane mused, the memories returning to him as he stared out over the valleys below… He wondered where Longshore was right now. What was he doing out there, what was it like to be back in Cairn?

“Thormane! To me, you dog! Ive need of your services” Lokarr shouted from behind him, and he slowly turned around to face him.

“My lord, I’ve already hammered out the day’s quota for the Smithy. In addition, I’ve sharpened and polished all of the armor and weaponry. They have been placed in the treasure chests, and await the victor of the next me-”

“Silence! What I require of you has nothing to do with that. I have something SPECIAL in mind for you”. Lokarr mocked, a wry smile creeping across his lips.

“Of course, my lord. How might I serve?” Thormane had not survived this long by being clumsy with his weapons, or his words. He was a loyal servant, and a disciplined warrior. He would not have endured otherwise.

“You will be going to Cairn”. Lokarr replied.

“To Cairn? For what?” Thormane asked.

“Oh- oh my… Dont you WANT to go? Perhaps I should choose one of my other pawns for this task…”. Lokarr teased, quizzically squinting his eyes, feigning interest in some other far-off location.

Thormane straightened his back, bringing himself up to his full height, standing proud before his master- a prime specimen for selection. “Forgive me, my lord. I meant no offense. This mortal mind failed me for a moment, thats all. Ill gladly go, as you command it” He exclaimed, almost stumbling over his words.

“Good. You shall leave immediately”. The two of them walked over to the steppes where Lokarr’s rifts were opened and sealed. “It would seem as though I have lost a contact in Cairn. Frederick Longshore, my logistical prospector in service to the Menagerie, has gone missing. To make matters worse, I am running short on… Participants… Surely you understand the implications of this. The games must go on! I had seen this shortage coming on the horizon, hence Longshore’s elevation and subsequent transient tasking. I had sent him out to bring me more specimens for the melees, but the fool only made a couple of deliveries before I lost contact with him. It shall be your charge to locate him, and return him to me to face his judgement.”

“Very well then. I shall head out at once” Thormane said, gruffly, hefting his giant hammer from over his shoulder to rest it on the ground beside him while he took a seat and tightened his smithing armor.

“Do be careful… Longshore was a capable fighter. Whatever happened… it could very well be a powerful foe at the heart of this”. Lokarr considered aloud in a rare moment of compassion. Though Lokarr willing sent hundreds of thousands to their deaths for a living, he did grow fond of his favorites. After all, the realm was a very lonely place with average participant life expectancy less than a day, and only his Immortals to keep him company besides.

“How do we know he didnt tuck tail and run once you set him loose in Cairn? Can we be certain he didnt go into hiding?” Thormane proposed, lacing up his boots.

“Impossible. He delivered powerful specimens to me, I received them through my rifts. I cant imagine he would have chosen to hide AFTER capturing them… Hiding is a coward’s game, and a coward would have hidden rather than confronted the beasts Longshore delivered to me. Besides, my hounds were with him. They would have seen… They should have…” Lokarr trailed off, muttering to himself under his breath. “Leave me, at once!”

“As you say, my Lord.” Thormane consented, and rose to his feet. With his dread hammer gripped tight in both hands, Devon Thormane walked into the rift, into a Cairn he’d not seen in…

NEXT TIME; DEVON THORMANE RETURNS TO CAIRN!

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Quick question: What exactly did you use to get the three hounds?

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Marrow Band, Karvor’s Conjuring Bone, and the Bysmiel’s Command devotion ability from Bysmiel’s Bonds constellation.

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