Legion of Everblight

The last thing an unforunate Winter Guard will ever see.

The 'evil' faction of Hordes, the Legion of Everblight can be summed up as an army of evil dragon xenomorphs which move at turbo speed and hit like trucks. Of course, there's more to the story:

Let's take it from the top

A long time ago, there was Toruk, who was a big fuckoff dragon. Unfortunately the problem with being a big fuckoff dragon is that it's really hard to relate to the "little" people, and so Toruk was bored, a precursor to many terrible decisions throughout history. In his boredom (or desire to conquer the world, or to have some company that didn't suffer a horrific lingering death from his dragon blight, or...not even the dragons themselves are entirely sure), he decided to carve up his athanc into a bunch of pieces to see what would happen. The pieces grew into dragons of their own, each its own individual and distinct from their progenitor.

Seeing the results of his work, Toruk looked upon his brood and demanded they swear fealty to their father and creator. The other dragons--apparently sharing their progenitor's lack of common sense--told him to fuck off.

Toruk took this poorly. The end result was like a typical family reunion gone awry: words were said that should not have been said, feelings were hurt, children were consumed by their father in a filicidal rage in order to reclaim their power as his own.

You know, the usual.

Anyway, a dragon born from the neckbeardiest *CHOMP* MOST PURE AND EXQUISITE portion of Toruk's original athanc watched as his brothers got curbstomped thanks to their utter unwillingness to work together, and decided that he would probably need a better plan to defeat his father than blindly charging in like a suicidal retard. Looking for a place to lay low for a while, Everblight eventually happened along the human kingdom of Morrdh, notable for its use of magic before the existence of The Gift and the sort of fun place you get when you commit unspeakable blasphemies for bleak horrors from beyond the veil in return for temporal power. Curious and intrigued at their secrets, Everblight soon struck a deal with the Lords of Morrdh: in return for being able to crash on their couch and copy their notes, he would lend them his draconic strength against their enemies (and Morrdh had a lot of enemies). All in all, this wound up being a pretty cushy arrangement for Everblight: the dragon had become adept in creating dragonspawn deliberately shaped to fulfill a given task, and the fact that Morrdh couldn't go 15 minutes without fighting a war meant that he had plenty of opportunities to test and refine his creations. Indeed, many of the dragonspawn created in the current Legion are almost unchanged from their predecessors who marched with and slew the enemies of Morrdh.

Pride goeth before the fall, also Elf faggotry

All good things must come to an end, because the narrative demands it.

In time, Everblight's influence grew steadily over the kingdom of Morrdh, and he became ever more brazen. This culminated in sending dragonspawn to openly assassinate several lords who had displeased him (in the middle of their own armies, no less), and was probably a poor idea even assuming that one of Toruk's servants hadn't spotted the act and tattled to the Dragonfather. Toruk sent one of his vassals to the Lords of Morrdh to deliver an ultimatum: give up Everblight or be destroyed.

Everblight barely survived the subsequent betrayal and his father's wrath, escaping only because he led Toruk to the lair of one of his siblings, finding a place to hide while his father fought with and consumed the unwitting fall guy dragon. Everblight had survived, but the terrible wounds he suffered would take centuries to heal as he hid from the world.

Meanwhile--deprived of the strength of its greatest ally--Morrdh fell into ruin as its vengeful neighbors turned upon it. Also around this time it occurred to the other surviving dragons that there were a lot more of them than there were of Toruk, and they called a truce and banded together to drive the Dragonfather from the mainland. Toruk--overwhelmed and probably unable to comprehend the fact that his children had actually put aside their animosity to get shit done--retreated after a lengthy stalemate. While some believed Toruk to be defeated, Everblight had an idea about what the fuck was coming, and knew that he would need to be prepared.

And so, Everblight went to Ios to hang out with the elves, although it wasn't so much "hang out" as it was "watch your society fall into despair as it comes to grip with the death of its gods, decide to become your god to fill the void, experiment on your race like a middle schooler dissects frogs, and maybe consume your last living god to see if I can eat her power too." This went well enough until one of his science experiments got loose, spreading panic and bringing the entire military might of Ios down on his head: the ensuing battle resulted in the near-total destruction of the city of Issyrah and the loss of an entire generation of Iosan troops, but in the end Everblight's body was destroyed and his athanc torn loose. For Ios, this was yet another great tragedy that marked the slow decline of their race: for the other dragons this was evidence that Everblight was "THE BIGGEST BITCH PUSSY THAT EVER HAD THE CAJONES TO THINK TO CALL ITSELF A DRAGON."

Cherchez La Femme and the Birth of the Legion

So, a bunch of other shit happens and Everblight's athanc winds up on top of a mountain in the far north. Fortunately for our protagonist there are a bunch of nomadic winter elves (the Nyss) nearby, who are similar enough to their Iosan kin that Everblight's several hundred years of studying elf ears might still bear fruit. Around this time a mentally "suitable" ogrun happens to be near Everblight's resting place: Everblight manages to dominate the ogrun's thoughts, compelling him to climb the mountain, break the container holding the dragon's athanc, and then carve open his chest with a fucking skinning knife and jam the huge dragon-rock right into his heart. By all accounts this was not a pleasant experience, but at the end of it the ogrun Thagrosh descends the mountain, his new god riding shotgun in his chest.

As Everblight plots his next move he and Thagrosh are approached by the Nyss sorceress Vayl. Vayl's talent for divination has predicted the dragon's coming, and she has come to destroy him before the prophecies bear frui--I'm just messing with you, she sells her people up the fucking river in exchange for power. With Vayl's help, many of the Nyss are unwittingly corrupted and join the fold: those that aren't are either killed, captured and then subsequently "blessed", or are sent running south as fast as they can, their weak, invalid god of winter in tow. While free, Everblight chooses not to return to his "original" flesh: his siblings are looking for the kind of easy meal a regenerating dragon provides, and besides that there's work to be done...

Making his own set of Dark Elves and forging an army

A dragon's blight can bind other creatures to itself and make them its pawns, and Everblight had big plans using such a tactic. He poisoned the drinking wells of a nation of northern elves with his blight, the taint giving them grey skin and horns and taking away all their sense of humour, becoming Borg drones without the mind sharing and zany metal. He nearly got to munch on their comatose god as well but his remaining priests spirited him away... oh well. A small thorn in the side, really.

With an army of mortal minions secured, Everblight turned to creating his spawn: draconian creatures forged from his own blood. These looked like creatures but were not really, lacking souls and being nothing more then a moving mass of tooth and claw. Yes they are pretty much alien xenomorphs but come in a variety of funky shapes and sizes.

It was here that Everblight showed his mad scientist side, as he used the bodies of the dead as material to create his spawn and experimented with the Elves and their bodies to make 'ideal' hybrids of spawn and mortal. Just killed a human? Put his body in our cooking pot and bam, new spawn minion. Your elf husband died honouring our dragon father? Then he can serve once again, in the pot he goes! In a way Everblight is the ultimate recycler, nothing wasted! You give up your lovely, perfect hot female elf body for Lord Everblight? Then feel pleased to die birthing the ultimate spawn horror! (no seriously, that last part is canon).

What is the Legion up to now?

Well currently the Legion is making its way southwards, chomping on anything that gets in its path. They found a severely weakened dragon and Everblight's ogre vessel was able to consume its crystal heart, vastly increasing Everblight's power. Fighting all the other factions of the game, Everblight presents a unique threat to the safety of the world, although it remains to be seen if the Dragonfather will allow Everblight to continue to exist for much longer...

Warlocks of the Legion

Thagrosh, pre-draconic roid rage

• Thagrosh: Everblight's first "follower", and the one carrying the largest hunk of Everblight's athanc in his chest. As a result is the most mutated of Legion's warlocks, to the point where his Epic form barely resembles the ogrun he originally was. Is a bit of an enigma, personality wise: this is because all the story bits with him take place long after he has become the Prophet, and after such lengthy exposure to the dragon's influence it's difficult to separate where Thagrosh's personality ends and Everblight's begins (the original Mark I Prime fluff further adds to the confusion, with Thagrosh continually switching between "I" and "we" as he provides the obligatory faction exposition dump). Keeps his pimp hand strong, to the point where he can bitchslap a ho harder than some people can swing their swords.
• Vayl: Ice witch who sold the future of her people to Everblight in exchange for power. Effectively the power behind the throne of the Legion, as she has made herself invaluable by tending to the BORING MORTAL BULLSHIT that the grand visionary Everblight can't be arsed to take care of, such as making sure the army actually has the supplies and dragonspawn needed to enact the Legion's grand schemes. Is also a control freak who gets a bit miffed when Everblight does things like create Kallus behind her back or takes her stuff for his latest science experiment.
• Lylyth: a Nyss hunter that Everblight coerced into joining the Legion while she was bleeding to death after murdering a tribe of humans who had killed her father. Is Everblight's go-to scout, penetrating deep into the enemy's rear in order to obtain intel on whatever tasty athanc the Legion is chasing today. Desperate to impress, since she knows her life has value only so much as she is useful, and that she will be sacrificed without a second thought should Everblight deem it prudent. Playing her Shadow incarnation in a casual game automatically makes you That Guy.
• Saeryn: one of the twin sister warlocks and Everblight, and generally the twin people care about (as she's been a top tier warlock ever since Mark I). Accomplishments include: making her sister murder everyone they knew and cared about in order to harden her for her future role as a warlock in the Legion, nearly killing Thagrosh when he came to bring them into the fold in order to show Everblight she was no man (or dragon's) patsy, and squabbling with Vayl over who gets to be the Queen Bitch of the Legion. Recently tried to intercept a Cryxian army bringing an athanc back to the Scharde Isles, but was driven off when her Breath Stealer was purified by Morvahna.
• Rhyas: the other sister who nobody cares about because she's always been kind of janky in game(although the recent errata giving her sword Reach might change this). Appears to be more of a lackey to Saeryn than a sister, although recent fluff suggests that she's jealous of her sister's frenemy relationship with Vayl and doesn't want to be the third wheel when the inevitable hatesex breaks out. Killed a fucking dragon, but because Rhyas can't have nice things like the respect of others the entire act happened off screen.
• Absylonia: Has the personality of a rock, thanks to the trauma of her transformation nearly destroying her mind and leaving her as a blank slate: this works out pretty well for Everblight, since he doesn't have to worry about silly things like "memories" or "consent" getting in the way of shaping her as a tool for his schemes. Will probably be Confirmed as Legion's next epic warlock, at which point she might develop something that makes her notable beyond "that boring warlock that can make her arms wings or something, I dunno".
• Bethayne: A former priestess of Nyssor, whose fanatical devotion to Everblight is at least partially an attempt to mask the feelings of shame and guilt for betraying her vows to Nyssor and not having the courage to die. Runs around with a dragonspawn of her own creation, which she can merge with in an unbirthing transformation in battle. Is a skilled orator, recently managing to charm the socks off of Doctor Arkadius in order to convince him not to cut her open and see what makes her tick (although given that the good Doctor has been spending the past several years in the company of feral pig men how much her "oratory" skills played a part may be debatable).
• Kallus: One day Thagrosh (and Everblight) were getting smashed on some stolen Rhulic liquor and Thagrosh was all "I want a Mini-Me!" and Everblight was like THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY FUCKING SWEET and so Kallus was "born." Effectively a piece of athanc with a separate personality (although still connected to Everblight), Kallus has the ability to not die, even when he's killed so long as there's another living humanoid that they can jam the athanc shard into: he uses this ability to infiltrate a Skorne fortress after being "killed" by Hexeris, "acquiring" a new body from an unwitting Skorne and making off with some dragon bones they were excavating. Vayl hates his guts, since he's being groomed as Thagrosh's heir apparent and his earnest desire to please her pisses her off even more.

See also

Hordes/Tactics/Legion of Everblight