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The Ashen Praetor

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Background

The Ashen Praetor has traditionally kept a low profile in the living world, preferring to stay in the Underworld proper to oversee the training of his Shadow Legion. In recent years, he and his forces have made regular excursions into the Fields of Woe, but have remained largely undetected due to their efforts to disguise themselves as "normal" ghostly inhabitants of that war-torn shadowland.

One year ago, the Praetor made an uncharacteristically bold and flashy move, occupying the Crypt of the Windrider, defiling and demolishing the tomb at its center and using earth-shaking sorcery to erect a fortified acropolis. Since then, he has maintained a strong military presence in the small shadowland, and his scouts frequently test the boundaries of Walker's Realm. His soldiers have also been observed in the Black Chase, and rumors persist that he has hidden garrisons tucked away in the haunted forest.

Description

Apart from the unearthly pallor which gives him the look of a marble statue, the Ashen Praetor could pass for human. His features are stern and aquiline, his body solid and muscular. A thin fringe of hair, the same color as his skin, is the only thing preventing him from being completely bald. His eyes are a piercing yellow, like those of an eagle.

The Praetor habitually dresses as a field commander, wearing an ornate soulsteel-inlaid orichalcum breastplate and a capelike red cloak, his muscular arms and legs bare except for orichalcum greaves and bracers. In battle, he carries a wicked single-edged grimcleaver named Dominion, paired with Golden Aegis, a large orichalcum shield with a shrieking soulsteel face worked into its surface.

Ruthlessly efficient, the Praetor demands only the best from his subordinates, and does not brook dissent. Those who displease him have their property confiscated, and their souls smelted into weapons for his troops. However, unlike certain of his colleagues, the Praetor is scrupulously fair. No one is exempt from his draconian justice, and he maintains an elite cadre of magistrates who spend as much time making sure that his subjects know the law as they do actually enforcing it. The Praetor's realm is one of the safest places in the Underworld, provided one follows his laws, and his subjects grudgingly respect him.

In person, the Ashen Praetor is laconic and uncompromising. He prefers to listen rather than speak, but when he does open his mouth it is best to pay very close attention; those who fail to understand him the first time he addresses them earn his displeasure. The Praetor exists for planning and logistics, and frequently spends weeks closeted with his advisors, plotting out new military stratagems or public-works projects. Once the planning is done, he normally delegates the actual execution to underlings.

Place of Residence

The Ashen Praetor has recently moved his headquarters to the newly-constructed Dark Acropolis, situated on the previous site of the Crypt of the Windrider. It consists of three low, blocky buildings, surrounded by a pentagonal arrangement of basalt and obsidian pillars. The entire compound sits atop a rocky mesa, thrust up out of the ground by the Praetor's magic. A division of the Shadow Legion is encamped around the Acropolis' base, and can be frequently seen drilling in the shadowland. The force consists mainly of ghosts, with no Abyssal Exalted and few corporeal undead in evidence.

The Praetor also maintains a palace in the Underworld. Considerably more impressive than the Acropolis, the Fortress of Air and Stone was crafted out of a small flying mountain towed down from the North. Legions of ghostly craftsmen, and the Praetor's own puissant sorceries, have reshaped the mountain into a fortified citadel. It currently hovers above the Praetor's capital city, but the Shadow Legion's engineering corps has nearly completed the construction of vast sorcerous engines that will allow the Fortress to travel under its own power.

Followers

The Ashen Praetor commands the Shadow Legion, a large force of well-trained undead and Abyssal Exalted. Unlike its cousin, the Legion Sanguinary, the Shadow Legion is not a "proper" army; although it includes a good-sized core of traditional infantry and cavalry, that force's main purpose is to back up the Legion's commando units. These elite light infantrymen are highly trained and disciplined, expert at infiltrating enemy territory, striking strategic targets and then vanishing, only to attack again when least expected.

Up until recently, the Praetor had no Abyssal servants. This was partially due to the fact that he was in the midst of other plans and had no time to train them, and also because he found he only had need of Day Caste Abyssals, and had to barter with other Deathlords in order to obtain the appropriate Essences. In the interim, he made do with living servants; his agents would capture people who strayed too close to the Fields of Woe or the Black Chase, and bring them to the Praetor's citadel. There, the Deathlord used his sorcery to remove their still-living hearts. The prisoners were then released, but their hearts stayed in the Praetor's care. This not only allowed him to observe them at all times, but also gave him a failsafe mechanism: if the heartbound slaves stepped out of line, all the Praetor had to do was destroy their hearts and they would immediately fall dead.

At his peak, the Praetor had more than 100 heartbound servants, including three Dragon-Blooded and a Lunar Exalted named Mika the Bobcat. That number has since dwindled to about fifty, all of them mortal except for a single outcaste Dragon-Blooded named Yasha Sterling.

Currently, at least three Abyssals serve the Praetor, all of them Day Caste.

• Autumn of Unrequited Desire is a beautiful young man with silky, waist-length auburn hair, an infectious laugh, and eyes like glass razors. He is expert at kidnapping and interrogation, and likes chatting up his prisoners while he tortures them. Autumn enjoys flirting with both men and women, but the only person he truly desires is his fellow deathknight, the Virgin of Unsullied Hands.

• The Virgin of Unsullied Hands' moniker refers to her intense distaste for shedding blood; she prefers to strangle her victims. She wears a pair of black silk gloves, which she never removes. She appears as a slender, deathly pale woman with short black hair, dark brown eyes, and a dour expression. She is rather unfriendly and sarcastic. Unsullied Hands is not really a virgin, nor is Autumn's desire for her unrequited.

• The Masked Centurion garbs himself in form-fitting black armor, criss-crossed with bandoliers of weapons and tools, and hides his dessicated visage behind a cowl and facemask. He is the oldest of the Praetor's Abyssal servants, and commands powerful necromantic and sorcerous spells in addition to his Charms. The Centurion is a consummate professional, and does not approve of the relationship which exists between Autumn of Unrequited Desire and the Virgin of Unsullied Hands. Rumors that this is due to his own lust for the blood-averse assassin have no basis in truth.

Mad Schemes

The Praetor's occupation of the Windrider's Crypt, and his testing of Walker in Darkness' defenses, are merely feints. His real target is Mask of Winters, whom he despises. The Praetor thinks that the Mask's invasion of Thorns was a rash, irresponsible move, inspired more by hubris than any desire to effectively serve the Malfean agenda, and he plans on making Mask of Winters pay for his reckless ambition.

The portion of the Shadow Legion encamped around the Dark Acropolis is actually rotated on a regular basis; the bulk of the Legion spends its time either in the Fortress of Air and Stone, or performing covert maneuvers in lands surrounding the Fields of Woe. Meanwhile, the Praetor's agents make secret pacts with the Empire of Aki and Walker in Darkness, promising aid if they come into conflict with the Mask. The plan is for the Praetor's army to feint towards Walker's Realm, then continue straight on past to Thorns, where they will meet with the Empire's forces and beseige Mask of Winters.

This plan is yet another feint. The Praetor knows that Mask's spies have infiltrated both his and Walker's courts, so he keeps his true plans locked inside his head. After three years of secret research, the Praetor has devised magics which he believes will enable his forces to pass through the wards and harmful spiritual energies of the Mourning Field with only minimal difficulty. As the bulk of his forces continue on towards Thorns, he will divert a few of his most trusted commando teams through the Mourning Field and into Creation. As the Mask pulls his forces into the Underworld to fend off the assault, the commandos will slip into Thorns from the Creation side. Once there, their target is Juggernaut. The Praetor has no delusions that they will be able to destroy it, but hopes that they will inflict enough damage on the rotting hulk to significantly impair its usefulness to the Mask, forcing the brash young Deathlord to rethink his plans.

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