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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khisanth the Ancient" data-source="post: 9319069" data-attributes="member: 11368">The Emperor of Thirst (continued)Retinue, Servants, & ForcesTassa Tath, lich 40th-level wizard (necromancer): Tassa Tath was originally a mortal who mastered necromancy, achieved lichdom, and then sought broader horizons - and fell into the Emperor's net. She is now his court wizard.Items: cloak of epic resistance +22, headband of epic intellect +22, ring of universal energy immunity, staff of necromancyAgents of Final Shadow: The agents of final shadow are powerful lawful evil characters who have become vampires and fallen under the Emperor's shadow. Their curse is that they must feed twice as much as a common vampire; half the blood and life energy they take is siphoned off by the Emperor. In exchange, they are empowered with greater resilience (fast healing 10, turn resistance +8).They are either commanders in his great legions of conquest (usually fighters of 21st level or higher) or spies and assassins (rogues or rogue/assassins of 21+ total levels).Khat, vampire 40th-level fighter, agent of final shadow: Khat is the greatest of the agents of final shadow: the Emperor’s second-in-command in martial matters, the commander of his armies of conquest when the Emperor is in his palace. Millennia ago, Khat ruled as a conqueror king on a distant Material Plane world - then was overthrown. He sought power in dark places, making a deal with the Emperor of Thirst, and returned to slay his usurpers as a vampire – leaving everyone in the palace as bloodless, lifeless husks.Items: +9 unholy power longsword; +11 fire warding, negating small shield; belt of epic strength +22; mantle of epic spell resistance SR 50Ula-Thar, demilich 50th-level sorcerer: Commander of the Emperor of Thirst's Cohort Arcane, currently engaged in the conquest of an entire planet, Ula-Thar is only loyal to the Emperor out of fear. He seeks a way to transcend even demilichdom – a power that would let him stand equal to his current master.Cohort Arcane: Under the command of Ula-Thar: 100 liches of level 16-25Claws of Ice: A deadly strike force composed of six advanced winterwights, each 40 HD and 10th-level blackguards.Palace Guard: The Emperor of Thirst's palace guard consists of 4 advanced winterwights (Large size, 50 HD) and 12 advanced mohrgs (Large size, 30 HD) as personal honor guards, 2 liches (25th-level wizards) for arcane protection, and 200 wights with magical bows to man the walls.Ordinary Forces: The Emperor of Thirst has 500 normal legions and 10 elite legions.Each normal legion is composed of 6,000 skeletons and 60 wights and commanded by a vampire of 8th-12th level (if deployed in an area where living prey is available) or a mohrg (otherwise).Each elite legion is composed of 1,000 wights and 100 mohrgs and is commanded by an agent of final shadow vampire fighter of 21st+ level.Other AlliesZarkylax: Advanced (25 HD) pit fiend - Ambassador of the Nine Hells in the Emperor's courtThe Emperor's RealmHis home planet is a dead and desolate world, with a thin atmosphere, due to a terrible war of epic magic. Much of the planet’s surface is either briny, lifeless, shrunken oceans or immense salt flats covering the former continental shelves. The majority of the rest is ruined landscapes created in the war - massive craters, rock melted to glass, shattered mountains - 'inhabited' only by a scattering of restless undead spirits (wraiths, spectres, ghosts, etc.) haunting the sites of their sudden deaths or wandering in bands across the desolation.However, in the heartland of the “victorious” empire of that final war, an undead mockery of its prior civilization functions. This deathly society is made up of tens of millions of skeletons and zombies, hundreds of thousands of wights, and tens of thousands of mohrgs and mummies. A comparatively few liches oversee all the rest, forming the highest level of government below the Emperor's true inner circle (individuals like Tassa Tath and Khat). The entire structure is a precisely organized, mechanical-like empire of absolute obedience, all ruled by the Emperor's decree.Much of this activity is directed to the Emperor's conquests - not merely the undead forming the legions themselves, but those working to mine ore and smelt it, forge swords and armor, mine coal for the smelters and forges, shape petrified wood and twisted bone into awful siege engines, and so on.But there is far more. Skeletons dig for clay and bake bricks, quarry and cut stone; skeleton horses pull wagons filled with these products; zombie laborers build under the command of wight overseers, who report on the progress of the work to lich ministers maintaining records on tens of thousands of projects in progress; millions of skeletons labor to fill craters and smooth broken rock under their own wight and mohrg overseers -  all in service of the Emperor, to transform the world into a pristine image of how it once was, but with life replaced by undeath.Currently, he is attempting the conquest of another Material Plane world - he has firmly established control of several hundred thousand square miles (a large number of former petty kingdoms and tribal domains) but is now facing a desperate alliance of two formerly hostile, continent-scale empires wielding powerful magic (including epic spells) and several smaller kingdoms and city-states on their peripheries. This seems likely to escalate into another world-threatening war, as the local deities are likely to soon intervene on a colossal scale.The agents of final shadow also operate on a dozen other worlds and planes, spying, gathering magic, and sending life energy and blood back to their master.</blockquote>

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