The setting’s great enemy: the Deceiver’s servants on earth, and the false prophet who leads them.
The Corrupted
Men, dwarves, and elves who were swayed by the Deceiver and lost their true selves, becoming twisted and terrible creatures. Defeated in the First Crusade, they persist in the dark corners of the world. Roving bands still plague The Badlands of southern Hazad.
The Arts of the Corrupted — magic taught by the Deceiver to the jealous and ambitious, which enslaves its users to him. Rooting out these Arts is the founding purpose of the Order of the Phoenix and the Eyes of the Order of the Eagle. See Magic and Casting Traditions for which magic is forbidden.
First Contact (S9)
The party’s first Corrupted, met in the domed hall beneath the buried complex at The Mirror Lake — in the old Imperial lands south of Hazad, which the party had understood to be not The Badlands:
- Five humanoids in masks — three armored, two mostly naked with scars and tattoos. The masks were very odd; some had antlers. Axes, warhammers, great axes.
- They spoke the Black Speech (Languages); Ari understood it. They asked for the “pilgrim’s sign” — and then attacked.
- “A brutal fight.” Titus was killed. All five died.
- Under the masks their faces were “viscerally disgusting” — “obviously corrupted.”
- They had been camping in rooms of the complex — the party thinks the five were all of them (Aaron) — one hidden hatch above a tended shrine to the Maker and the Moon sanctum’s octagon.
- The bodies have had only a light search so far (Aaron).
They challenged before they attacked, which is not what a roving band does. See The Pilgrim’s Sign.
Iuz, the False Son
Appeared MCY 325 preaching new revelations, naming himself the Son of God and the Redeemer. Unmasked as the Deceiver’s servant and leader of the Corrupted; defeated in the Second Crusade (347) but never killed. He has now been a living threat for over 1,400 years.
- Built an Empire of the Corrupted in the harsh South mimicking the Kingdoms; nearly destroyed in the Third Crusade (1446) after the Great Betrayal, in which the Queen of Morrschatten joined him as consort.
- Exploited the Fourth Crusade to build a hidden northern stronghold, destroyed in the Fifth Crusade (1715).
- His empire, though weakened, still holds vast sparsely-populated territories south of The Holy City — it is said the far south is a land of eternal night where ice never melts. See Empire of Iuz.
Speculation
Corrupted at a sanctum door (S9). The Phoenix’s fear was that sanctums and corruption go together. The party has now found Corrupted encamped directly above the Moon sanctum, asking visitors for a pilgrim’s sign. That is the first evidence of any kind that the Phoenix’s worry was about something real — though who is using whom at The Mirror Lake is entirely open.
The Phoenix feared the Order of the Owl was Corrupted “due to, or related to” the three sanctums they uncovered. (S2) If the sanctums are the Deceiver’s work, this investigation runs straight toward Iuz’s domain of influence.