Entry 1

11 June 1165

Free at last! Never again will I take for granted what it
means to bend limb and breathe air. But what air do I
breathe? What land do I flee across? It is my Enroth,
surely, but so much has changed in the ten years I have
been my brother s coat rack made an insensate stone
statue by his pet wizard, Tanir. If it wasn t for those fool
adventurers I d still be there now. Tanir! I promise you
I will repay the insult one day. And repay it with
usurious interest.
I have started this journal to help me make sense of the
chaos of events. I am a hunted man, but have found
refuge in the remote estate of my colleague in the
necromatic arts, Nimbus. His apprentices tell me that
their master has sailed for Erathia. I wish he had not
been wise enough to leave them with so few details all
I can derive is that the Necromancer s Guild has some
bold plan for Erathia. Perhaps I should join them?
Both my hated brother, Roland Ironfist, and his
loathsome queen Catherine are absent. Roland is, by all
accounts, taken by strange demons. Catherine left for
Erathia five months ago to attend her father s funeral
and has not been heard from since. Their brat, Nicolai,
sits on the throne with the loutish Wilbur Humphrey
standing as Regent. Ah, if only I were in a position to
take advantage of things here in Enroth! It is like a
widowsweep berry ripe for the picking.
But first, I must rebuild. With no nation, it is as if I am
once again at the beginning of things. Where are my
fellow guild members? I cannot reach them by means
mystical or otherwise. If I could only rally them to my
cause! The apprentices are no help they are content to
work their crude exercises. Amateurs! What endless
pride they take in their zombified rats and mice! Bah,
the useless things fall apart inside of hours. Pathetic.
I really must have a talk with their master. Surely, he
is neglecting his role as a teacher if his students
perform so poorly and expect my delight! The other day,
I observed one of them fumbling a basic cantrip! One of
his so called advanced initiates! I couldn t believe it. I
am forced to the sad conclusion that either the student
or the master was a complete incompetent. I hope for
Nimbus sake that he has had an unusually bad string of
luck in finding quality apprentices.

Entry 37

23 October 1166

I find myself aboard a fast and sturdy ship bound for
Erathia. How strange are the events that compel me to
leave behind my native land!
Nimbus returned to his estates bringing with him a small
party of Necromancers apparently all of any power that
remained in Enroth he was gathering to take to Deyja in
Erathia so that they might serve the lich-king, Nicolas
Gryphonheart. Yes, that Gryphonheart! Catherine s father.
The Erathian guild has made a bold and perhaps
foolhardy play for power. The guild leader and king of
Deyja, Deathknell, sought to take the Erathian throne by
assassinating Gryphonheart and then reanimating him as
a lich, bound to his service. Well, he got as far as the
reanimation, but the binding did not take. Instead, the lich
killed Deathknell. Now Erathia and Deyja have a new
king and the guild has a new leader.
Now Gryphonheart has called the Necromancer Guild to
his aid, and I and the Necromancers of Enroth are heeding
the call. He fights his daughter, Catherine. That is a cause
I can hearken to, indeed!
Incidentally, this little mission is now my mission. I took it
from Nimbus in the guild Challenge of Dominance. Needless to
say, I won. I wasn t surprised by my success, but rather, at
the ease of it. Really, if Nimbus powers are any measure of
the state of the necromatic arts these days, clearly the guild
has lost much of its wherewithal since my day. What we need
is a systematic program of research. One which will re-instill
in us the vigor of the past. It is hard to believe that this is the
same guild of Henden lal or Neberneith! Those luminaries
would never have let things become as they have were they
still around. Perhaps it is my destiny to restore our power to
its former glory!

Entry 143

5 August 1167

Reversals within reversals within reversals. That is the way
it goes for the fortunes of kings and would-be kings these
days. Or so it seems.
In her victory speech, as it was reported to me I was, to be
sure, nowhere near Catherine made much ado about
stability. True, the dark and vile forces who had wronged
her father so, were defeated, AND her father now lies in the
state of natural quietude he deserves, AND the people of
Erathia can lay down their swords safe in the knowledge that
peace reigns instead of terror.
Oh, let her think all that if she wishes. Let the peasants think
it too. That can but help my cause. For as the lich,
Gryphonheart, replaced Deathknell, so have I replaced
Gryphonheart. Catherine faces a more devious opponent in me.
What my predecessors used like a bludgeon, I will use as a
tailor s needle. The Necromancer Guild, under my leadership,
will enter a golden age of advance. Even now, our new laboratory
of research is producing new knowledge. And as knowledge
is power, so will our and my power grow.
But all plots must begin somewhere or remain formless.
Perhaps my seed of discontent will root in those fertile
disputed lands? Time will tell, and the telling will be
against my brother and his wife! So swear
I here!

Archibald Ironfist
Guildmaster of Necromancers
Rightful King of Enroth