You say Depraved, I say Goal Oriented. You say Evil I say Career Driven. Or, Is that the same wyvern we saw two days ago at Ragnar's Crossing?

  Depraved. It's a word that's thrown around a lot these days to describe people in my field. He's depraved. She's depraved. That act is depraved. But what does it mean? By whose standards is something or someone deemed 'depraved'?


  It's all a matter of perspective. By definition, depraved merely means 'corrupt, wicked or perverted' and while that covers a lot of ground it doesn't elicit the gut-level response of the word itself. Depraved. All hard vowels and shit.


  Sounds like a Cimmerian curse word.


  Hel, the words "corrupt, wicked and perverted " are in my Mission Statement and I can get into a lot of trouble with the Council Of Dark Lords (CODL) for NOT being evil enough. As a matter of fact I am contractually obligated to torture x amount of sentient creatures and burn x amount of villages per year.


  It's the price of doing business and I enjoy s'mores.


  So what's "depraved" to a priest of the White God may just be a typical Tuesday afternoon to folks like me. Who's to say which point of view is more valid?




  These are the thoughts that plague my mind as I sit absent mindedly fiddling with my member to the sounds of pixies being tortured outside my pavilion walls. I'm not really a bad guy per se. Sure, I've had a meal or two in a forest of my impaled foes, casually dipping my toast in their leader's gaping wounds, but that was really just for the look of the thing. It was mostly the product of my PR Department's creative minds and some very dry toast.


  Dark Lordin' ain't easy. It's definitely not for the squeamish. But on the other side of the coin it doesn't have to be a constant bloodbath. You don't have to arrive everywhere heralded by a chorus of screams from the parade of defeated people crucified to your banners. It's flashy and it does generate a profound sense of horror in most beings who witness it, but it's also gaudy and expensive and can result in merely hardening your opponent's resolve to defy you.


  Do you know how much in labor costs goes into a proper, old school Dark Lord's Victory Parade?*1 It's staggering; ridiculous even. All those woodcutters, carpenters and experienced impalement techs. Not to mention the catering....


  Sure, all the money your empire generates is yours, there to spend as you see fit. But for the price of a reasonably noteworthy DLVP you could've been halfway through the construction cost of a decent Mountain Fortress, a passable Swamp Stronghold or maybe even laid the foundation for that Desert Citadel Of Bones that you've always dreamed of...


  Grandstanding is for amateurs looking to make a name for themselves and flash-in-the-pan would be Emperors doomed to be stabbed to death by their former vassals.


  I try to stay clear of that shit. It's counterproductive.






  Every now and then I like to write down some random advice for nooby Dark Lords just starting out in the craft. In case some day one of them is lucky enough to kill me or I decide to write a Dark Lording For Dummies book. Not everyone was lucky enough to inherit an existing empire like I did when I crushed Pop's skull, but in my defense I lost the whole thing when my army annihilated itself in spectacular fashion on the Plains of Sorrow, forcing me to start all the way back at Village Bully.


  Which fucking sucked.





  So today's topic is Winged Minions.



  Along with some kind of ground shaking, bowel loosening heavy infantry shock troops, any successful Dark Army must have some kind of airbourne units as well. Flying critters who can spy and recon all around your forces and deep into enemy territory. As your air presence grows you'll want to add units with more attack capability, and stealth carry-off-screaming-into-the-night-sky abilities. Few tactics are more terrifying to night sentries than hearing a flap of massive wings followed by a fellow sentry's horrified shrieks dopplering away into the distance.



  That being said, your first winged minion will be a bird. Just a fucking bird. No one likes to hear that, everybody wants a griffon or a gargoyle or a fucking dragon. But the truth of the matter is you're not ready for anything more ferocious that a sparrow when you're starting out so get used to it, Junior.


  Birds aren't glamorous, they're certainly not status minions, but they are the best recon artists in the air and even though I have two Undead Dragons with optional Zombie Dragonknights and lots of other air power in my employ, plain ole birds will always be the most versatile and stealthy.


 I recommend ravens, crows and starlings because they are clever, discreet and the damn things are all over the place therefore rendering them invisible for all intents and purposes.


  But when you are ready for more advanced air critters, here are some thoughts from a Dark Lord who's been there.



Griffin: Not easy to train, but make good aerial shock troops. They respond better to humane training methods unlike demons and their ilk, therefore they rarely work for hamhanded Dark Lords who don't know how to work the system and spin the narrative.


Pegasus: A bloody great ill tempered horse with wings and morals. Whoop dee doo. Fucking useless.


Hippogriff: Better than a pegasus, but even a cursory cost/benefit analysis will tell you Griffins are the better bet.


Demon: Crafty, unpredictable and always turn on you when given the opportunity. Not worth the hassle and hazard in my opinion, but then I'm not a Dark Wizard or Necromancer. I try not to have any truck with interdimensional beings when given the chance to do so.


Harpy: Any benefit these creatures bring to your air wing is quickly negated by the ceaseless chatter as they squawk, scream, sing, and cackle enough to drive a man mad. Worthless at stealth missions and not very good in a fight. Will work for booze however, which is a plus.



Flying Monkey: Surprisingly good if you can stomach the feces and masturbation. The little devils can be trained to be like small furry ninjas that can fly.


Flying Baboon: Get some of these if you have the opportunity, they're fucking awesome! Unfortunately sorta rare too.


Flying Gorilla: You can't handle a flying gorilla, son.


Dragon: Don't. Just don't. No one who has ever made a deal of any sorts with a dragon has ever walked away saying things like: "Golly, that went well." or, "Shucks, that was worth it!" Dragons are smarter than you, more powerful than you and always have some sort of agenda that frequently ends with them eating you or flaming you into an interesting carbon stain. Avoid at all costs.


Wyvern: Much more practical and economic than a fucking dragon. Stealthier too, at least at night anyways. Wyverns are pretty dumb and fairly easy to train. They're great at attacking stuff and demoralizing your enemies and can be bred without much difficulty to ensure a steady supply of replacements.

Get some!




  I hope that helps you fledgling Dark Lords out there, although not too much because at some point you'll become a rival that I must waste resources in the crushing of.


Until next time,
Dark Lord Hurderoth


His Word Law Be









































*1 Also known in LordSpeak** as DLVP, this is kind of like an equivalent to your modern day pro wrestlers' entrance music crossed with a witch burning. Something to get the fans excited/townspeople terrified.



**LordSpeak refers to the heavy use of acronyms in the Dark Lording Industry, or DLI.

Minions: You can't live with them, you can't live without them and eventually you run out of inventive ways to kill them. Or, The best minion I ever had was named Thok, he was some sort of Giant but I always forget which kind of Giant he was. Maybe a Storm Giant? Whatever. He kicked ass...

  Minions are a vital element of any efficiently run evil empire. Even the greatest of Dark Lords will quickly go insane (or insaner) trying to micromanage each and every facet of their regime. As an avatar of malice and spite, your time is simply much too valuable to spend every second of your day overseeing the destruction of your enemies and the subjugation of your ever expanding empire.


 Also if management issues begin to cut into your "me" time, you can get irritable (or more irritable) and no one likes a grumpy overlord. You may end up killing your more useful henchmen in fits of rage and while this is seen by most as business as usual, it will end up hurting morale in the long run and next thing you know, you've got an insurrection on your hands.


  And those can get messy while inevitably setting back your martial goals. Best to be avoided if at all possible.


  So, how does an aspiring Dark Lord go about obtaining useful and trustworthy minions? It's not like there's a Bootlicker Outlet Mall where one can just peruse lackeys until you find something you like at a great price. No, it's never that simple. But if you want 'simple' you shouldn't choose Dark Lord as a career path.


  Let's take a look at some of the ways you can acquire yourself some lickspittles.




1) Find someone you would like to have work for you and kidnap their family. 


    This is a very easy way to add useful personnel to your forces even if that individual may be morally opposed to your hopes and dreams of crushing the world beneath your heel. For example I once approached a very well known Healer about employment opportunities with my army and she refused me. I desperately needed healers at the time because of manpower shortages and so I captured her husband and two children.

  She remained fairly obstinate until I sent her a tasteful and classy belt pouch meticulously crafted from the skin of her only son's left leg. True story.

  She still works for me to this day. Helluva woman.



2) Recruit the surviving minions of your vanquished foes.


  No one likes to be unemployed. Starvation sucks. So after you've burned a rival Dark Lord's stronghold to the ground, scattered his armies and publicly impaled his generals, set up some job fairs or soup kitchens for his rank and file soldiers. Make them feel welcome in your better-run and much more sophisticated military machine. Let them know that the Troll Shock Troops who just went through them like Tijuana street burritos through a Canadian, could now be on their side.

  Hand out some stew, bread and lots of ale and the next thing you know, his people are flocking to your banner in droves and you're not out of pocket much.



3) Keep an open door policy for evil, murderous bastards.


  Seriously, some soldiers are so sick and twisted that even other Dark Lords won't touch them on the advice of their PR departments. Let it be known that there is no upper limit to the sickness and atrocity that you're willing to employ, provided that your conquest goals are being met.

  Best case scenario is you form a corps of heinously malevolent psychopaths that strike crippling fear into your enemies hearts and make your job easier.

  Worst case scenario is that they get so out of hand with their butchery, rape and torture that they begin to make you look tame by comparison and you end up having to put them down like rabid dogs. No harm, no foul and you got some good murder out of them before they had to be terminated.



4) Create your own Minions through dark and eldritch sorcery.


   This seems like a perfect solution to all of you henching needs, doesn't it? Just make loyal minions out of the very essence of the dark ether or transform lesser beings into something greater. Saruman did it with the Uruk-Hai didn't he?

  Well, it's never that easy, folks. Takes a metric fuck-ton of magical energy as well. I'm not really the sorcerous kind of Dark Lord anyway, I'm more of a evil genius, tactically brilliant, big picture kind of Conqueror.

  What I can tell you is that nothing created from magic is ever foolproof. Magic in and of itself is pretty dicey to begin with and narrative causality fucking loves to turn bad things into good things, mostly just to ruin your day.

   Redemption is an ugly word and I make it a point to have anyone who utters it in my presence executed in astonishingly painful ways.

  Don't hear that word much anymore.



5) Set up an advanced eugenics program among your slave population and breed tomorrow's soldiers using only the finest slaves. Indoctrinate and train those slaves from day one to be loyal, unquestioning and fucking bad ass.


  All of us Dark Lords do this to some extent, some with more success that others. The main problem with this system is that it occasionally produces a skilled, driven renegade that's smart enough to know to keep his mouth shut while he garners support among all the other highly trained, disaffected warriors your machine churns out.

  Next thing you know you've got a revolt. A seriously dangerous revolt within your military.

  I've had this happen to me once and I ended up having two halves of my army slaughter each other on the Plains of Sorrow (more foreshadowing). Got real nasty. Turns out I wasn't nearly as popular or feared as I had assumed. I was lucky enough to survive it but had to start all over again as a mere River Bully*1, reduced to beating up people who refused to pay me for using the river.

  It was fucking degrading.







  THE BEST GODDAMN  MINION I EVER HAD WAS A SOMETHING-GIANT NAMED THOK.



  Thok was unbelievably awesome. He was 30 feet tall, wielded a tree trunk for a weapon and just fucking wrecked my enemies' front lines. Fully armored paladins would fly through the air like bleeding, screaming birdseed scattered all kattywumpus about the battlefield.

  It was terrible and sublime, watching Thok swat humans about like a an enraged golfer. It was buttfucking an entire army with a 30 foot dick.

  Then one day this tiny pissant of a man challenges him to a fight and kills him with a slingstone. Seriously, a fucking rock, thrown from a sling probably woven from strips of goat scrotum or something like that, rustic and unsavory. It threw a stone with enough force to punch it's way into Thok's skull through his tear duct, a one in a million shot, as it were.

  It was a ratfuck, obvious narrative causality dicking , just like a certain religious story you may have heard of concerning a small Jew against an enormous Philistine. That famous tale is based upon my minion Thok and his improbable slaying by the hand of one astronomically lucky little hairy-footed twat.

  After he slew Thok I immediately ordered a Shock Troop full charge and captured the wee shite shortly thereafter, making him watch while my army butchered his. It's good to be a Dark Lord because I'm not really allowed to do anything honorable at all, and yet the 'good guys' are always very trusting when I seem especially sincere about a change of heart.

  In the end, I ended up using the capture of the halfling to lure three of Thok's relatives to my army with the promise of vengeance, and gave the wee prick to the Giants. Despite their massive size and lumbering aspects, they were able to keep him alive for weeks....

  Clever girls....



  They still work for me, usually in shifts though. None of them is equal to their sire, but maybe the three acting in concert could be greater in sum than their Pop. They can sure make jam out of most small bipeds....







 You Now Owe Me For My Insights,

-The Dark Lord, Hurderoth


  Be His Word Law
























*1 River Bully: One of the earliest levels of the Dark Lord class. Even earlier levels include: Lunch Room Big Kid, Aggressive Goatherd and Early Onset Megalomaniac.