Vignettes of nastiness: The Top 5 atrocities attributed to me that I wish I'd actually done.

  I don't need to reiterate my fall from Scion of an Empire to that of a lowly River Bully, it has been well documented in this blog. An area of my career not very well defined is that of what happened after I had climbed out of River-Bullyhood but before I became the supremely successful, vertically integrated Dark Lord that I am today.


  The Lost Years. The Unspoken Times. The Dark Campaigns.


  Living up to my Dark Lord heritage while my PR department made it seem more lurid and even more atrocious that it really was. Sure I did categorically evil things like routine and frivolous torture, enslavement and mass executions. I had contractual obligations.


  But it was never personal unless someone made it that way.


  That being said here are the top five atrocities I've been accused of that, in fact, I never perpetrated. It was either my press or more often the enemy press, which I of course funded.


  When you're in the evil business, there is no bad press.



5) The Mountain Horror Orchestra: This tale alleges that in an orgy of incredibly creative and logistically improbable violence, I built a giant stringed instrument made from living mens' stretched bowels and played a dirge which rang out through a mountain range and caused madness in all who heard it.


  OK. The truth is that I did indeed think about building a giant banjo made from stretched and living human entrails, because I was bored and had nothing better to do. The problem is that small scale experiments showed that this merely produced sad, wet flopping sounds and the "strings" died quickly no matter how softly you tuned them.


  It was a vast waste of resources that my PR Dept nevertheless ran with and ended up creating a Dark Lord Myth. Everyone believes I played an instrument made out of the stretched innards of captured enemies and somehow came up with an appealing enough melody that all of those who heard it could think of nothing else, especially defending themselves against my war hungry fuck-cunts who stormed their positions and slaughtered them all willy-nilly.


  Seems overtly apocryphal if you ask me.



4) The Children's Windmll: It has been claimed that during my campaign against the Republic of Cinderfall I constructed a giant windmill comprised of crucified children. But in reality this never happened. The rumor is based on my offhand chatter during a poker game about how fun it would be to build a Ferris Wheel out of living humans and take it for a spin. So the entirety of this legend was taken from a drunken comment made during a card game and taken completely out of context.


  The truth of the matter is, kids are hard for standard frontline troops to capture and therefore if you seek to build some sort of atrocity art piece out of them, you'd better have some Kobolds or Wolf-Riders to gather them up because they run fast.


  Honestly, when I subjugated the Republic of Cinderfall, whatever kids I managed to capture I either forced to work in my boot factories or just chucked in the nearest handy volcano so they couldn't grow up to fight me.


  I save my artistic energies for those who have actively resisted me rather than the unfortunate victims of their tedious rebellions.



3) Catapult Cricket: I haven't the slightest idea why I never thought of this. What better target to catapult captured enemies against than their own city walls? Especially in a competitive context complete with scoring rings and a bullseye? I can't think of one but sadly I can't take credit for this even though it's been attributed to me several times.


  I'm not gonna lie, I wish I'd done it. It sounds like a blast, clearly a great drinking game, but it wasn't me no matter what the histories say.


  I aim to fix that next time I besiege a city with appropriate walls. I already have my Illusionist corps working on perfect upscaled replica of a traditional pub dart board as well as a giant glowing scoreboard.


  Obviously the trebuchets won't be a problem....


  Can't fucking wait.



2) Offspring Pizza: This outright lie claims that in order to secure the surrender of the Lords of several key mountain keeps, I sent my Nocturnal Special Forces to capture their children and when faced with continued pigheadedness, baked these kiddos into several giant pizzas and sent them to their besieged parents as an offering of peace, promising the return of their children if they just endorse my dipping sauce and of course, my rule.


  This is a falsehood. It never went down like this.


  It was a calzone I baked their children into. There was no dipping sauce. It would've been unnecessary.


  And yes, I ended up slaughtering them all, down to the tiniest babby.


  War is harsh, mowwafukka. Never leave Scion material behind if given the choice.





1) The Grolnherg Genocide: I acknowledge that I not only advocated, but outlined my strategy to subdue the Grolnherg nation and people through any means at my disposal. And at that point in my career, my options were nearly unlimited. I had a fearsome Air Corps, an adequate Navy based more on numbers than any real naval innovations. And, hired on the urging of my Council, a Water Mage.


  You know how I feel about that. The shame still haunts me to this day.


  The Lore says I annihilated their shipping, followed by their primary food source by making sushi popular despite the awful taste.Then it says I raised the denizens of the sea to ensure no Trout-Swedes could safely leave their shores.


  This is only half true. I hired a pod of Hyper Intelligent Orcas to prey upon all Grolnherg shipping. Although they were incredibly intelligent for Shamu's, these psychotic, ocean going ruffians didn't really put the effort into Pattern Recognition that humans' give them credit for.


  Therefore they just sink any floaty-wood thing they can head-butt. Which is everything.


  







  So as you can see, the atrocity doesn't always fit the Dark Lord. But the sharper Dark Lords will grab onto it anyway. They get it. 



  WE get it. The rest of you kneel.



-Lord Hurderoth


His Be Law May Word


Or Whatthine.....

Fool me once, I'm a River Bully. Fool me twice I'm a River Corpse.

  There are lots of words to describe would be conquerors who embark on ill timed campaigns with an army that just isn't properly equipped.


  A few examples of these words might be:




Defeated. Dead. Ass-whupped. Loser. Former Ruler. Pieces. Impaled. Flayed. Dismembered and all in all, Treated Very Poorly.



  Where I'm going with this is the absolute pinnacle of the Dark Lord's conundrum: finding that perfect balance between the Five Elements of Dark Lording:


  Ego, Madness, The Illusion of Freedom, Cold Calculation and, most importantly, Clear Fucking Perception.




EGO: Yes you're one evil, badass motherfucker and you know it. Everyone around you knows it as well, especially your new neighbors. I say new because a little while back they had some other small lands between their nations and your empire, but not anymore. Those wee bitty realms are now yours and you're not the type of despot to wander over and introduce yourself to your new neighbors, perhaps with a home baked pie, and welcome them to the neighborhood.


  Nope. You fancy yourself more the 'here's some stew made from your ruling class, eat it or die too' sorta Dark Lord. None of this namby-pamby now's-your-chance-to-surrender stuff


  That being said you absolutely cannot allow your Ego to supercede cold hard facts. Rather than beat what will soon become a dead horse, allow me to illustrate this point with an anecdote.



  This was a couple of decades past when I was but a mid-career Dark Lord ruling a respectable sized empire spanning our world from pole to pole. One day a messenger from a Southern Dark Lord arrived at my sanctum. In a nutshell the missive stated that this particular leader, whom I'll call Clacachata, wished to strike a deal with me whereby his army could traverse a portion of my lands in exchange for an appropriate toll of course, so he could pursue an ancient enemy towards their northern homelands in an attempt to head them off at the pass so to speak.


  I agreed to meet him to hammer out a deal. Clacachata was of the step pyramid, blood-hungry feathered Gods variety, ruler of a vast jungle empire. Yet steel-age rather than stone and with some fearsome Blood-Shamans at his disposal.


  I actually felt sorry for whoever he was pursuing, because they were obviously  far less accomplished than I and might have to deal with this rainforest bat-fucker whether they wanted to or not.



Whatever, not my problem. As long as I got paid.



  And I did. Turns out you can't walk twenty paces in his homeland without tripping over some gold or silver, so he brought a LOT of it.


  Not to bore you with the protracted text of our discourse, here's the pertinent part of our conversation that perfectly exemplifies a case of Ego overriding all common sense:



  ME: "Well thank you for the gold and silver. I'm pleased we could work out an arrangement that is advantageous to both of us. To avoid utter devastation of your forces, please abide to the letter the accord we have reached. I'd truly hate to have to wipe your army off my map and have you tortured and healed over and over again in a never ending cycle for the next couple of centuries."


  CLACACHATA: "My thanks as well. With the passage you have granted my army and the many tons of gold and silver I no longer have to lug around, we shall be able to cut our foes off before they can proceed much farther north. I will follow our agreement closely and you have my word no mischief will be tolerated."


  ME: "It is well then and I wish you the best. But tell me, what happens if you are unable to intercept them before they make their way too far north? We're having an unusually mild Autumn to be sure, but Winter is on it's way."


  CLACACHATA: "What is Winter?"


  ME: "Umm. You know, snow and shit. Where water turns to ice and what not. Very cold."


  CLACACHATA: "It gets colder than this?"


  ME: *blinks* "You could say that. Have you never seen ice before?"


  CLACACHATA: "What is ice?"


  ME: "It's kinda like water and rock had a baby."


  CLACACHATA: "Meh. Whatever. I'm sure we'll be fine."


  ME: "Yeah. Me too. Good luck."




  Never saw him again and coincidentally, the next campaign season, I conquered his empire. Due to the fact that the majority of his elite warriors had perished in a white hell brought on by their Leader's supreme arrogance, this campaign was more or less a cakewalk. I had more deaths to jungle fevers and parasites than I did in battle and far more injuries due to tripping over precious metals than from actual combat.




MADNESS: Nobody in their right mind wants to rule the world, trust me on this. You have to be living across the street from sanity to even consider trying to conquer the next country over, much less an entire planet. This is why Madness is an integral part of Dark Lording, sane people know better, the fuckers.



  Normally our Madness is referred to as Meglomania, an obsession with the exercise of power, especially in the domination of others. Or, commonly, Powerlust.*1


  Hey, color me guilty because I'm one of those remorseless dickheads that thinks he knows a better way.


  What separates me from the garden variety asshole dictator is that I get results. I've learned to integrate my batshit insanity with a style of corporate mindful savagery that seems to result in all strati of my empire having a better sort of lifestyle at the expense of those who oppose me.


   I'll address this point in a bit more detail later on....




THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM: The reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom are are two different things. Or, the interpretation of 'freedom' may vary wildly from perspective to perspective. Either way it is up to the Dark Lord in charge to decide just what reality and freedom are and aren't.



   It's the same category as 'History is Written by the Victors' yet more immediate. Instead of influencing later generations through edited historical accounts, the Illusion of Freedom edict states that you influence them in real time through any current means possible. The ultimate goal is to make folks who are objectively good do things that further the cause of your evil empire. This is accomplished through whatever the equivalent of mass media is on your situation and by the employment of a top notch whatever passes for a public relations firm in your situation.


  I.E: Proper Panda Propaganda


 


COLD CALCULATION: Remaining dispassionate when considering potential losses versus gains is an essential component of a Dark Lord's psyche.


  As in 'Do I have the troops to just clog his meatgrinder?' Or, 'Should I attempt some sort of flanking strategy?'


  Or even, (for us top level guys....) should I just throw an Undead Dragon w/Optional Undead Dragon Knight at my opponent because I can? Even if it's not fair?


  Should I, as an evil Dark Lord, be concerned about wrong and right?



  Nope. I needn't be bothered in the slightest. Cuz I'm evil.


  Duh. That was fuckin easy. Don't be too proud if you got it right.




CLEAR FUCKING PERCEPTION: You refuse to let ego, emotion or irrational feelings get in the way of you subjugating whoever the hell you've decided to subjugate. You're aware of and honest with yourself about the limitations and weaknesses of your forces. Your intelligence network keeps you well informed about the potential and probable conditions in the lands you've chosen to campaign in.


  In short, you're not an idiot. You have a decent grasp of tactics, where to use them and how to choose terrain that favors your forces.


  Again, because you're not an idiot. Strategy isn't that difficult, but there ya go.





  When one can blend all these facets of evil into one functioning machine that bends the opposition over any available surface and proceeds to have it's way with whatever is thusly prostrated, then one can say it speaks for the unsodomized.


  Hell Yeah.







  Anyway, dear readers, that's the extent of the advice I feel comfortable giving based on what my attorney has advised me.



 



Yours in Suggestive Suggestions,
-Lord Hurderoth













*1 Powerlust: The name of a lute power-trio I toured with before I lost my first empire. Dad hated it.

My Top 10 grossing Adventure Destinations as ranked by Dungeon Parade Magazine, the ultimate source for loot-lusting Heroes and Related Tradespeople.

  Dungeon Parade Magazine is the premiere monthly dedicated to profiling up and coming Adventuring locations. Just a blurb in DPM can boost a Haunted Ruin or Desolate Fortress's profile by several orders of magnitude. An in depth article could make it an instant hit.*1



  It took me ages to ensure this happened. Manipulating primitive media isn't as easy as you'd think. You end up having to invent new ways of communicating with large amounts of people outside of burning their towns down and smacking them in the knee with a mace as they try to flee past you, which gives you the opportunity to relay your message as they writhe in pain.


  Captive fucking audience. Just not very efficient in terms of mass media, the most important tool of a successful despotic ruler.



  I currently hold 23 slots on the Dungeon Parade Magazine's "All-Time Top 100 Dungeons, Ruins, Citadels, Deathmazes, Labyrinths and Places to Loot" list. This includes #'s 2,3,5 and 7 in the Top Ten only because as Editor At Large I decided to let someone else win for a month or two. Makes it seem like there's more of a competition going on.


  Heroes and Related Tradesmen devour my publication, it's considered the industry standard for profiling new Adventuring Destinations. It brings in flocks of aspiring protagonists whose opinions of their skills and levels write checks that their talent and equipment can't cover.


  This equals profit for me and the failures of even B-List Hitters only enhances my Location's reputation.





 That being covered, let's get into the meat of this installment's stew: My Top Ten Adventure Destinations as ranked by a publication I founded and still exert almost total editorial control over.


  Should be fun......




#88)  Haunted Howe of the Barrow-Wraith: Introductory level horseshit for weak ass noobs. As you progress as an Adventure Theme Park Builder you'll find that sometimes numbers trump levels in the profitability sector. There will always be far more level 1-5 wannabes than there are 20th level badasses to exploit and fleece as part of your business model. It's kinda like selling hamburgers; you'll make way more money selling 10,000 cheap ass burgers than you will selling 1000 premium ass burgers for a much higher price.



#59) The Canyon of the Arachnid King: One of my first real hits and still making good money for me even after 30 years. The real key to success for me was learning to breed and train my own giant spiders rather than pay the exorbitant fees the Guild of Giant Spider Wranglers charged for their services. This took a while to get past the learning curve, but was well worth it in the end.


  Watching a giant spider I had raised by my own hand lay it's eggs in the chest cavity of their former Guild Master was really all the payment I needed, but the money's nice too.



#41) The Wading Pools of the Gay Minotaur Lord: Hey, don't judge. It makes me a fuckton of money while rarely killing anyone. I like to pretend I don't know what goes on there, in fact my PR dept insists on it, but I'm not out of touch with what I refer to as "Niche Markets" and the potential income they can generate.


  The lube and silly hat market from this destination alone could fund one of my minor armies for an entire campaign season.



#36 The Citadel of the Pariah Swamp King: Intermediate level suffering for anyone foolish enough to go on a swamp-based adventure. There isn't really any terrain I'd rather not quest in than swamp. Literally any other geographic circumstance is preferable to swamp. 
 
  But personal preferences aside, Swamp-based destinations are easy to stock; hire a bunch of Lizardmen, bring in a few giant constrictors and maybe a mega-gator or two, sprinkle liberally with gold and magic items and let it marinate in all the natural misery a Swamp generates for free. Voila, a bug infested, wet and stinky adventuring locale where hopeful Heroes can endure discomfort and hardship before finding a way to get themselves killed.

  I enjoy watching their torment through my iMage system. Frequently with a snack.



#29 Valley of the Werebadgers: I realize that the term 'werebadger' doesn't hold the same visceral terror as does 'werewolf' or 'werebear', but have you ever seen an angry badger? A pissed off badger will fight off an entire pack of wolves and after a poke or two, even bears will run the other fucking way. So imagine all that mammalian fury blended with the thoughtful depravity a human is capable of and you have yourself a place where would-be Heroes go to die.

Generously donating all their equipment and possessions to me of course.

It's why I keep it open.


#19 Aerie of the Prismatic Dragon: A prestigious challenge for high level douchebags, the Aerie is one of my premiere Adventure locales where level 18-22  Hitters can come take a swing at one of the rarest Dragons in the world, Matti T.

The only Prismatic Dragon currently working in the industry.

I have her under contract, but secretly we substitute a variety of stunt Hydras, shamefully painted with static polychromatic schemes, to handle most of the routine work and not unsurprisingly, no one ever notices the difference. No one who survives anyway. 

This hot spot is a bit of a Hero-Burner, yet it doesn't stop them from lining up to die at Matti T's (or one of her many stunt-Hydras) talons.

So many notable Heroes have perished here that there's a three month waiting list just to get through the mountain pass to actually reach the valley. Naturally I have provided upscale accommodations for these aspirant dragon-slayers, at remote-exclusive pricing, of course.

I tend to make as much money off the mini-bars as I do the bookings....


#7 Sundered Palace of the Dread Winter Lords: A snow based Adventure for wannabe Heroes in the 10-14th level range who ideally are from ice-based nations. This destination took off when two famous Heroes got smoked while doing the "tourist"*2 thing. Served em right. +2 vs Fire Plate Mail isn't gonna cut it in a frost-based environment, you fucking Stuff-Donor.


#5 Cursed Forest of the Orc Lord: Yeah it's trite and jejune, but there are some adventure tropes that just won't die and Orcs and Forests are among them. It took me a long time and a hell of a lot of resource support to get the local Orc Chieftain, Pat, to work for me. He was concerned that his people were going to merely be slaughter-fodder for my ravening Adventure clientele and that there was no future or profit for his kind in this scenario.


  I assured him that his people's continued existence was essential to the location's enduring success and that I had plans in place to prevent a band of fucking Heroes from decimating his kind. He was skeptical, which is extraordinarily shrewd for an Orc, but I alleviated his concerns the first time a well equipped and determined party rolled up against his tribe by deploying a Cave Wraith that they never saw coming.


  It went through their party like malaria through 19th century Englishmen. It was far above their levels, but as a Dark Lord, I don't concern myself with niceties such as level equality or fair play. Sometimes it sucks to be a good guy and sometimes I'm the reason why that is.


  After that Pat was totally on board and to this day I still invite him and his wives to various parties I throw despite how they smell.


#3 The Caves of Utter and Complete Batshit-Craziness  Popular games such as Rastan and Castle Vania will illustrate how deadly tiny bats can be. And not even in a disease spreading sense, but in an immediate threat to your life sorta way despite how large and physically adept an Adventurer may be. Who would've thunk it? If you throw enough four ounce bats at even the most robust armored warrior, somehow they'll still kill him even if it's technically physically impossible for them to do so.

  Doesn't matter, bats are lethal in any size. Apparently.


  This fact wasn't lost on me as I was an up and coming Dark Lord. Bats could seemingly kill anything, no matter how ridiculous the situation seemed so I went all in on a cave system teeming with the little fuckers. One of the best investments I ever made. Turns out bats can kill virtually anything, despite all available evidence, in a fantasy setting.


  Who knew?



#2 The Hateful Mountain Keep of the Dragon Emperor: The Dragon Emperor's name is Larry Fossman and he's a dear friend of mine*3. He's known by his moniker of The Dragon King of the Blood Fang Mountains and his Keep is legendary in the industry as being impregnable and packed with high end Artifacts and obscure Arcana, with the occasional captive Princess thrown in for nostalgia's sake.


  Larry runs a tight ship. He's a master at keeping the mortality rate of his enterprise at exactly 35%, industry standard for A-List destinations and he does it all with very little supervision from me, which is refreshing. Another of his admirable qualities is a decided lack of ambition. He doesn't want my job, he can't handle my job and most importantly, he knows it.


  That's why I continue to allow Larry to live; he's good at what he does and what he does is all he wants to do.



  And there you have it, avid readers, my top ten grossing Adventure Locales/Hero Traps.


  I hope that some of you reading this may glean some sort of insight from it, but things being what they are, I doubt it.


  That being said, good luck in your evil endeavors. I await your challenge, LOL.



Yours in nearly omnipotent power,
-Lord Hurderoth





  


  


*1 I should know, I started and still have a hand in the editing of DPM, albeit through a veiled web of holding companies and editorial puppets. There is absolutely no reason why Vertical Integration shouldn't apply to a Lawful Evil outfit. In fact, it seems to be a concept that perfectly encapsulates Lawful Evil in a justifiably corporate sense.


   The Chain of Command is everything, mowwa-fakka.





*2 "Tourist" refers to a high level Hero crashing a lower level installation because they are either lazy, drunk or just mining lower level loot to fund whatever habit gets them through the day.**

  
  **I always keep a surprise on hand for these type of cunts. Imagine the astonishment of these frat-heroes when the worst opposition they expect to come across is a teenage Green Dragon and then they run into an unforeseen Chaos Hydra or some similar nasty piece of work.***

   
     ***Surprise, motherfookers!





*3 Dear Friend: An associate I haven't killed yet

Dark Lord: An Origin story. Or: Say, that's a nice Kingdom you got there....

  Many of you that have been following this Journal may have found yourself wondering just what fucking Class am I? What the shit is a Dark Lord? Why isn't it covered in the 13th Edition rules?


  Everyone, good and evil, falls into one Class or another. Eighty-some percent of those can be lumped into one of the following four Macro-Categories: Warrior, Magic User, Cleric, Thief.


  There are obviously nearly endless sub-classes of each of these specializations, and when a Hero or Scumbag gets serious in their levels, they can split Class and learn skills from multiple disciplines, thus becoming Multi-Class entities, like me.


  For those of you who may be curious, my current brand of the Dark Lord class can best be described as a Warrior/Assassin with some basic magical ability, a keen sense of character, a gift for unorthodox tactics and a fucking massive budget. In the big leagues I'm referred to as a Dungeon Mogul/Adventure Visionary with a Master Class Specialization in Death Park Management and a Minor in Mass Slaughter/Burnin Shit Down.






  I had the advantage of being handed down a very substantial and lucrative Empire by my Father*1 which had been established and handed down to him by my Grandmother, a Village Witch possessed of an astonishing sense of ambition coupled with an utter lack of morals or mercy.


  My father expanded this Empire in his own right, crushing a whole bunch of peoples under his boot heels, old school style. Lots of butchery, public torture-killings and random baby-throwing contests. He was from a different generation, my Dad. He didn't really see the big picture and how one insanely powerful but progressive thinking Dark Lord could link all the facets of the trade into one unified money making machine and virtually eliminate the need for genocide in the bargain.


  Unless one becomes suitably annoyed of course.


  When my Pops decided he was ready for me to murder him and assume the mantle of command, I was merely a party-addled, spoiled twat with no idea of what I was getting myself into. I still remember him criticizing me in between blows to his head as I tried to succeed him.


  Which is why just under 3 years after I took control, my entire army annihilated itself in spectacular fashion on the Plains of Sorrow following years of discontent and opposition to my idiotic and shortsighted agenda. Slaying itself to a man, fortunately for me.


  There was no one left to chase me down.



  Long story short, and as you've read many times over dedicated reader, I walked away and started my evil career over at very nearly the bottom of the Bad Guy food chain, a Village River Bully.


  I harassed folk when they tried to do laundry or wash their cooking pots. The river is now mine I declared and I charged them to do their menial, water-related business. When they sent stout men and village tough guys to drive me away I beat their asses and left the riverbank studded with their teeth and adorned with blood puddles.


  Then, after all the willing and able men had been smacked silly, they goaded the miller's hulking slave, Dermott Krullbjorn, to eject me from the premises.


  Dermott was and still is a motherfucking huge Northman with the overdeveloped suborbital ridges and protruding lower mandible of someone with more than a bit of Troll blood in him although he's really touchy on the subject. Conversations on the topic never last long for the unfortunate that brings it up.


  Being a slave, chained to a gristmill and doing the work of two mules everyday since he was 10, Dermott wasn't particularly thrilled to help his captor defend the village from anyone, much less a determined man handy with his fists and possessing a sword. But he decided his Master could make his life more difficult over the long run than some guy punching people if they didn't give him two copper shards for washing their loincloths.


  So he attacked me.


  We fought for about ten minutes, although because of my PR department, the official history says we fought from sunup to sundown, which is patently ridiculous. The miller's slave was insanely strong, but slow and untrained in fighting. He'd been pushing a two ton gristmill around in a circle for eleven years. Doesn't do much for your footwork or hand speed, but it will make you exceptionally robust and single minded.*2


  So we duked it out, hand to hand, de mano en mano. I knew as long as I didn't let him get his calloused mitts on me, that I could take him apart with precise strikes followed by evasion and I'd not have to use my sword. I repeated this over and over, all the while suggesting to him that even if he beat me, he'd be locked back up again to power the gristmill as the slave he was.


  The third time I knocked him down I offered him a hand to help him back to his feet and told him point blank, "If you join me now, you'll never be a slave again." A well timed breeze blew my hair back and away from my face at the precise moment and that looks comic-book cool no matter who you are. Dermott was impressed not only at the perfect timing of the favorable breeze, but more importantly that I had knocked him down three times already.


  He accepted my hand up and we proceeded to whup village ASS.


  And the rest is history as they say. Dermott pledged himself to my cause and all opposition to my authority in the village ceased. We got drunk afterwards and burned the gristmill down, but only after we'd sent the owner and his entire family through it. Looked like we'd tried to make flour from pomegranates.


  


  From there I planned a raid on the traditional enemy; the Next Village Over. Why should they have more sheep than us?


  This continued incrementally as I decided that I needed to honor my heritage by acquiring really nice things for myself at the expense of other people. And since they weren't smart nor resilient enough to resist me, I was rather successful at it if I do say so myself.



  Soon enough and due mainly to my own semi-sober brilliance, I had an army worth mentioning. Still weak compared to the level I'm at now, but very respectable for a former River Bully. I feinted East while I stuck to the West, smashing a pocket Elven kingdom and using their Holy Trees as lumber for my siege engines to topple the human kingdom that lay beyond them.


  Economy of movement and resources, my friends.



  This trend of stomping the fuck out of anything and everything continued for several years. My footgear grew ever so crusty with the blood of fallen opponents and my army grew more impressive with every victory. Before too long my empire had surpassed the one I inherited from Pops and I was swimming in gold.


  This was the era in my life where I decided it was time to give my boots some time to dry out and to look into the Adventurer-Luring side of the business. I was a complete novice in this regard, I had always taken the fight to others, now I wanted to see how the other half lived. I wanted the fucking Heroes of the world to come swording for me.


  What can I say? I've always had a profound lazy streak in me and I was growing tired of living out of a tent while on endless campaign.*3


  

  Thus was born The Canyon of the Arachnid King, probably my first real hit destination. In truth it didn't net me much money because of the ruinous fees the Guild of Giant Spider Wranglers charged me for maintenance and various arachnid herding expenses. But it did smoke several up and coming Heroes and against all odds became an overnight sensation.


  At the time, anyone who was Anyone in the Level 4-6 community took their shot at the Arachnid King*4. Everyone failed and left me lots of cool stuff to sell but enough came close to victory and lived to tell of it, cementing it's reputation forever.


  To this day, The Canyon of the Arachnid King ranks #59 on Dungeon Parade Magazine's 'All-Time Top 100 Dungeons, Ruins, Citadels, Deathmazes, Labyrinths and Places to Loot' list.


  Not bad for my first real attempt at an Adventure Destination.



  And since then I've pretty much covered the jist of my career direction in past installments of this free advice column. I could write a book on the topic, but that's not going to happen.




  Next time I'll talk about the evolution of my Hero-magnets and list my top ten successes in this demanding and competitive market.



Until then I remain,
Your Humble Overlord
Hurderoth



  











*1 This automatically gives my Dark Lord class a split option with the Lost Scion sub-class which I mainly branched into so my biographers had more to talk about and I got a free subscription to a monthly newsletter called "Assuming Heirs".








*2 Like Conan. But let's face it, Conan was an idiot. The epitome of the furry-jockstrap wearin, sword twirlin, shaggy haired fucking moron. Believed in Crom for fucksakes.








*3 Sure my 'tent' is 10,000 square feet, features 16 bedrooms with as many bathrooms. It has 2 hot tubs, a game room, three taverns and a dining area that could seat 500 people and it takes a team of 100 tent setter-uppers six hours to erect. But do't let that diminish, in your mind, the hardships I have to endure while campaigning.








*4 The Arachnid King was a female freelance Elder Giant Spider Mystic** who agreed to star in my death trap provided she didn't have to come out of her palatial web network more than once a week to slaughter some dumbfuck Adventurers and was allowed to lay eggs in anything she captured no matter how much it screamed.



**Her name was Octavia

Eating people seems pretty extreme except maybe on Special Occasions. Or Northern Wastelander Barbeque is better than Southern Jungle Barbeque based on the fat content of its closest general food source. Or nearest village. Whatever, there's no judgement in Barbeque.

  When it comes to cannibalism it may seem, to the casual observer, that humans have a bit of metaphysical sand in their metaphoric vaginas. I mean, in a survival situation, protein is protein. Why there's this stigma about eating your defeated enemies/weaker clan-mates in human society is just beyond me.


  It's not like I'm advocating dining on your fellow human. In theory it feels like a pretty grim practice, even for a evil person like myself. I've actually never grubbed on another human's flesh, the nearest I've come to that is dipping some toast in the yawning wounds of a vanquished enemy and that was more or less just a publicity stunt. Yolks are better. I'm just saying that I would if circumstances dictated it in regards to my continued existence. I think I could do wonderful things with various spices and possibly a Tandoori cooking pot.


  Many other non human cultures either embrace cannibalism or don't slap a scarlet letter on it like mankind does. Goblins, Gnolls, Lizardmen, Wererats, Kobolds to name a few. Why let good battle-meat go to waste when your enitre 'society' constantly dances on the edge of starvation because it hasn't grasped farming yet?


  Do what ya gotta do. It's a little known fact that virtually any meat sliced thin enough works great in a Philly Cheesesteak Format, and that almost no one asks questions about the meat in a fantastic tasting burrito. It's only when a hungry villager sees a limbless human torso roasting slowly on a spit over a fire that objections are often raised.


  So sharp eyed prospective Dark Lords take note: You absolutely can feed your populace the corpses of their enemies and friends as long as you do it in an unrecognizable way, i.e. Sloppy Josephs, Saul-sage pizzas, Mongolian 'Beef', Yankee Pot Roast, Tandoori Rival Villager, Mechanically Separated Hippie, Cholera Quiche, Anything Inna Taco, Soylent Green, you get the idea. The populace at large asks no questions if shit is tasty and cheap.


  It's like Chik fil-A in a certain timeline, everyone knows it's seal meat, but it tastes so damn good that they all pretend to believe it's chicken so they can keep eating it. It will eventually lead to the creation of a vat-grown seal meat composite after all wild seals have been hunted to extinction to satisfy the hunger of an out of control human population.



  So if we're gonna delve into what us human beings refer to as 'cannibalism', then let's delve deep shall we?


  I'm talking cultural cuisine in its most traditional sense. The darkest of cook books for us humans.



  Listed here for the sheltered among us:






  Kandarian Fried Captive: 37 secret herbs and hallucinogens make for a good meal and a mind bending digestion period. This style of cooking is NOT recommended for amateurs to cannibalism or psychogenics.




  Norwegian Danish-Reaver Liver: Fucking Danes tried to raid your homestead and they were easier to kill than sharks. After you and your fjord-mates have slain them, bury them four feet deep in tidal sand for 3-6 months, depending on environmental conditions. When they've ripened, dig em up and cut out their livers. Tell your village it's the traditional rotten shark liver you all know and love.


  They'll never know the difference.




  Mountain Pass Meatloaf: You've shown Hubris your tender asshole by starting a mountain crossing over two months late. Any intelligent and mildly experienced traveler would've waited until the next Spring to start their journey, but someone convinced a whole lot of other gullible dipshits to follow them into a white nightmare.


  Next thing ya know, bone broths recipes are being dusted off and dinner parties planned...




  Orgy Stew: You're the successful leader of a popular nationwide Snake-Cult. Your followers willingly die for you and end life as hors de oeuvres for your unsuspecting diplomatic guests. When you reward your Inner Circle with a depraved Orgy, used up sex slaves are chopped up into a grey stew and served from a steaming cauldron into corn bread bowls with a quail's egg on top because you're a classy motherfucker.



  South Island Long Pig: Let's be frank, 'long pig' is a rustic, colloquial term for "human we're going to cook and eat". Whether it's a captured enemy or someone your witch doctor/religious figure has suggested may be evil, in the end there's gonna be a party and a Bar-B-Q. Best be on the side that needs a toothpick when all is said and done...



  Grassland Dude and Chips: Humans don't have the same texture as whitefish, even when battered up good and deep fried, but steppe dwelling savages who've never even seen a fish don't know or care about that. A lack of tartar sauce technology further hurts this people-based ode to classic fish and chips, but they do have some sort of tuber which when fried makes a wonderful chip and their vinegar, while lacking that nice malt flavor, is sufficient.




Eloi Stir Fry: On some worlds, humankind diverges into one or more distinct species. Sometimes one of these offshoots decides to start eating the other one because not only is it an easy food source, it's fun. On a planet who's resources have been plundered to a standstill, easy to catch prey becomes very attractive no matter how many legs it has.




  So what can you take away from this, would be Dark Lord?


  Well for one thing, you should get your taco carts up and running after a battle but long before the cattle arrive, if you know what I mean. Back in the early days when I was rebuilding the Empire I had frittered away, I had to use fallen enemy to feed my troops because the herd of cattle I'd secured for that exact purpose had been lost to a hoof and mouth epidemic and I couldn't spare any horses for meat. So I made my famous Philly Cheesesteak and Taco War Wagons. I used to run ambulance carts straight to the processing wagons who delivered directly to the chuck wagons. Freshest meat possible in theory.



  Bottom line is that my troops loved grub time and I fed them well when we had substantial victories. It filled the void cheaply while I secured less potentially morale breaking food sources. So in a pinch, just dress it up in tasty sandwiches and never consider as a long term solution.




  I feel like this addressed the cannibalism question in regards to how it may relate to a struggling Dark Lord wannabe such as those who may or may not be reading this at the moment.





   So let's wrap this up and be thankful it came this far, shall we?




Yours in Abjectationness,

-Lord Hurderoth

His May Be Law, Word