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.