3. Journal of Ganzt

Journal of Ganzt


  • Herein lie the relevant and legible portions of the book collected by the party off the body of the ghoul lord whom they encountered in the ancient druid tomb. An additional portion of the text appears to concern high level, innovative necromantic rituals. Those portions will require effort or expertise to decipher.

    ~#~

    THUS, I, GANZT, PRIEST OF THE BLACK HAND, am given a second chance to serve the master through the vision of his prophet, the divine soul, Ombretta Piccolo.

    My creation will bring the ordained fate to the hobgoblin kingdom. After removing their bugbear masters, they are consumed with scheme and conspiracy over the question of the succession of their ailing leader. The warrior Phaerwal has entreated with Ombretta, and I am her gift. I am to negotiate a settlement while aiding his attempt to wrest control.

    ~#~

    THE MEMORIES of my past life come as fleeting wisp-lights and dissolve such that I can hardly describe their color. I see maps in the war tents, lit by torches. I see bridges falling, eliminating the enemy's advance. I see walls crumbling and a wave of dead breaking through under my command. Yet I cannot place names to any of these scenes.

    ~#~

    I AM REBUFFED, countered, and manipulated at every turn. Phaerwal is an idiot tactician and an unappreciative ally. He aspires to a challenge of single combat with the one he sees as his main rival, the warrior Chusktel, but he is blind to the machinations of Kerugax, who surely whispers poisoned words of friendship to both his rivals.

    ~#~

    PHAERWAL and Chusktel have destroyed one another. Kerugax has taken the title 'Prince' during the great mourning. The prophet has called me back.

    We will ignore the hobgoblins, who she says are insignificant to her true plan. If this is so, why did I waste so many months in their boorish company?

    ~#~

    WHILE I FOLLIED among the hobgoblins, the prophet has become obsessed with the fey incursion. Though naturally talented in magic, the exiled make for poor invaders owing to their lack of organization. The tall ones revere age over valor or true wisdom, and the small ones revere nothing but spite and contradiction. They are a prattling species, too full of themselves to acknowledge and challenge their limits. Their presence has reshaped the wood, created even the effect of permanent twilight, but they achieve nothing by it. Ombretta agrees with my objections, but she won't let the matter lie.

    ~#~

    THE PROPHET SUCCUMBED to petty human emotion again. How much more perfect she could be if she released herself from life. The famed general, Geroldine, is dead several months now, but her jealousy consumes her. "He had no vision," she says while hers shifts like sand.

    ~#~

    CHRONOMANCY and oneiromancy are unpredictable, the domains of mountebanks. I will not question the prophet---indeed, cannot question her as I have painfully learned---but privately I reserve my doubts. Her weak human mind is saddled with emotion. May the Black Hand guide her true. She will commit herself further to the error until it is too late otherwise.

    For my pain, I have been sent away again, to excavate an ancient druid tomb. I have been instructed not to animate any of the bodies. Such is my punishment.

    ~#~

    I SEE NOW that the druid tomb connects to a vast network, underfoot. Root and fungus. We will use such to spread death, to raise an army.

    ~#~

    THE VAMPIRE is a pest. I request tools, onyx, scrolls, but he would rather build traps. For whom? Not the pathetic spirits, who are blind to the unliving. I suspect he has no true loyalty to the prophet and far less for Bane.

    I do not understand why I must work with him. He should be my subordinate, that I might correct his weaknesses.

    ~#~

    I HAVE BEEN CALLED short-sighted. Forbidden to use the druidic network for its clear purpose. We could have an army, one that raises itself. Every dead hobgoblin could become our ally in a manner of days.

    But Ombretta says her goal is higher.

    ~#~

    WE HAVE FOUND the heart of the tomb. Beating, however slowly.

    I can see it now. The results remain unpredictable, but the possibility is there. The power to create weakness is not so alien to my talents, after all. I should not have doubted the prophet.

    The first body crumbled upon removal. Perhaps the vampire will prove useful after all, as he now promises.

    ~#~

    SUCCESS. The second body has been removed, scarred. I have learned much. The third will become all a more perfect weapon. The prophet's silent guardian took the second. Whence I do not know.

    ~#~

    I HAD A MEMORY VIVID of life before my resurrection into this more perfect form. A village would not surrender, so I poisoned its water supply. The land became useless to all, including our other enemies. The wasteland itself testament to our total power, to the cost of enduring our wrath.

    The memory motivated me for an evening, but then I found it puzzling. Have I ever resorted to alchemical reagents? Why would I not resurrect the bodies of the poisoned villagers? I’ve found no satisfying answers to these questions.

    ~#~

    A FORMER CAPTIVE of the prophet's, some pet with allegedly rare arcane talents, is in the wood. Running from the goblins. I'm to take my partial army and find her. These obsessions will become Ombretta's undoing. But, how much trouble can be posed from one who runs from goblins? How much value either, I wonder? Perhaps the Black Hand will see that she is slain in the process so that the prophet will focus at last.

    ~#~

    WHILE I HAVE BEEN DIGGING, the hamlet north has constructed a temple to death's guardsman. Their imported knights are easily outnumbered, though only at some cost. I have returned to the tomb with eight of their bodies. The prophet is incensed at the new obstacle. "Return their dead," she said. "Let them walk home as a message." At last she remembers reason.

    The incident has redoubled her obsession with the former captive. Could any loss inspire her to walk the straight and sure path to victory?

    ~#~

    THE VAMPIRE called me useless, I think. It's difficult to say, as is ever the case with him. "Of wounded authorship," he said. "A hammer repurposed as a lockpick." We were debating the specifics of the third body. Such an absurd insult, but yet, I cannot help but think he's right. For all the prophet's vision, my talents are better suited for a campaign against the hobgoblins than this vague and impractical work.

    ~#~

    SOMEONE ELSE IS WRITING MEMORIES, Ombretta claims. The fey's lack of foresight was the clue. Symptomatic puppets, she calls them. Parasites, I said. Her evidence is dubious, however. Still she seeks answers at some hidden market. She should be using her own talents to undermine that temple, lest our location be discovered too soon.

    Already her anger at the temple has subsided, like all her human passions. I suspect she believes her arcanist is hiding at this market and that is her true motivation.