Every group of protagonists needs good villains to pit themselves against, the meaner and crazier the better. Fortunately, Gullin, Zocha, Longchops, and Lurk have one of the maddest farrow this side of Lord Carver to contend with, the self-styled Warlord Morrg.

Fiction

Warlord Morrg left his blunderbuss behind; he left his explosives behind. He even left his bandolier behind, all to his bone grinder Knor's dismay. He knew the Tharn would take them anyway when he and Knor walked into the heart of their territory, and he wanted the Tharn to feel in charge. It made it much easier to kill their chieftain if they thought the two farrow were helpless.

He felt bad that he had promised Knor the chieftain's heart. When this was over, he wasn't sure that much of the chieftain would be left.

"So. We have the lord of the swine," Rhydderk snorted as the Tharn chieftain entered the clearing in the vine-covered trees. He glanced at Knor. "And his half-blind piglet."

Knor's tongue licked his lip as he prepared to answer -- Morrg could guess what his bone grinder might say, especially after an insult about being one-eyed -- but the warlord cut him short. "The White Maw leave Blackmarsh Valley," he said without preamble, "and never come back, or you die." Say your tribe won't leave. Say it. Say it. Say it.

Rhydderk looked around at his armed savages and frowned. They all looked gleeful, Morrg thought; only the Tharn chieftain seemed to take the threat seriously. "I have you surrounded. That means you've lost," Rhydderk said. "You think you can kill us all now that we have you?"

"You have us surrounded, but that doesn't mean anything ," Morrg said. "And no, not all."

"If his heart is as stupid as his head," Knor grunted, "I can't use it." Rhydderk ignored the bone grinder. He kept his attention on Morrg. "You have no weapons," the chieftain said, but Morrg could hear the Tharn's confidence wavering. "We caught you alone. You are helpless swine."

Morrg shook his head and said, "We are not."

"Swine?" Rhydderk growled.

"Alone," Morrg corrected.

He could sense the presence of his enormous razor boars rooting in the brush just beyond the furthest Tharn patrols. Normally, they would be beyond his mental reach, but Caldon and Crommen were different. He liked to think they knew him. So, when he allowed his consciousness to flow to them, they stiffened to their full, massive heights, and when he called them -- a farrow word used most often as a war cry -- they thundered into the foliage to answer.

"You should have said you'd leave," Morrg said.

"I will never leave," Rhydderk said.

"I say you should have."

It was long enough. One, five, even all seven Tharn were no match for the likes of Caldon and Crommen once Morrg used his warlock skills to empower them to greater heights of fury. Morrg made sure they killed Rhydderk last, eating him mostly alive in hopes his heart would still be salvageable.

***

Later, when the farrow and the two razor boars had finally moved beyond where the warlord thought the Tharn might find them, Morrg turned to his bone grinder. "He should not have called you that."

"Half-blind?" Knor asked.

"Piglet," Morrg corrected.

Knor snorted and looked down into his components' sack. The half he'd been able to recover from Crommen's mouth before the beast swallowed it would suffice. "You don't even have a heart, do you, Warlord?"

"Blackmarsh Valley is my the heart I want," Morrg said, and before Knor could groan at his poetic drivel, the warlord said, "and I will bleed all the rot from it, one trollkin, one human, and one Tharn at a time until it is mine."

Playing Morrg

As a warlock, Morrg is fierce competition for the heroes in the Iron Kingdoms Unleashed Adventure Kit. Bonded to two particularly nasty razor boars, he can cause a whole lot of hurt to a group that doesn't approach him intelligently. Game Masters and players interested in creating their own warlocks with customized beasts can do so through the use of Creature Templates. First introduced in the Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon, creature templates are ways to customize monsters -- and warbeasts. You know what's scarier than a dire troll mauler? A dire troll mauler that also has the Large Specimen template.

Of course, nothing comes without its own risks. A warlock who wants to control these more powerful and dangerous versions of these creatures will have to go out, find them, and somehow subdue them. Hunting down these one-of-a-kind warbeasts can make for great side adventures to a main campaign, or as a jumping-off point for a group. Warlocks with special warbeasts also make for compelling antagonists; even the most battle-hardened veterans of HORDES may be surprised when they confront a gorax that runs at three times its base speed, or a Gnarlhorn Satyr that grants other satyrs nearby a bonus to attack and damage rolls!