Deth Wizards – 1: The Book

Givana carefully turned the pages of the book. Although the pages looked thin and tatty, they felt extremely sturdy, almost like leather. The words and pictures were written in a dark brown ink that was pleasing to the eye.

“Oh, thank you grandfather! A real book! I've always wanted one of these since you taught me how to read!”

Givana's grandfather smiled warmly.

“I thought you might like a book of your own instead of having to read the ones from the public library all the time in it's reading hall. But before we read it together, there are still a few things to learn,” Karl continued.

“As it is no ordinary book and its contents have to be read step by step. When I was your age and celebrated my own 14th birthday, I received this book from my grandfather, your great-great-grandfather Anselmus. Through him I learned that life is a great balance whose equilibrium must be maintained and honored.

We must be careful. Some will envy our knowledge, Givana. Others, those less knowledgeable and wise, may fear us. Treasure this book and its teachings. For the next four years it shall remain a secret to both of us.”

And with that, I welcome you to a new mini-project of mine. While our elderly circle of hobbyists were chatting and making plans for the upcoming CONflict presentation, the idea of presenting Deth Wizards from Snarling Badger Studios came up. The reason for this was simple - it was a project with a manageable timeframe until the event and pretty much every hobbyist has a model or two of undead stuff lying around at home.

Yes, I too have a small pile of shame at home, albeit smaller than most other hobbyists, and I'm taking this opportunity to paint some minis and tell a little story in the process. I've been meaning to do this with one of my Oathmark characters for a long time anyway - the master necromancer Givana!

But as the saying goes, “No master fell from the sky” and I guess that also applies to necromancers. At some point and somehow they must have started out, stuck their noses into books of forbidden knowledge, carried out their first experiments and experienced their first missteps and triumphs.

After browsing through the rules, I decided to put together a horde that fits Givana's story, regardless of its effectiveness. This should reflect her first independent steps as a necromancer. Her first years, so to speak, in which she left the protective care of her mentor and went her own way.

For this reason, I opted for the following profile when choosing the necromancer:

Movement: 6 | Offense: 6 | Defense: 7 | Resist: 4

Necromantic Energy: 9

To show that Givana was still young, I have improved the movement and resistance by 1. In the standard profile, these are normally 5 and 6, which should reflect the robust nature of her youth. For her necromantic lore, I chose Dread Horde Master. The background describes this as a rather routine approach of sending large numbers of mindless undead into the field, but to me this choice seemed logical - a beginner would be unlikely to be able to force a more complex undead creature under his control at the outset, and as experience increases, not only should the quantity of undead improve, but also the quality of the reanimated fighters.

At the start of the game, you can assemble a horde worth the equivalent of 7 points, with each undead having a value of 1 to 4. The choice wasn't difficult for me - I had swapped some Oathmark skeletons for a few of the Satyrs with Tabletopwelt user Namezahl, as I've always liked these models and...well, skeletons seem to me to be as mindless as it gets. My horde looked like this:

• 2 points             -             Wight
• 1 point                -             Skeleton
• 1 point                -             Skeleton
• 1 point                -             Skeleton Archer
• 1 point                -             Skeleton Archer
• 1 point                -             Skeleton Archer

The wight played the role of bodyguard, as a young necromancer may have dedicated herself to the lore of death, but would still be very attached to her own life at the beginning.

I already have an idea of how to continue the story. I'll probably just keep developing this character over different game systems until I have a big enough warband to handle larger systems.

Until then, greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino