1

When I was a child, raiders burned my home to the ground and killed my parents.

Why do you ask?  Oh, yes.  Who needs more than a single attempt when my aim is so obviously just.

With holy fire wrought from pure creation, my vengeance will bring about the downfall of the kingdom.  Then upon the smoldering ashes and the shattered bones of my enemies, I will build an empire.

The Eye of Acheron has been of the greatest help.

I've done many things people like you would call reprehensible or evil even.  But they were... necessary.  Just as my own brother could not stand in my way, neither shall you.  And should you try, let me illustrate the depths of pain and torment I am willing to plumb.  My loving brother.  He refused me.  So I bound him.  Burned out his eyes with a white-hot poker.  His ears I fried and fed to my dogs.  I flayed his skin and broke his bones upon the wheel.  Yet each time he lost consciousness from pain or neared death, I had him revived.  His torment continued for 72 days and nights.  Then I let him expire.  Do not think you can overpower my will to achieve my aims.

2

The local temple recruited young children into their cult.  My parents were too poor to care for me and my siblings, so off we went.  But my parents never knew what horrors the priests inflicted upon the innocents.  The horrors!

Last time.  You dare mention that before me.  The fools who thwarted me before... heh.  Their bones decorate my castle.

In a moment the full brilliance of my years-long plan will become clear.  A portal.  It sounds simple.  Clean.  Elegant.  But only through extreme effort, planning, and a dragon's horde of wealth expended... only then can my patron make himself manifest upon this plane of existence. And only then will the full brilliance and awful power of my exquisite plan be truly revealed.

The Rod of the Arcane?  Yes, this is it here.  Pray you never feel its full might unleashed upon you.

You have heard of the Great Fire of Homulan? The legend of a city that was consumed in a fire so hot, the stones of the homes and keep melted.  A fire so total that there were no survivors. That was me.  All for a single clue towards this powerful artifact that I now hold in my arsenal.  I did this to people I did no know or hold any ill will toward.  Simply to erase any trace of my passing through.  So imagine what I will do to those who dare oppose me!

3

As a child, I would often fish in a creek near my parents farm.  One hot summer day I came upon someone bathing in the cool water.  I did not know it, but I had looked upon the naked body of a god.  And for this supposed crime I have been plagued with nightmares of such hideous and vivid quality that even a single instant would drive you mad.  But not me!  I grew strong.

Fools!  You dare ask.  But my astrologist informs me that "the third time is the charm."

Assassins, you say?  No, no.  They are my shadow army.  And with them, I shall become the hidden ruler of all I survey.

Your weapons will be of no use against me, fools!  My raiment is the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd.

Deep in the mountains, far, far below the impenetrable snows, I did battle.  At the very precipice of the Dark Portal, I slew demons one after another until whole new rivers, rivers composed only of blood were filled.  And their fiery blood flowed and flowed melting rock until it emerged on the surface.  You have heard of the Great Volcano Tamborax?  Yes, that is the result of just one of my battles.  Are you beginning to reconsider the choices, the myriad tiny decisions right back to the very day you were conceived to that whore you called a mother?  You should.

4

Long before you were even born, the King had wronged my family.  My father was unjustly accused of treachery.  He was imprisoned and then executed.... executed publicly.  On that day, I swore my vengeance.

Thrice!  Thrice before my plans have been thwarted.

You see this orb?  Ah, well the tale I could tell you on how it came to be in my possession would fill the time between now and the next full moon, but alas, we have no time for that.  With this I can bend the limbs, mind, and soul of any creature to my will.  And name what creature more terrifies the kingdoms of this world than the Tarrasque! With such a one in my power, all shall bow before me.  Or be destroyed!

Though magic be a scourge upon the land, I must use the weapons of mine enemies.  Behold, the Wand of Orcus!

Do you know what happens to people who are trapped, just as surely as you are trapped now?  I do.  I once cloistered up in an infernal maze of most magnificent magical design the entire populace of a city.  And in this maze there was no entrance.  No exit.  They had no tools, no weapons.  No resources.  I wanted to see how a trapped soul would react.  At first only the weakest willed panicked.  Then the murders began as hunger gnawed at their souls.  And murder begat murder as a cycle of vengeance burned through their throng.  Ultimately they devolved into animals and resorted to feasting upon the dead.  Cannibalism.  The last one had survived an entire year in this hellish condition.  In the end there was nothing left, and desperation could provide no solution.  He succumbed to his own darkness and guilt at what he had done—what I had forced him to do—and he took his own life.   This I did for curiosity.  What might I do to you out of spite and because you vex me?  You cannot imagine such torments.

5

Death.  That is who I truly war against.  All of my efforts, all my deeds are in vain if I do not defeat death itself.  For it is death who took my beloved.  No words can describe the bone-deep torment and anguish at their loss.

Bah!  Only fools abandon hope after just four failures.  All the stars are aligning for moment of my ultimate triumph to be soon at hand.

It is said that the knights of legend rode into battle upon dragons.  Tiamat, the Undying Queen, the Bane of Bahamut will, through me, return to rule.  And her army will join mine to lay waste to the world... and in the ashes that remain build a more just world.

I have scoured the land and delved deep into the earth.  Read every tome of arcane and knowledge lost to the ages... and have assembled the Rod of Seven Parts!

A city once opposed me.  They barred their gates and hurled derision at me and mine.  When I had breached their walls, all were put to the sword.  None were spared.  Then we fired the city so that no structures remained.  Then I gave the order to salt the fields, orchards and other lands so that they would never grow even a single blade of grass again.  This is what I do to those who dare say, "No" to me.

6

My [brother/sister/nephew/niece] usurped my title, had me banished, and branded a traitor.  Though it may take a lifetime, I will have what is mine restored to me.

I do not believe in magic or blessed numbers.  It will take as long as it takes, and with each effort my plans have become more refined.  Now like a well honed blade, I'm well prepared to slice through all opposition... including you, if needs be.

In the Library of the Arcane Wizard Erik the Black, I found a tome that has provided me the route and method of my revenge.  The Abomination.  That is the title of the book and an apt title for my creation.  For I have created new life... but not any life, life in the form and mirror of one who still walks this plane of existence.  This doppleganger is not a mere copy, but a replication so precise and exact that the soul's own closest kin would be unable to detect the cheat.  And through this doppelganger... well, let's say I shall get what I most richly deserve at long last.

You will bow before me or feel the might of the Sword of Kas!

Once two of my rivals were in dispute over control of a fertile valley.  The valley was mine my right and force of arms.  When the King, that corrupt hell-kite, took their money and they split my valley between them.  I poisoned the waters.  No one died, but no babies have been born in that cursed land since.  Seek to take what is rightfully mine, and you, too, will feel my ire.

7

While I was away in service to my liege, my lands were despoiled, my castle captured, and my loyal retainers and my family were all put to death.  And it was not a quick death.  They were made to suffer for the amusement of my enemies.

You will speak not of the six.  Only of the seventh.  For therein lies my ultimate victory and your doom!

Method?  Why it is simple my dear fellow.  Death.  I mean to put to death any and all who oppose me and intercede betwixt me and my aim.

To you I look perhaps... fifty years old, no?  Ah, but did I not also tell you that my plans were decades in the making.  Well, they were many, many decades.  In fact, I am a man out of time you might say.  My Ring of Winter has kept me unchanged and hale for some six hundred years.  And I will still be here after you are rotting in a grave.

A neighboring kingdom sent a trade delegation to visit when I was a boy.  The king wanted peace and prosperity, but he had slighted my father once.  And I knew the fastest way to rise in power and influence was through war.  So I poisoned the entire delegation. They fell dead one by one at the King's table.  All for a child's ambition.  What do you believe me capable of for my ambition now?

8

An a moment of pique, I cursed the gods.  For that they have laid me low, and made all my plans turn to ash in my hands just as they ripen.

Eight is the number writ down in days of old.  And eight shall be our beacon and guide star.

Our greatest scholars tell us that the celestial bodies we see in the sky are fixed and unmovable from their circuit across the firmament.  This is not so.  With the most complex, and arcane ritual I shall bring crashing down upon this land a cataclysm so great that life of any kind would be hard pressed to survive anywhere upon this fetid globe.  Yes, a cataclysm.  It will appear in the sky like a fire, a great molten mountain in the sky that grows nearer and nearer.  Nothing will stop it once set in motion.  And when it crashes down upon the surface of this planet the force will cause the very ground and rock beneath our feet to boil, melt, and flow in great waves of fiery destruction to sweep all life away.  A glorious holocaust shall be my vengeance!

Ah you notice my crown, orb and scepter?  They are more than objects of vanity or mere symbols of power.  They are my Regalia of Power!

Imagine the broadest river you have ever laid eyes upon.  Now replace the water with blood.  With the corpses from horizon to horizon.  These are my enemies.  I am stepped in that blood so far that to go back the way I came would be far more tedious than to continue.  So do not think that your pitiful band can hope to bar my way.

9

My father was no married to my mother.  Yes, some would call me a bastard, but I am still of the blood... recognized or not in the eyes of the law.  I will take what is owed me if they will not give it freely.

Three times three.

Are your parents still living?  No.  Ah, well you shall see them again, but not in the afterlife.  They will claw their way from the dank hole in the ground where you placed them... and serve me.  There are numberless millions who have perished on this world.  Fallen to age, disease, war, endless, pointless war, murder, childbirth... and they will all rise up in my service.  And those who oppose me, when they inevitably fall to my legions, will in death find new purpose as undying soldiers in my eternal army.

In delving into the very nature and fabric of existence, I have created the most powerful, most awful, and most singularly destructive object ever to exist on the Material Plane: The Sphere of Annihilation!

Perhaps you have heard of death by impalement?  No?  The victim is skewered by a long heavy pike.  But it is done in a way that they do not immediately perish.  No.  Then the pike is placed in the ground so the weight of the victim's own body is the propulsion for their doom as the pike slowly pierces more and more of their innards.  For some it takes hours to die, others days.  It is a horrible way to die to be sure.  Now imagine an entire populace put to death in such a manner.  I wholly depopulated an entire country in this manner.  Why?  You dare ask why.  For the crime of opposing my will.  So imagine what torturous death I have in store for such as you.

10

In the midst of a blizzard, I took refuge in a cave.  The storm raged for twenty days.  Deep within the cave I found the remains of a warrior.  Upon his body I found this very sword.  Beautiful isn't she.  When I went in I was alone, but when the storm abated, and I emerged.  We were whole.  What?  Yes, my dearest.  My sword would like to know how you would like to die?  Fast or slow?

Do we not have ten fingers?  Ten toes?  The very sign of our victory is our very bodies.

In this small vial, a pestilence to lay low the whole of mankind.  Only the chosen shall remain to repopulate the lands you leave behind.  The pestilence is fast, which I suppose a mercy you do not deserve.  But shall I tell you how you will die?  You will begin with pain, oh, but such a pain as you have never felt.  A blinding, searing white-hot poker of anguish within your mind.  Then the corpuscles of your blood will rebel and attack your own flesh.  The outward signs of this shall be profuse bleeding upon the face and hands.  Then you will fall into a stupor, then a shivering fever worse than any ague known to medicine.  And finally, at the stroke of just one half of an hour, your heart will beat as though it would burst through your chest until it simply fails and you die.  Just one half of an hour from contraction to conclusion of this pestilence.

I have trod unmapped paths in pursuit of my aims.  You frown and scowl.  But behold!  This talisman is no mere bauble, but the Talisman of Pure Evil!

Once, long ago I captured a city after a lengthy and punishing siege.  They had but a small garrison and were situated upon a strategic location.  So they had to be taken.  They held out for two years.  Most conquerors in such a situation would have slaughtered the whole of the citizenry.  In my benevolence I did not, but I still needed to send a strong message to mine enemies.  So into bondage I sent them all.  Every man, woman, and child.  They now toil in my mines, fields, and galleys.  And for them there is no hope of freedom at the end of their torment.  Yet they still live.  Am I not benevolent?  Magnanimous in victory?  Pray I am so gracious when I crush you pitiful lot beneath my boot heel.

11

Magic is a curse upon this land.  Imagine a world without magic.  Can you?  I can.  It's the most beautiful image one could ever have.  For it is magic users of every stripe—wizards, conjurers, necromancers, charlatans and illusionists, warlocks, clerics and paladins, druids and all the rest—that have rended the very fabric of reality.  Though you cannot see it, with every spell they spell our collective doom.

After so many... shall we say, setbacks... it would be folly to abandon hope especially when our cause is just.

Why it is quite simple really.  You see previously I would have gone for a subtle solution, but I have learned through toil and trial a hard truth.  On occasion, raw, unadulterated violence is necessary.  And so I have engaged the services of the most heinous and vile of mercenary companies: The Black Watch.

Perhaps you have heard of the Eye and Hand of Vecna, but what of the Heart of Vecna?

In a campaign some years back, my forces were opposed by a group of highwaymen and brigands... terrorists that called themselves the Green Hand.  My soldiers could not capture them nor crush them in battle for they would escape into the forests.  I suspected they were simple, common folk who had taken up arms to oppose me.  I applauded their mettle and fighting spirit, but I could brook no opposition.  No, not even the shadow of such opposition.  So I took the right hand of very man, woman, and child in the district.  And such a mound of hands they did make.  And with only one hand to survive and farm with, there was little time or passion for ambush or fomenting revolt.  An elegant solution don't you think?

12

They call it building.  I call it destruction.  What right do they have to "build" here?  Do the animals and creatures of the wild not have a right to live in peace?  That which is not nature is not natural by definition.

Should this task require of me a ten thousand attempts and every drop of blood on the whole of this world... I will.  So great is my fervor.  Challenge me not on this!

Why it is you.  You will be the vessel and actor to carry out my most nefarious plans.  No, no.  You need not worry.  You will not know how you have done such things, for by you being here today shows that my previous work on you is working as intended.  Mind control?  No, I would not use so inarticulate a term, but for simpletons such as yourselves... yes, I will use mind control to force you to do my bidding.

Your mind is no longer your own when I have this, the Cyrinshad!

To accomplish my grant aims, I have made alliances with... races the civilized world would call monsters.  But they are loyal, fierce, and are perfect for my aims.  But for one flaw.  They are difficult to control. Wildness you see.  What I needed was the fierceness of a monster paired with the control and intelligence of a man.  Yes, I think you see it now.  So when I took a city, I had the men and male children slaughtered.  The women and girl children I placed in great hatcheries where I loosed my strongest, bravest monsters. And there I bred by half-breed warriors.  The best women have birthed a dozen or more of my mongrel soldiers.