vil wears many faces. Often, sadly, it is known to wear the face of the good and the righteous. Or, in the most sorrowful cases, it will twist the true face of goodness into something unrecognizable, horrible, completely devoid of its former nature.

Such has been the fate of what has come to be called the Holy Defiler. These tormented souls, like the lich, were once great and powerful mages. And, like their spiritual brethren, they have been become evil through the use and manipulations of the darkest magicks. What sets the Holy Defiler apart from the rest of its kind is what it was before, and the sad realization of what has been lost in its shadowed transformation.

Holy Defilers are called so because they were once holy men or white necromancers…they practiced the more benevolent magicks, concentrating on those spells which heal the body and the mind. Unfortunately, as with all things, there is always a darker side to even the best of things. Holy Defilers, from what we can ascertain from scattered books and accounts, seem to have looked too closely at the dark reflection of white necromancy, those spells of soul poisons and conjuring of spirits, and were eventually lost to the evils which they discovered in those depths. In time, they were overcome with their obsessions and became something abominable. Holy Defilers surround themselves with helpless servants of all kinds, broken under the great power of the creature and living only to sacrifice themselves for their master's well being.

During our travels, we were fortunate enough to survive a foray into the Bangellian Deeps, and there we happened across a most peculiar conflict. A lumbering Feraloch had discovered the lair of a Holy Defiler and its minions, an enslaved group of orcs. We watched in horror as the raging beast tore into the unsuspecting and mindless orcs, eviscerating them with great sweeps its claws, working its way toward their master. And yet, not moments after the orcs had fallen to the ground they were up again and fighting, healed or resurrected by their twisted lord who stood apart from the fray, unmoving and fearless. In time, the sheer numbers of the orcs were more than enough for the unfortunate Feraloch, and he was eventually torn limb from limb. We made a hasty departure before we too suffered the same fate.

Pure is the evil that uses the face of goodness for such dark ends. May you never have to gaze upon it.