Background - The Cultist's Story

Lord Thomas Anderson is a harsh taskmaster. He drives the Cultists on without letting up; as if they are simple beasts that can be bent to his will and driven around the camp like they have no mind. This isn’t right, and is one of the reasons that Azgilarn is a rebel, one of the reasons that he refuses to work and refuses to fit neatly into the ‘system’.

Azgilarn is but a normal man, one brought into the Cult years ago in order to work and live with them, mining away at the rock faces to try and uncover the lost God within. He didn’t mind this, didn’t mind it until Anderson took charge. Anderson beats his workers, he shows no signs of remorse or regret as he sees Cultist after Cultist fall to the floor, crying out for rest.

He marches with lethal intent, swinging his staff around and scorching or freezing those who it touches. He took a particular dislike to Azgilarn and made sure that that particular man suffered exceedingly above the rest. He would take Azgil out of the group and use him as an example. He would beat Azgil, burn his skin and smash his head against the rocks, simply for pleasure.

The other Cultists would either turn their heads or snigger in content as their fellow worker suffered unnecessarily, but Azgil took all the pain, knowing that Anderson would fall one day. It was barely two months into Anderson’s reign that Azgilarn took it upon himself to begin to stand up to him. He began by refusing to comply with the regulations, not working when asked and not speaking when spoken to.

He would drink alcohol on the scene and spit it out into Anderson’s face, only to be replied to with a series of punishments, each worse than the other. His fingers were cut and crushed, his body branded and tattooed, his toes broken and his face beaten. These were all that the cruel taskmaster gave in return for Azgil’s show of defiance.

Other Cultists began to see Azgilarn as a figurehead, a sign that change was possible and Anderson was not as omnipotent as he tried to pretend he was. They joined his cause, and within another month or two, Azgil had a reliable group of Cultists working under him, standing against the ‘system’ in order to demand change.

It didn’t take long for the punishments to become all but unbearable, and the rebellion was put on temporary hold, but when Anderson was away from work – running an errand for the Master – they played tricks with him. All but ten of the previous workforce halted their mining and began to gather up the taskmaster’s belongings.

They piled them up and covered them with fuel, using a match to set all the items alight. Books, clothes, armour and weapons all went up in flame, all of them becoming destroyed and unusable within moments. When Anderson returned to see what had happened to his things, he was furious, and the culprit was obvious.

Azgilarn was taken out of the group and put to chain. He was strewn across the camp, his arms stretched wide and his legs wider. He was stabbed at by pikes, and kept there for over two weeks with minimal food. In this time, the rebellion began to subside and the Cultists began to return to their work, with no leader, the fight was temporarily over.

When Azgil was taken down from the chains, he was a changed man. He complied with work and did the jobs he was given. His only final act of defiance was to change the words he spoke with into a different dialect, one which was all but impossible for the other Cultists, and Anderson, to understand.

Now Azgilarn sits in the camp, working when he can be bothered and obeying the orders given by the taskmaster Anderson. He stills retains the need to be a rebel, but has no means to exact it with. Maybe a certain group of Druids can relight his passion for change, and perhaps earn his support in the coming battle.