Burok

Burok was the official town Manuromancer of Earbeford.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.22 He made a good living studying the excrement of the mayor and others to divine their futures.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.23-24 He had a wide, squat face with a broad forehead, and was beginning to grow too large for his wide leather belt.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.22/24 His wife was the seamstress, Ilma.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.24Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 6, p.30
Burok preferred to have his subjects defecate in a bowl to ensure proper identification, capture any liquids, and eliminate the need to study the drop patter accompanied by a specimen's fall to the ground.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.23 His profession meant he was familiar with the parasites that infested the body and which often appeared amongst the material he studied.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 19 p.79-80 Burok carefully inspected his own daily waste for hints of what fate awaited him.
==In Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords==
When The Tearful Three threatened to destroy Earbeford with their army of ten thousand undead, Burok was conscripted into a motley army of four thousand citizens under Captain Villiob's command. While the others were all poorly armed, Burok's position within the town brought him the gift of a full set of chain mail, a helm, and a flail from the Mayor.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 1, p.1/3Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.21-23 Burok lamented to his friends Thibly and Anavalistia that his wife Ilma had stormed out of their home and left him while he was peering into a bowl of his own feces. Worse, he had seen it predicted in his study of her excrement.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 5, p.24 Unbeknownst to the Manuromancer, his wife had been slain on the road by Trooth the Dint and added to the Tearful Three's army of undead.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 6, p.27
Another of the Tearful Three, Nog the Furbious, was eager to hear what his future held and sent one of the undead to sneak into Earbeford and kidnap Burok.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 9, p.43-46 The mage studied Nog's excrement with Nog curiously looking over his shoulder and demanding to know what the abundant number of curlicues in the sample meant. Burok downplayed their appearance and requested more time to complete his report. Nog hired him on full time as his personal diviner. Meanwhile, Thibly suspected Burok had fled from town since his rooms were cleared out.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 16, p.69 The manuromancer found life in the keep without his friends lonely and he thought his new masters idiots. When he finally admitted that Nog's curlicues were the sign of a fatal infestation of the Kileptre parasite, the necromancer angrily fired him and sent him back to the town to face extermination.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 19, p.78-80
Burok returned to the town's ranks just as the Earbeford's recently hired defenders, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, advanced on the Tearful Three and their undead army. The mage pronounced the Tearful Three doomed based on his studies of Nog's morning bowl.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 19, p.86 After Bauchelain and Korbal Broach dispatched the Tearful Three, Captain Villiob and several others among the conscripts devised a plan for the now masterless undead army. Since the undead did not require pay or food and would be desperate to rejoin society, the people of Earbeford could welcome them back as the town's new working class. In the process, people of the lower classes such as themselves would be elevated to a wealthier, more privileged class. Burok went with the group to inspect the undead because he thought he saw Ilma's animated corpse among them and hoped her new status meant she would change her mind about him.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 30, p.97-101
But Burok and Ilma's reunion did not go as the manuromancer had hoped. Ilma, now leading the newly freed horde of undead, reacted to Villiob's proposition by announcing the undead would kill and devour the townspeople.Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 31, p.102-104Upon a Dark of Evil Overlords, Section 32, p.104 Burok likely perished among them.
==Notes and references==
Category:Humans
Category:Mages
Category:Males