Nerothos

The chief foe of the Runekeeper Order, he slaughtered both the second and third order and is feared throughout the cosmos for his unending hunt for new magic and knowledge to store on his world of Nerothalis.

*"Ah, you have come little mortals, as I knew you would eventually... And the thief is here as well, relinquish the Grand Book of the Runekeepers to me and I may yet spare the lives of your companions Kalrum."* - Nerothos speaking at Kalrum's first expedition to Nisvik's Study after they triggered an alarm the Dreadlord had set up.

## Nerothos the Knowledge Hunter

Imagine the cloak behind him as his wings tucked down. And that he's wearing robes instead of armor (See Personal Items)

### Title(s)

The Knowledge Hunter, Collector of Relics, Master of Magics

### Class

Warlock (With aspects of Mages and Necrolytes)

### Position

Lord of Nerothalis, and Master of Magics of the Cabal of Knowledge

## **Characteristics**

As imposing as Nerothos will appear, being a Dreadlord, his greatest weapon is his mind. He's not quite as charismatic as other Dreadlord's but his knowledge and mastery of a wide variety of spells and magic more then make up for it.

### **Physical Appearance**

Like all Dreadlord's Nerothos is taller then most mortals, however, he stands about two feet above your average Felguard and weights less then one.

He lacks any serious muscle mass, and although his gray-dead skin and gaunt appearance might speak to a relatively weak fighter, physically, Nerothos possess potent magical items to aid in his defense and in his fighting should it come to that. Past that, he has your general Dreadlord abilities like flight, carrion swarms, vampiric drains, along with his massive array of spells to ensure his victory.

#### **Personal Items**

**The Robes of Nerothalis:** Specifically crafted for Nerothos by eredar warlocks and enchanted personally to empower his magics and ward off blows of the physical and magical variety. Although he does trade the physical defense enjoyed by his fellow Dreadlord's by not wearing as much plate armor! The robes are largely a dark gray with highlights of a gold-bronze color with green runes of power and purple embroidery.

**Limited Armor:** Like the image shows, Nerothos does wear shoulderplates, bracers, and what amounts to boots for hooved demons. He does not wear the plate legguards or plate belt that is shown in the image. The armor he does wear is pretty much the same that is shown with the only exception of green runes of power in the dark gray segments.

**Staff of Merdin:** Taken from the dwarf archmage known as Merdin Stouthammer and altered by Nerothos to serve as his personal staff. It's truesilver base has turned a dark gray color that seems to shimmer in power as fel-green smoke wafts from the weapon. The orb that once adorned the staff was removed and replaced with one of Nerothos's creation to ease the difficulty of using different types of magic individually or when combining them into unstable spells.

**Various Rings of Power:** Adorning his fingers are a variety of rings, some were created by Nerothos or by some other demon in the Legion, but most have unique designs and craftsmanship not known to the Legion, trophies taken from those he's defeated in spell combat. They help protect him from being binded by a warlock, they let him ignore summoning circles (if summoned by a warlock), they improve his protection against both physical and magical attacks, but most serve as storage devices for his magic. He places spells in there to draw on later if their needed or if he runs out of energy for his normal spells.

### **Personality**

Inquisitive, curious, cunning, extremely intelligent, arrogant, disdainful of 'lesser minds', and cruel. Nerothos is many things, but he is at the forefront a seeker of knowledge and is willing to use all forms of deception, torture, spells, to learn whatever it is he has set his mind out to learn. Eons of success has led to arrogance on his part, and was rewarded his own world after he successfully overpowered their greatest champions in a battle of wits and magic alone. The remnants of that planets forces then fell to the demons he summoned, renaming it Nerothalis after himself and turning it into a world of knowledge and magical experimentation. This gift did not go unnoticed by the rest of the Legion, and he quickly attracted a wide array of Observers, Inquisitors, Jailors, Eredar, a few Fel Lords, minor Dreadlords, and a Pit Lord to serve under him along with your more mundane demons.

## **History**

Nerothos once served under Kil'jaedan, not directly of course, but his masters did. Known for his thirst for knowledge and power, he spent much of the time since his 'birth' shortly after the Legion was created seeking it out when not on missions for his masters. Eventually he earned more freedom in his personal quest as he proved useful and resourceful as well as knowledgeable on a wider array of magics then some Observers. This rise to power was completed when he conquered a world for the Legion effectively by himself by crushing it's champions in single combat with his magical might. This world was renamed after him to Nerothalis, and has become a home to demons seeking knowledge and magic, attracting your typical demons like Observers, Inquisitors, some Jailors, Eredar, and some minor Dreadlords. It also attracted stranger demons like Fel Lord's and a single Pit Lord who expressed a desire to master magic to crush foes who eluded his reach.

### **The Cabal of Knowledge**

Taking his pick of the more powerful spellcasters who came to serve under him, Nerothos created the Cabal of Knowledge with him as the leader, the Master of Magics. His top lieutenant was an Darkglare (Powerful/Different Subspecies of Observer) named Vaern, followed by the Pit Lord Morennth, after that, the other six members of the Cabal were as follows, an Eredar Sorceress, a Fel Lord, an Inquisitor, a Succubus, a Doomguard, and surprisingly, a Wyrmtongue.

Each of the members were picked due to their mastery, or natural talent in a different aspect of magic. With his Cabal, Nerothos turned his world into a haven for Legion-aligned knowledge seekers and magical students. Even some non-Legion aligned warlocks and mages from worlds over the ages willingly turned to the Legion to learn at his world. Although due to it's distance, it's largely unknown on Azeroth.

### **The Runekeeper Order**

Between the War of the Three Hammers and the Third War, Nerothos arrived on Azeroth by sheer coincidence, a Dark Iron Conjurer was trying to summon a servant and accidentally brought him. He used the paltry summoner to learn about the current state of Azeroth and also learned that the Dark Iron was one of the members of the Second Runekeeper Order prior to the civil war. Nerothos learned what he could from the other members of the order and killed most of them afterwards, he left for Ironforge where after piercing the wards placed by the aging Dhurlin Hammerhand. He killed Dhurlin and when he was about to battle the rest of the order, Aegwynn arrived, looking busy and haggard from evading the Tirisgarde but sensing Nerothos and doing her duty as Guardian (this was before Medivh's birth). She left almost as quickly as she came, banishing the Dreadlord with relative ease!

Nerothos would return during the Third War however, unable to gain his vengeance against Aegwynn he turned to the Runekeepers who eluded his grasp, infiltrating their order, he manipulated the lesser members into an ambush that proved lethal for them all. But he accidentally revealed himself to the Truesilver Council and the current Runemaster, Merdin Stouthammer. They all gathered to defeat Nerothos, and almost succeeded by drawing on the Master Rune of Protection Volva placed on the Grand Book of the Runekeepers, but they failed. Nerothos took the book and several trophies, and returned to Nerothalis to study his findings!

### **Legion**

Prior to Gul'dan's defeat in the Nighthold, the warlock Kalrum Greatforge stole the tome from Nerothalis while Nerothos and his Cabal were on Argus discussing their potential involvement in the current invasion of Azeroth. When he learned of this, he swore vengeance against the dwarf and has recently achieved half of his plan against the Grand Warlock, slaughtering his order and forcing him to be more paranoid about his own potential whereabouts .

## **Primary Forces**

While Nerothos generally relies on his Cabal to protect Nerothalis or to complete missions he sends them on, Nerothos has found time to experiment and train an elite task force of Felguards led by Wrathguards. These Felguard's were imbued with potent magics and trained in the use of those magics, the Wrathguards needed less experimentation, but were also trained further in using their magic. These warrior mages, spellblades, whatever term you wish, are Nerothos's primary fighting force in defending Nerothalis and in achieving his own desires when the more destructive members of his Cabal were not enough. New groups of them are trained by the Doomguard known as Acretor, although Nerothos keeps the rituals to grant the Felguards their magical power a secret and is thus involved in the creation of ALL of his Felguard troops.

He does employ more specialized units consisting of undead created by Iz'kath, as well as Eredar Warlocks, Sorcerers, Anti-Paladins, along with Inquisitors and Observers to compliment his Spellblade Forces.