Gravelurker

Lore
Between the craggy tors and hills of the Iron Steppes to the north and the swamps of Mephos to the south lies the Torn Fold. A fetid bayou of brackish muds, nestled in the bottom of steep granite valley, a thousand miles long, the Torn Fold is one of the most inhospitable places on the western continent. How one of the most powerful tribes of mystics our world has ever known came to rise in such a place is a mystery. Perhaps it wasn't always the stinking rotting valley of muck that it is today. Perhaps the Stingwater river didn't travel then as it does now. We may never know, for the tribe that rose there -- the Tharn - was wiped out centuries ago. We know of them for two reasons. The first is a priceless artifact, the mystical Writings of the Celestial Workings, a collection of scrolls encompassing the whole of the wisdom of the Tharn tribe. Their cosmology, their mythology and most importantly of all, their understandings of the magics of life. The Tharn priestesses ruled the Tharn, if ruled is the right term for gently suggesting the wisest path forward when dilemmas arise, for generations. Each high priestess passing the title down to their daughters until, by the last entry in the Writings, we come to the one hundred fifty first generation of Tharn priestess and their high priestess, Zolun Tharn. The downfall of the Tharn and the second reason we remember them.

Zolun was a cold woman. Born beneath a dark moon and with the alabaster skin of an albino, the daughter of the last true high priestess was something of a scourge. She terrorized her peers as a child and, when the time came and she took her place as high priest, she seemed unduly harsh in her judgments. She was almost cruel. Blessedly, at least from the perspective of her tribe, she spent most of her time away, at the far end of the valley in the east, where it opened onto the plains of Rodar, home of the beastmen, the worshippers of Astaroth. Ostensibly, her treks were pilgrimages to meditate on the nature of the conflict between the Lord of Light and Master of Night, to see first-hand the devastation wrought by Astaroth and his followers. The truth, however, was just like the girl with alabaster skin: Darker than it appeared.

She had begun to experiment with the magic of the Tharn: The control of the energies of life. She had violated the last taboo of her people and used her power not to heal, but to reanimate. It was a terrible sin amongst the Tharn. It was said that to reanimate the fallen was to open a doorway into the Realm of Astaroth - to steal from the Lord of Darkness himself. The Writings are full of warnings and cautionary tales. They portend that Astaroth will not let such a theft go unanswered, but Zolun didn't care.

She began to dream of herself not as a high priestess, but as an Empress. The world would bow to her feet and any that refused would simply die at her hand and rise again, her loyal servant. What Zolun had not yet seen, was that her dalliance with necromancy had already drawn the eye of the Dark Lord. Every time she opened a door to the worlds beyond death and stole from the energy there, he was there to take a small piece of her soul, in exchange.

Soon, she failed to see the difference between raising those that would defy her and simply killing them all first, to guarantee their loyalty. She began to consider the ""ingrates back home"" in earnest and a terrible plan began to unfold in her mind. She stood upon the Gravefields, where the warriors and dragon lords of Tharn had buried their dead after defeating the beastmen of Rodar. Reaching with her mind, she spoke dark sibilant words of magic, words of death, and probed for the bodies of the dead dragons. She could feel them, still pulsing with the natural magic of their kind and with a grunt satisfaction she spoke at last the spell she had dared not, until then: She opened the doorway to death wide, pouring all the energies of life she could capture into the bodies of the fallen dragons.

The monstrosities Zolun had created burst from the ground, the loam of the valley floor cascading off their rotten flanks along with bits of putrid flesh and slime. So far gone were these cadavers that it was impossible to tell their original breeds. They were something else now, something as rotten and putrid as Zolun Tharn's soul and like the high priestess they had become necromancer, something hollow and dead inside.

The spell complete, she felt no joy. She felt nothing inside but a cold, dark hunger. As she turned to the west her monsters roared, spraying pus ridden slime into the air, they too hungered for the lives they felt there. It was only then that the dead shell of a priestess smiled briefly at her work.

She knew how to slake her thirst, how to quell her hunger. With a wave, she sent all but one of her reanimated drakes into the air, heading west to the village of Tharn. The last waited patiently by her side, ever loyal to his master, but she was too busy listening to notice.

In her mind, a new voice whispered dark, terrible thoughts. Astaroth had taken his price and in place of the priestess' soul he had left her the whisper. It filled her mind with promises of power and secret magics. It told her the power of a soul in the dark magics and dared her to master them all.

Finally she turned to the last of the rotting dragons - the Gravelurker - that had waited for her and climbed atop its shoulders. Upon her ivory face, her red eyes narrowed in impatience.

There was work to be done.

And she was hungry. Oh, so hungry.

Tips
Putrid Blast is catchy - Or, more accurately: Putrid Blast is catching. Players hit with Putrid Blast will get a plaque mark, a DoT that can be passed along to their allies, if they get to close. A well placed Putrid Blast could take out a whole team and *will* swing the odds in your favor even if death isn't in the cards... yet.

Wait For It... - Gravelurker isn't the most powerful dragon right out of the gate, but it only takes gaining three or four more additional levels for this dragon to hit its stride. Focus on feeding until you have powered up your Putrid Blast, then it's time to deal death to your enemies.

Pair With An Offensive Weapon - Since Gravelurker's mana consumption rate is roughly average, it's flexible when it comes to weapon pairing. Pairing Gravelurker with an offensive weapon means you can be more effective in the early game when Gravelurker is relatively weak.