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News: Tales From Myth The Fallen Lords

Posted By: Forrest (cache2.avtel.net)
Date: 9/30/1999 at 10:21 p.m.

I recently came into posession of a PDF copy of "Tales From Myth The Fallen Lords", the famed Myth comic which shipped with DeathWhore's Myth II Handbook and some copies of Myth II. While I will shortly be working on an HTMLized version of it, you can grab it now at:

http://myth.bungie.org/legends/relics/Comic.pdf

Or, you can read my transcriptions of the text from it in the rest of this message. Things in double brackets are my pagemarks and headers, etc, and thing following names in brackets are spoken in "bubbles" from drawn characters mouths, instead of as part of the narrative text.

For full effect and context, however, you should view the PDF file. It requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available from http://www.adobe.com/, or a compatible PDF reader.

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Tales from...
Myth The Fallen Lords

Vol. 1, No.1
September 1998

[["Fang-Grinder"]]

[[Page 1]]

In the early days of the Great War...

Tales from... Myth The Fallen Lords

As the wicked Fallen Lords cast their malignant shadow unto the realms of free men, terror reigned the land! The armies of darkness pushed relentlessly westward, halted only by the valient fighting spirit of brave men! But even the most courageous of defenders might find their boldness lacking when confronted by such a hideous enemy! And of all the foul and profane fiends who served the Dark, few were feared and hated more than...

Fang-Grinder!

Dreaded Fang-Grinder, whose very name stuck fear into even those who rallied round him in battle! Called the "King of the Ghols" and "the Black Dog of the Hill Lands", he was the greatest and most terrible of his kind!

Vicious Fang-Grinder, whose fury proved the doom of countless heroes, and upon whose head was sworn many a solemn oath for revenge! But no matter how many blades were pledged towards his ruin, he remains a scourge to men everywhere!

[[Page 2]]

Until at last tales spread through fearfull villages and rumors were whispered round lonely camptires that Fang-Grinder could not be slain by mortal man at all!

There were those who said that he was a creature born and blessed of the blackest sorcery, nursed on the blood of innocence defiled!

Other claimed he was but a phantom beast, the ghostly avenger of all Ghols slain in battle...

Who but with a glance...

Could freeze a man's soul!

It was a moonlit autumn night at the Battle of Grimace Point that Mauriac of Madrigal saw his fellow perish, fallen by Fang-Grinder. His warrior's vows forgotten, he fled in terror, such was his guilt and shame!
[Fang-Grinder] "Ha ha! Run! Run!"

No one truely knows why Fang-Grinder spared Mauriac that night, though most western lore agrees that it was out of weariness from a long day's slaughter! Some chronicals, however, speak of a spark of mercy that may briefly flicker in even the blackest of hearts...
[Fang-Grinder] "Let that one go!"

Soon Fang-Grinder and his underlings were on the move again, marauding as they went, perhaps summoned by one of their Fallen Lord masters!

As for Mauriac, lost and alone, he wandered the hill country for a time, an aimless rogue warrior, unable to come to terms with his disgraced honor.

He blamed himself for the death of his comrades, though there was little he might have done to aid them, inexperianced and outnumbered as he had been.

[[Page 3]]

It is in the nature of Ghols to be savage and brutish, although they are not thought to be inherently evil in and of themselves, their allegiance to the Fallen due more to ignorance and sorcerous deception! But Fang-Grinder ruled as do all tyrants, through fear and brutality! It was well known that he feasted upon his victims, but few would scarcely guess that he was so depraved as to devour his own kind...

But his depravity knew no bounds...

In the end even his own cohorts abandoned him in miserable terror...

For they now know that truely none were saft from Fang-Grinder's insatiable lust for blood! As they fled he cursed their feeble hearts...

Reveling in his awesome hideousness, he gorged himself on his grisly repast, and from that day on he roamed in solitude, his monsterous atrocities unabated, his awful legend growing greater still!

And now we come to the tale of how Fang-Grinder, the infamous "King of the Ghols", met with his own grim demise as told in the Total Codex itself!

In those days as the war raged ever west-ward, old rivalries were forgotten and new alliances formed, and so it came to be that the fir'Bolg, renowned for their archery skills, came to stand with the newly formed legions against the Fallen Lords!

[[Page 4]]

It was under gloomy skies that a troops of fir'Bolg marched east-ward on a mission through unknown lands...

A small band moved ahead of the main force, unaware that they were being watched by unfriendly eyes...

Fang-Grinder made short, bloody work of the four archer scouts...

But their comrades were not far behind, and their retribution was as sure and swift as their aim allowed!

At first he faced them, but their numbers proved far to great! Under a torrent of arrows he took flight!

Far into the night they pursued him, piercing him grievously on all sides!

Finally in a slimy bog did he elude them, but their wrath had taken it's toll, for he know that lest he soon reach his Fallen Lord masters his fate was sealed! From far away he heard their call, their dark sorcery beckoned with promises of rejuvination!

In a trance-like stupor he struggled through the swampy mire, many times before he had been wounded unto the brink of death, but he had been re-stored, his power and malice exalted!

But this such time was not to be, for between him and his masters now stood Mauriac of Madrigal! And at long last the evil fortunes that had so vehemently smiled upon dread Fang-Grinder now turned away. Fierce to the last, he fought viciously and very nearly prevailed, but his doom was at hand!

For it was a mixture of his weakness from his many arrow wounds and the courage of Mauriac that thwarted him. Such was Fang-Grinders's bane!

Thus did Mauriac of Madrigal regain his lost honor and for this deed his fame spread far and wide. As for Fang-Grinder, his skull and bones were much sought after by those that study and practive the black-arts, for it was said they held certain sorcerous prosperities, and ever after when a Ghol was especially strong or fierce of clever he was called Fang-Grinder!

[[Ground Zero]]

[[Page 5]]

August 5th Outskirts of Madrigal

The battlefield fell silent as the two commanders confronted one another atop the Hill of Mourning.

Rabican had heard tales of Shiver's powerfull sorcery and how quickly she had defeated those whom he considered his peers.

The ground and air on which they stood began to wrap and fold upon itself as the duel began.

[[Page 6]]

Shiver whispered her silent dream.

A cold sharp breeze froze Rabican where he stood. The souls began to peel away from his body and his concentration waned.

[[Page 7]]

struggled
to
thought

Moagim

vanity

VANITY

whisper
weakness

[[Page 8]]

Peel the body...
...then pierce the soul.

Victory?

Rabican stood to fight another day...

...Shiver lingered in defeat.

[[Antero's Bestiary]]

[[Page 9]]

When Covenant fell and the Great University burned, we lost countless generations of accumulated knowledge - chief amongst the loss was the last surviving copy of Forgall's Bestiary.

But Antero, my master and the greatest scholar of our day, did not despair as others did. He saw great opportunity in this tragic event...

Thus Antero said unto me, and to what few of his other pupils that still lived, "Even in Forgall's work some amount of speculation must have been neccesary to complete certain entries, but now, because of this terrible war, the beasts of myth walk the land once more!"

And so it came to pass that my master petitioned the Trow for my safe passage into their lands, that I might observe their natures and record their habits for...

Antero's Bestiary.

[Acerus Malum Magnus] "Is man to have an entry as well?"

The tone of his voice left no doubt in my mind as to how I should answer.

[[Page 10]]

I made a note to suggest its inclusion on my return home.

These had been Acerus Malum Magnus' first words since I handed him Antero's petition nearly a month ago at the very fringes of the northern holdings at the start of my journey through these Trow haunted lands.

[Acerus Malum Magnus] "To know the history of the Trow is to know the history of the world."

At the damn of time Nyx molded us out of stone and clay.

During that age it seemed that a new race would crawl up out of the ocean, burrow out of the mountains, or fall from the sky every thousand years or so. But it always came to the same end - they would come into conflict with us and we would crush them.

Even the Callieach, the most fearsome race from a time now unknowable to all but us, came to final ruin at out hand.

Then, after an aeon of peace, the younger races began to appear. During that age man was a simple beast hardly worthy of notice. But his older cousins, the Oghres, know something of the waking world and called us a race of consorts!

And there was no denying it. Every edifice... every shrine... every monument we erected we did so for the love of Nyx. And, as all fools eventually do, we placed outselves above these lesser races - enslaving those we found usefull and killing and eating the rest.

[[Page 11]]

The Oghres resisted us tooth and nail, but we had a very powerful ally... and once iron had tasted blood, it became insatiable...

And we became tyrants worthy of the Mantle of the Leveler even during the periods that your people called their Golden Ages...

But, after twelve centuries of slavery, the Oghres rebelled...

And blinded by hatred, we could not not suffer them their freedom. The war lasted for thirty years and was fraught with unconscionable acts of wholesale slaughter - their towns and villages were razed, their women and childred put to the torch and our cities thrown down... It all culminated in a single battle - the Battle at the Valley of the Red Seal was a solid month of fighting and it resulted in the extinction of their race.

We left the field of battle disgusted by our own actions and erected no monuments to our victory - we abandoned iron and his kin, leaving them to the younger, less wise races.

Connacht and his lieutenants fell on us in our moment of weakeness but showed us mercy, instead of returning us to the One Dream, he entomded us in the vaults beneath Rhi'Anon.

Then he finished the job that the Oghres has started, virtually erasing all evidence of our culture.

[Acerus Malum Magnus] "And it canme to pass that Connacht returned and freed us from our prison tombs..."

[Ewan] "WHAT?!?"

[Acerus Malum Magnus] "How can you hope to understand our history if you do not know your own!?!"

And even tough we recognized that he wore the Mantle of the Leveler, we owned him out existance, so we became allies.

And so countless more dead were added to our already ponderous ledger. And if it were not for Balor's insistence that we stay behind and defend the western approach to the fortress at Rhi'Anon...

...sic sempter tyrannis.

My host seemed rather tense so I halted our interview for the day. Many questions were still unanswered...

Chiefly, why had he not spoken of the Myrkridia? According to what I remembered ot Forgall's text the Myrkridia were active during the Golden Age of the Trow and both had come into conflict with Connacht.

Perhaps tomorrow, if my host has regained his calm, I will broach the subject.

-Ewan

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