The Deceiver

Overview

Known during the Wind Age as Myrdred, a formidable Avatara possessing vast arcane knowledge, The Deceiver earned his currently held title through years of capricious opportunism. While others among the Fallen Lords were known in life to be valiant men and women who fought the tyranny of The Leveler, only turning to villainous deeds due to the curse of the Thousand Year Cycle, The Deceiver was not a particularly noble sort even in his former incarnation. Though he aided the hero Connacht in various ways as he fought the armies of Moagim the Faceless Terror, he also allied himself in secret with the Emperor's traitorous adviser, Mjarin, in hopes that doing so would grant him access to some portion of the power he wielded. It was Connacht who first coined the term "The Deceiver" upon discovering the mage's duplicity, and the brand has followed him to the present day, though if Myrdred feels any displeasure at the epithet, he has not betrayed it.

The arrival of Balor during the Wind Age put him in an ironic position serving alongside many of the same people he had betrayed centuries ago, now resurrected as Fallen Lords. Despite the passage of time and the influence of Balor, his erstwhile allies still resented his egomaniacal ways, and in all honesty Myrdred's only motivation in aiding the Fallen Lords was the possibility of increasing his power, as well as the knowledge that the Dark's victory was all but inevitable. While he served Balor as well as any of the Fallen over the course of The Great War, it is not surprising given his history that even with the dark magics that bound him to his master, he was not among the most trusted of Balor's generals, as the true depth of his loyalty was always in question. As he has proven in the past, The Deceiver will throw in his lot with anyone who offers him an opportunity to increase his own fortunes, and his only consistent allegiance has been to himself.

The Deceiver was not terribly fond of any of his contemporaries, however he harbored an intense enmity for The Watcher, an ancient necromancer with whom he had clashed centuries prior. Their unexpected partnership during The Great War proved to be a strained relationship at best, with the two resorting to open conflict with one another on multiple occasions. This mutual antipathy seemingly was less an expression of grievances than it was an ongoing struggle for dominance between two of the most powerful sorcerers in the world of Myth. The two traded victories over the years, though rarely did one gain a permanent advantage over the other, and their feud was prematurely ended with The Watcher's death at the hands of the Legion during The Great War.

The Great War (Myth: The Fallen Lords)

Being more than capable of fulfilling the role designated for him by Balor, The Deceiver was a veritable pox upon the human kingdoms throughout the Sword Age, marching his vile armies wherever his master commanded. Included among his major accomplishments during this time was the capturing of Alric, one of The Nine, while the Avatara was on an ill-conceived quest to find an important magical artifact. Though he was generally obedient and efficient in carrying out Balor's wishes, the periodic infighting which broke out between himself and his perennial opponent, The Watcher, was the one exception to this rule. The hatred between the two was apparently beyond Balor's ability to contain, and when The Deceiver finally fell in combat, it would be at The Watcher's hands rather than that of Balor's enemies.

In the seventeenth year of the war, as Balor's grip on the western nations continued to tighten, Myrdred and Bahl'al would fight their final battle, and with it The Watcher would finally repay his foe for his imprisonment centuries ago. While the impetus for this particular offensive is unknown, it is likely The Watcher discovered that Myrdred had been searching for his severed arm in hopes of using it against him. Aided by the volcano Tharsis, whose sudden eruption melted the typically snowy passes of Seven Gates, The Watcher spurred his armies first through the unprepared forces of the Avatara Rabican and on into a climactic confrontation in the Cloudspine mountains. The Deceiver's army was utterly decimated in the attack, and Myrdred himself was plunged into the Dramus River, separated from his scepter and carried far downstream by the raging torrent. His body came to rest in the Angurvadal Glacier, where he would remain for the next sixty years, frozen in the ice and barely clinging to life.

Soulblighter's War (Myth II)

In spite of being all but dead in the decades prior to the war, The Deceiver played perhaps the most pivotal role in King Alric's fight against Soulblighter. Taking an incredible risk, Alric decided to revive Myrdred, trusting that the mage would be grateful to anyone who released him from his icy prison. After recovering The Deceiver's scepter (the source of his power) at the Stair of Grief, the Legion traveled to the Anguvadal Glacier to resuscitate the former Avatara. While it was clear upon reviving him why Myrdred was so reviled by his peers, as he displayed all the trappings of a deranged and wholly self-centered individual, releasing him proved to be the turning point of the war, as many of his actions thereafter greatly hindered Soulbighter's ability to effectively wage war.

Choosing first to set out into dangerous Trow territory, The Deceiver used his elevated status among them as a person of "furor poeticus" to persuade the ancient and insular colossi to aid the Legion, albeit only for a single year. He subsequently sought out a fragment of the shattered Tain, which he used to find and kill the man known only as The Summoner, whom Soulblighter had been using as a conduit to resurrect the Myrkridia. And though Alric himself would be responsible for tracking down and killing Soulbighter in the war's final days, it would be Myrdred who sought out and killed his second in command, Shiver. As the days and months unfurl after Soulbighter's defeat, it is unclear what role The Deceiver will take, though it no doubt pleases him that of his Fallen compatriots, he alone remains standing.

Abilities

The Deceiver's true strength is hard to ascertain, as Myrdred is loath to reveal the full extent of his own power. He in fact enjoys being underestimated, which is evidenced somewhat by his unassuming manner of dress and comportment. True to his name, one of his most famous talents is the ability to beguile almost any creature, which he uses often to bolster the ranks of his undead armies with various bewitched humans, dwarves, and the like. He is also capable of transporting himself over great distances instantaneously via teleportation. It is even rumored that he possesses knowledge of the Confinement Dream (the powerful spell used to trap The Watcher below the Cloudspine), though if this is true, there are none who have witnessed him using it. Perhaps in order to keep the breadth his abilities hidden from his enemies, The Deceiver often prefers subtly and subterfuge when achieving his ends rather than overt displays of dominance, and has even shown talent as a masterful negotiator when the need arises. In addition to his own skills, The Deceiver commands the allegiance of the Warlocks of the Scholomance, an order of powerful magical practitioners who share his personal ethos of power at all costs. The Warlocks see The Deceiver as the pinnacle of the ideal they aspire to, and thus they hold him as a person worthy of emulation, even reverence.