Hands of Death

Name: Xem'zûnd
Also called: the Necromancer, the Accursed, the Black, the Great, the Strong, the Wrathful, the Fallen, the Great King, the Lifegiver, the Corrupted, the Forgotten
Age: He's been living since the Wars of the Tap...so a long time. Over 10,000 years.
Race: Human of unknown ancestry

Appearance: Xem'zûnd is ever cloaked in webs of deceit. At one time he can look like a dashing young lord, at others a fierce, battle-hardened general, at others almost a primal force, like an erupting volcano or the face of a lightning-scarred hilltop. He surrounds himself and shows himself at his discretion, and no others.

Skills and Armies

Xem'zûnd can control every aspect of life, but only once it has passed into death. And life is everywhere: in microscopic bacteria, in the cells of trees and plants, in animals and birds, in people and elves. Whatever has died can be manipulated by Xem'zûnd, made to move again or for the first time. He can command trees to split in two, bows to break, flesh to tear itself apart and knit itself back together. He can even recraft decomposing body tissues from the very detritus of the soil itself -- even dust, at least that part of dust which was once the skin of living organisms, can be reknit at his command to new forms of terrible power.

It is hardest for Xem'zûnd to control those things which have no intrinsic method of movement. In other words, it is easiest for him to resurrect those things which were recently dead and still have their muscles intact. It is hardest for him to move things such as trees, because they are large and require his constant attention to push forward. He can still control a number of them, but they are the exception and not the rule.

In addition to his unliving horde, a number of the beasts and birds of the Red Forest serve him, as well as a handful of living commanders. These he can use, but he does not trust them -- only those things within his full command, i.e. the dead, does he trust completely.

Magic

Xem'zûnd can command the Eternal Tap. While the Tap is itself shattered, as one of the few magicians who could once command it fully, Xem'zûnd can still touch many more of its diverse facets than any average mortal. Due to his many years of working with the Tap and plumbing its depths, Xem'zûnd is capable of delivering magical force that far exceeds any known magician, save perhaps the High Bard of Raiaera making full use of the entire range of his powers, and even then...the High Bards' power has fallen significantly from the legendary days of the Clapping Bard.

Equipment:

Xem'zûnd wears a full suit of black leather, sewn in two layers with adamantine scales embedded on both the inner and outer layer. The armor is seamless, but does have places where the adamantine does not cover -- namely joints and underneath his arms. No matter how his appearance changes -- whether he gets smaller or larger -- the suit seems always to cover him properly. His head and above goes uncovered except when he enters battle, when he wears a mask with a terrifyingly pallid expression.

History:

Xem'zûnd was one of the Forgotten Ones that led the losing side in the apocryphal and apocalyptic Wars of the Tap, and that is more or less all that is remembered of him. None today except he alone know the details of his life -- or at least no one who knows is willing to tell them.