Korthog grew as an orc in the tribes habituating the lower caverns of the central mountains. He had an uncanny knack for the ways of the arcane, never having needed to study any of the arts. He was always warily eyed as someone who could not be trusted, for as his power grew, so did his selfishness and gall.
Korthog was raised in the clan until his 14th year, when his desire for greatness took on a new tact. Korthog had heard about the dragon that lived in the highest peak of the northern mountains, and as such endeavored to seek out the dragon. He believed in the stories he had heard that this Wyrm was truly evil, and had heard the whispered words of his tribe that he was as a demon and hated as well. By seeking the dragon, he would either confirm his superiority in besting it in combat, or seek his fortune through counsel with the great wyrm.
His tribe had recently routed a clan of upstart dark dwarves from their halls in the central mountain. He knew that they had not only been tunneling up from their subterranean caves towards the surface, but had also been working a stair up through the mountain towards the peak. It was this path that he chose to seek the wyrm.
It was a cold autumn day, that Korthog set off into those upper halls, and eventually found his way to the lair of the great beast; the Red Dragon Goryviod. The Dragon initially set upon him, but sensing his true nature, wounded him only so much as to keep Korthog from escaping. Over the following months to years, Goryviod fostered Korthog’s endeavors, and clouded his heart further with his evil. The poisonous soul of the dragon’s soul corrupted Korthog completely.
Three years after their initial encounter, Goryviod “confided” in Korthog the location of The Manor in the Forest of Verndane. Goryviod knew the evil that Lord Roque had begun in that foul place and commanded Korthog to venture to The Manor without speaking of Roque. Goryviod hoped that Korthog would kill Roque and take up his work, Roque would kill Korthog proving to be a worthy opponent, or Korthog and Roque would join and lay waste to these lands.
As Korthog navigated the forest, the sickness became palpable as he neared The Manor. Trees were withered, lifeless and barren. The shrubberies grew in thorniness and density. Even the sunlight seemed to shy away. When Korthog finally entered the grounds, he felt the chill of death and smell of decay. The smells were pleasant to him, and filled him with vigor, rather than palling him to waste. Rogue had turned himself to shadow, and polluted Korhthog’s thoughts and guided him through The Manor. Korthog found Lord Roque’s journals, and the magnificence of raising the dead provided Korthog the nightmarish dreams he had always been seeking. Korthog found the laboratories in the basement of The Manor, and with the journals began to set about resuming the work of Lord Roque. But first, he needed victims.
Korthog learned of the town of Crythia from Roque’s journal, and endeavored to find it. Studying the town, night after night, he learned which houses didn’t board up the windows at nightfall and which let their young play at will with poor oversight. Over the next year and a half, members of the Crythia community would vanish without a trace; no sound was ever heard and no tracks were ever left. The only clue ever found were a few pages from The Journal of Ennohj that Korthog accidentally let slip during a capturing raid.
At The Manor, Korthog would subject his captives to torment and torture, before allowing them to release their life. He would then work with the bodies in an effort to reanimate the dead. Sometimes he succeeded, and created a zombified corpse that would do his bidding. Often, however, in these early stages he encountered failure and the deceased’s spirit would remain bound to the place of their horrendous demise seeking eternal rest.
Over the next age, Korthog kept experimenting, and his competence increased. Fewer subjects died and were lost; more remained and were raised. He also found that by combining the arcane with the defamed, he could infect creatures with a virus that afflicted them minimally but allowed them to be carriers of his diseases. Korthog would release his vermin near Crythia and the infections and illness carried through the town like fire in a dried field of wheat.
