Appearance

For all Malagant’s power, his form is relatively reserved in comparison to other gods. The Lord of the Undead prefers to appear wearing thick, flowing black robes which shroud his face completely while his hood is drawn. Though his attire is simple, the Master of Autumn is still an imposing figure to behold, standing at nearly eight feet tall and bathed in Dark and necromantic magic. In the mortal realm Malagant often appears to his followers as a disembodied charred skull or a small pale child wandering a graveyard in the stillness of the night. Regardless of his form, he is always missing his right index finger, rumoured to have been severed in battle by the cat god Ryiak. In retribution for this slight, Malagant cursed the Savar’Aving to rise as undead should they suffer mortal death, a punishment that continues to this day.

Tenets

Five things a Malagant follower should do:

1. Kill. ​Inflict​ ​death​ and undeath ​to​ ​further​ ​your​ ​ambition.​ ​It​ ​can​ ​be​ ​both​ ​a​ ​final​ ​punishment​ ​or​ ​an​ ​eternal​ ​reward.

2. Study​ ​necromancy​ ​or​ ​serve​ ​with​ ​those​ ​who​ ​do.​ ​Converting​ ​life​ ​to​ ​undeath​ ​is​ ​Malagant’s​ ​will.

3. Lie, cheat and betray, if necessary, to advance your goals. No ethical or moral judgement should impede the will of Malagant.

4. Those that study necromancy and do not bend knee to the Lord of Autumn are heretics. They are your greatest enemy.

5. Promote the Dark pantheon with the Master of Autumn at its head.

Five things a Malagant follower should not do:

1. Allow yourself to wear the unclean flesh of the living for any longer than necessary. Once your goals are accomplished, cast off the weakness that is life.

2. ​Submit to failure out of fear of death or retribution from the Light.

3. ​Allow​ ​the​ ​dead​ ​to​ ​rest in peace. ​Prepare their bones for the army of Malagant, including your own.

4. Allow the destruction or purification of necromantic knowledge. Scrolls, tomes, and artefacts are rare and should be preserved and guarded.

5. Show​ ​compassion or mercy​.​ They are weaknesses in others to be exploited.

Celestial Heaven

The Celestial Heaven of the Lord of Autumn is a sprawling wasteland of bone and sand seemingly stretching endlessly in all directions but for the Black Acropolis–a massive city built and populated by the Undead, expanding from the desolate sands upward into the jet black sky which sits atop of Malagant’s realm. Walls nearly one hundred meters high separate the lower levels of the Acropolis from the vastness of the mountainous dunes. The bleached bones of monstrous creatures from an unknown time or plane lay scattered throughout these endless sands, standing as a reminder that life has no place in Malagant’s Celestial Heaven. There is no sun in the sky, but visible light exists as a constant twilight, soaking the plane in an ever present dusk as it teeters on the abyss of total darkness. While hollow winds blow over the still sands, the Lord of Autumn’s black city stands a dark beacon of activity in contrast to the desert of quiet death outside the walls that hold it back.

Behind the large dark walls, Malagant’s sacred city is made up of ninety-seven concentric rings connected by a series of huge stone bridges. Everywhere, skulls and assorted bones embellish archways, walls, roads and paths. Each bridge’s causeway is adorned with terrifying and imposing statues commemorating Malagant’s victories over enemies of his army, forces of the Light, Demons, and Dragons. Ominous and terrifying, the defeated lay frozen in a sculpted agony with their faces twisted and screaming, hands in the air submitting to Malagant’s power. The slightly sloped bridges glide over the edges of the city’s ring sections as the rings themselves slowly spin like tumblers on a lock, moving around the Acropolis in different directions and speeds as they ascend upwards towards the realm’s blackened sky; each rises and twists, operating on the surface as a level of punishment, judgement and reward to those who serve the Lord of Autumn and his will. Throughout every ring of the city, torches and large braziers burning purple flame flicker across disturbing stone gargoyles which stare down upon Malagant’s black city.

The lowest rings are the furthest from the center of the Acropolis. When Malagant catches a mortal spirit not worthy of his armies it finds itself among the furnaces of his City. Crowded, hot and covered in ash, the outermost rings are filled with all manner of grotesque and tortured Undead, forever working in the inferno of blazing foundries and smithies, pounding out infinite amounts of armor, swords, lances, axes, shields and huge contraptions of war to necessitate the needs of Malagant’s growing forces. Massive complexes, their fires forever bellow smoke and soot across the lower rings as the dark cobbled streets are barely recognizable below the loose ash that floats down from the chimneys of Autumn’s industry. The lower industrial quarter extends upward for sixteen rings, each level crammed with manufacturing and warehousing buildings and all torturously hot, offering as bleak an existence as the next for the Undead who pound hammer to anvil in service to their Dark Lord.

Moving up beyond the sixteenth bridge and the fires of the lower rings, the next forty-eight ascending rings serve the purpose of Malagant’s forces. Each ring is filled with barracks, drill yards, training grounds and massive black keeps. Tens of thousands of war machines and trebuchets sent up from factories below sit motionless over an unknown legion of uniformed and armored undead troops standing at attention, in unending sparring drills or patrolling the streets and causeways while black clad menacing Officers with glowing red eyes incessantly inspect their charges and regiments. For four dozen ascending rings the scene is much the same: Malagant’s army holding in a constant state of preparation as they look out over the twilight bareness of the desert below. New troops arrive by the hour as most of the mortal spirits Malagant claims enter his realm on these rings, destined for service in his ever expanding army. As the fresh Undead arrive, grueling training regimens begin as the black clad officers mercilessly mould them in infinite preparation to serve Malagant’s purpose. Ring after ring, the armed Undead stand at the ready to hear their lord utter an order that has yet to come.

Crossing the sixty-fourth bridge marks the end of the military quarter of the city. The next sixteen ascending rings hold squares of large dark mansions adorned by gargoyles and painted glass windows, clean cobble roads with ornate artisan workshops, swank tailors and clothiers. In stark contrast to the gloomy and utilitarian rings below, lavish taverns, luxurious restaurants and pseudo cafes overlook the mid and lower levels of the city. Darkened theaters, extravagant opera houses, dim art galleries and museums, debased cabaret, nefarious bathhouses and desecrated fountains of sanguine liquid liberally line the streets and squares. Everywhere well-dressed and affluent Undead can be seen living in ways that one could imagine resembles how they did or wished they could when once mortal but without material restriction or censor. Spared from the furnaces of the lower rings and exempt from his legions, the Undead citizens of the upper rings are Malagant’s privileged and elite, rewarded either for a lifetime of dark service or great deeds of the most deviant variety. They are his Generals, his Favoured, the most loyal and devout of his followers, granted eternity in opulence and depravity feeding on whatever their fleeting pleasure was or will be until their dark lord calls upon them once more.

Ascending from the upper quarter, the final level freely accessible to the once mortal Undead is the eighty-first ring. Acting as a conduit where both Angels and the Undead converge, below is the only recorded account of it, taken from pages of the hallowed tome “The Witness”, authored by His Eminence Setth Winter, Darkweaver of Jericho, Exarch to the See of Autumn:

The spirit I could not recognize before manifests as a four-faced and four-winged being. Eight eyes of red and covered in molting black feathers, it speaks in common but when I ask how to refer to it, it calls itself something in a language I can not understand–-a tongue that escapes my ears. Perhaps it was the age I had felt outside my physical being, or perhaps it was the place I was in. I find out later that this being is known as a Cherubim, one of Malagant’s celestial Guardians. Motioning without word, the Cherubim raises one of his wings directing me forward. Walking, the scene ahead of me begins to set in. I am in a tavern. But nothing I had ever borne witness to before. It seems endless. It is roofless. Above me a sky so dark and void it feels as if it could collapse upon me at any moment. Underneath my feet a sea of black stone and skulls of unknowable numbers. As we walk silently, on all sides are tables full of the dead, the Undead and Angels. They converse against walls made of both stone and bone, across tables. The walls. They bleed. In corners, clawing at each other with desire, pleasure and malice, cadavers whisper and laugh, their eyes glowing in the light provided by violet flamed torches as they pull upon one another. When I first notice what could be considered natural light, I think it merely just dusk, but it never changes. A constant state of twilight, just enough to catch the cold direct eyes of Malagant’s children as they stare upon me somewhere between desire and hunger. Black robed and scarlet eyed figures sit on dark velvet seats indulging in glasses of wine-like liquid. Burgundy glasses are everywhere. Excessively. Almost driving the deathly patrons mad in their drink and lust. Young looking men with pale skin and pointed ears pull at the black uniforms of skeletal Officer types. Young looking women with pointed ears and pale skin stand before the band sliding their hands around one another, dancing to the downbeat. They sink into their partners while pushing away a four-faced, eight-horned goat standing on its hind legs. It’s eager to join them, but is ultimately thwarted. It walks past, looking me over with a shake of its head and sits down with a chalice of its own, eyeing other opportunities and casually lapping from its cup with one of its four black tongues. Violins, lutes, drums. A grinding dirge plays over the air and beyond the deep pulsing waves of bass and string my eyes catch what appears to be a bar. A wall of bones. A bar. And what stands behind it. The bloated carcass of what might have been a man moves in front of a stone wall adorned with stone shelves holding thousands of red coloured bottles and jugs. Slow at first, but picking up speed, his rotted body crashes into the wall and spins off bottles toppling and crashing as he does–-but he pays no mind. He’s massive, his flesh catching on the corners of sharp broken bottles, the edges of stone shelving, tearing and ripping off and he keeps moving. Grabbing glasses and goblets, filling them with some unknown rich scarlet liquid and sliding them across the bar top where they are picked up and distributed around. The screams. At first I’m sure I find them almost torturous, a level above the instruments playing. He never stops screaming as he moves manically around. More bottles, more glasses. The grotesque creature with gold chains bouncing around behind the bar ever filling glasses for his ever present patrons, ever screaming. Looking over the scene I realize that I’m standing above the world. Walking to the edge, the screams now feel almost musical, in rhythm. Part of the background. Sand and bones lie out in the distance. I lean over the edge looking down on the scene. Smoke. Ash and the call of innumerable thousands. Specks in the distance below me. Screams turn to bliss. Something menacing and cold and beautiful beside me, a drink in her hand. I realize my heart is no longer pounding in my chest. I realize it never was…

Beyond the eighty-first bridge, fifteen final rings ascend before reaching the ninety-seventh and final. In this most restricted quarter, Angels overlook the rings below and the plane abroad. Among Malagant’s Dark Angels, corrupt Cherubim confer and reside upon rings eighty-two to eighty-nine while rings ninety to ninety-six are considered inner sanctum, holding residence and courts for Malagant’s Seraphim, Heralds, and Voice. Huge jagged black spires and rows of massive and shadowy palaces ornately decorated with mammoth-sized red and purple painted glass reach up into the void of the sky. Rows of terrifying and menacing gargoyles line the palaces’ facades, their mouths and eyes agape as streams of deep red pour out, endlessly crashing into huge fountain basins which drain between the grout of the cobbled and bone lain streets down into the sub-levels below. Gloomy mist thick with black and purple magic seems to crack in the air here where only true Celestials are capable of treading. To anyone but the Celestials and Malagant himself, these rings are inaccessible and difficult to perceive without intervention granted by the power of the highest ranking Angels or the Divine. Only Malagant’s personal place of power is higher than these levels, imposing above. While the rings and bridges spin around the Acropolis, bright purple and black energy spirals out of the sacred summit above. This energy swirls endlessly upward, hinting to what lies deep below.

From the desert surface of Malagant’s world, his city appears as an escalating monument to his power and dominance, however, this is all that can be seen from above the sands and stone. Below the ascending bridges that travel up the Black Acropolis, between the depths of the levels that separate the ever spinning ninety-seven rings that make up the sacred city, the internal workings of Malagant’s city unfolds. Deep within, large stone and metal gears turn and grind as each ring holds gigantic lower crofts connected by a complex of dark stairs and hallows. Largely distinct from Malagant’s city above, the undead population below are held to their duties specifically by order of the Lord of Undeath for it’s their very blood that ensures their arrival is greeted here. Savar’Aving who succumb to their curse in life are judged to be forever punished for a most daring heist in their undeath, thereby always reminding the Cat-God of his egregious misstep with every Savar spirit Malagant binds to his purpose within the depths of his dark city. The sublevels of each massive ring hold these spirits chained to the stone and metal gears powering Malagant’s city. As they push to spin the wheels that turn the rings, the levels below reveal their purpose. Further down, unknowable amounts of trapped spirits are fed and re-fed through the the under-ring system like meat in a grinder. Should a spirit arrive that is so offensive to Malagant’s will that it does not even deserve a fate amongst the damned in his forges or the cursed of the lower crofts, they find themselves cast down into the deepest bowels as fuel for his city. Mostly, these spirits beneath the rings are in a tortured and ravaged incorporeal state, torn apart and doomed to float about in a sea like ooze of essence. As these spirits flow and ebb through the under-rings, they are continually churned and processed until their essence is separated from the spirit itself. As the discarded material dissipates and as the rings continue to turn, this harvested essence is pushed further on towards the deep center of Malagant’s black city. When it arrives at its destination it does not return, instead firing upwards and forth through the center of the city into the dark sky above the huge spired Cathedral, Malagant’s seat of power. Sitting upon the ninety-seventh and final ascending ring, Malagant’s black and sacred palace towers over the levels below. From the center of its mass of jagged buttresses and red and purple glass windows, the energy from below erupts forth and forever reaches into the abyss above the Acropolis.

The final ring and summit level of the Acropolis holds the Gardens, Oratory, Court, Cathedral and Residence of Malagant, the Master of Autumn’s seat of divine power and Lordship over Undeath. Until recently few credible descriptions of this ring have been accounted for. His Eminence Exarch Winter recounts his visit to this sacred place, retelling the matter of his arrival. Excerpt from “The Witness”:

Arriving violently, what feels like a siege ram sinks into the core of my spirit. Hit, I gasp what I hear in my own mind as a horrific sound, but from my throat not a whisper is made. I lie there on this black ground writhing and struggling, almost paralyzed, trying to process where I am and why I cannot catch my breath. “I don’t breathe”, I think to myself. I demand my legs to move, but nothing, my arms to push my body up off this unnaturally cold, smooth, infinite floor–-but nothing. I simply lay in a ball, blinking, shivering, almost frozen, as previously unimaginable pain continues to surge through my being. Finally, my arm moves and all I can do is reach out to attempt to grab at something, someone. Nothing. Nothing but silence around me and the sounds of my own body shaking. My vision begins to clear in a blurry haze. Filling my eyes, a monumental stone figure with flowing hooded robes stands over another who grovels and screams in panic up at this tormentor. Purple light dances off of the image I’m witnessing, accentuating the horrified expression upon the face of a creature laid at the feet of the dominating form. From the creature’s stone sockets, dark liquid streams down continuously, pooling around it. I wince and see what looks to be a ceaseless row of much the same theme. Massive, hooded and flowing robes. Helplessness. Submission. Death. Control. Service. I manage to roll over onto my back, trembling. Surrounding me on all sides are immense thick obsidian columns reaching up and arching over hundreds of feet high. The vaults are adorned with unknowable amounts of bones. Skulls, ribs, femurs and other assorted skeletal remains line the arches and stonework in perfect ominous rows and placements. Like gargoyles, the eyes of the uncountable dead circle and pierce down upon my bare form, pointing with boney fingers and calling on me with outstretched arms, mouths agape as I clutch at my chest trying to restrain my agony. My body relents slightly to my will, and I twist myself to look a little further ahead. Where the structure’s vaulted ceiling meets the void sky in the center of this black mass, large flakes of ash fall from above, lightly drifting down as if mimicking dying leaves released from their branches in the throes of Autumn’s call. Beyond the ash, pulsing and churning shadowy purple energy spirals upwards and out of the structure. Looking upon it fills my mind with despair and sorrow. A sense of gloom irradiates the room extending from its twisting light as it stretches above forever. No longer able to look at it, I avert my eyes to catch a throne beyond. Putrid and imposing. A skeletal hand. A missing finger. Massive black hooded robes stand and flow unnaturally around him as waves of unseen power oscillate and penetrate everything. I can’t breathe. The air grows toxic and I’m choking. I don’t breathe. A hood falls to reveal a God staring through me. Collapsing, I fall back to stare above me. Blinking, shivering, paralyzed, as a four-faced creature looks down at me. I blink. I choke. I do nothing, because I can do nothing. Eyes red and glowing. Corruption consumes it. The nerves in my chest scream out and my eyes close once more.

Malagant’s Cathedral and Court is further described later by His Eminence leading up to the Revision event:

… returning to the Cathedral meant traversing the bridges connecting levels those of us who were called upon are never meant to access. Escorted by Cherubim over the forbidden causeways to get to the top, approaching the peak required crossing through one of the sixteen Gateway Arches unique to the highest ring – grand monuments made completely of charred black bones. Adorning them, dozens of statues of Dark Angels stare down upon those who pass, judging their worth. As we walk below, skulls, skeletal arms and fingers seem to turn and rotate towards us–-reaching out in either reverence to our passing, or a warning of agony for what was to come. Once at the top, the black ramparts that circle the entire level are easily seen. The thousands of sharp stone buttresses extending from them give an ominous look to the large courtyards that stand outside of the Master of Autumn’s Cathedral. We’re so high, that the void of what sits above feels practically reachable. There are red eyes everywhere. More faces than bodies, and a few hundred robed like myself. The Cathedral exterior is impossible to comprehend, its architecture organized, but structurally nonsensical. Colossal red and purple glass windows separate thousands of sharp spires holding thousands more menacing and bleeding gargoyles, pouring what lay within them down upon the walls and trenches of thousands of black and jagged buttresses. The whole Cathedral seemed to expel either blood or dark energy. At this point I can’t tell the difference anymore. It’s all just more and it all seems to collect and fall below unto the rings of the deep. Seraphim and Angels stand in the courtyards whispering as they stare at our procession. No one dares speak out, as we move silently between blazing purple lit braziers. Even the Undead, those beyond dying fear this place. Three hundred of us in black robes. Mesmerized by the scene itself. Hundreds of statues line the courtyard atop of hundreds of huge scarlet watered fountains. Skulls and bones and black stone. More bones. The twilight which sits on the levels below does not touch us here. Purple braziers and glowing red eyes. I look over towards the ramparts and see more Cherubim, too numerous to count, standing at attention looking out. They swirl with a dark shrouded mist and unnatural bone armor adorns their massive bodies. Red eyes everywhere. Two mammoth doors lie open, allowing access to the Cathedral. We move in unison. Ahead, the pillar of energy being pulled from deep below Malagant’s black city twists in a slow cyclone, spiralling into the abyss above. Rows upon rows of statues. Terrified and tormented, his victims plead to the Lord of Undeath above a river of dark ichor. We file in, ash falling lightly. On both sides of the churning energy extending upwards from below Malagant’s Cathedral we stand waiting. Ahead he sits upon his throne with black robes flowing. Power oscillating from him. A Skeletal hand extended behind him. Four Knights. The Silent Knights stand behind their Lord, unmoving, donning red faceplates and black Deathforged armor. They don’t ever move. Behind them, a large tree rises forth with its branches reaching outwards and upwards towards the ceiling of the Cathedral we await in. Twisted and grey, bark peels off the trunk as dead leaves hang and fall from its limbs. Descending, the dry leaves float and dissipate to white powder, ever salting the throne of a God. More ash. His Voice. I’ve seen her before as a being of swirling leaves but she’s different now. She appears as pale as snow, glowing red eyes but softer than most. Her form is slender, covered by a fitting dress of swirling grey and white trailing behind her for several feet as she walks. Her ashen hair bounces as light as the dress that wraps her figure. Stunning and cold. She stops in front of him and Malagant leans forward, as if to whisper softly across the distance between them. She speaks in serene motherly tones, projected to the height of the arches and clear enough to reach the Cathedral’s doors. My skin tingles to the sound of her.

“Your Lord calls upon you.”

Malagant rises from his throne, towering as his robes flow around him. His Silent Knights remain motionless, stoic. Ash falls and salts his feet. Bringing a hand up he lowers his hood and stares out upon us. Unseen power explodes through the Cathedral, penetrating everything. Glass vibrates. Chandeliers rock and sway violently under the sunken eyes of the dead above. A charred black skull reveals his purpose. His ashen Voice reveals his word. What feels like a siege ram sinks into the core of my spirit, violently exiting…