Exemplars of Evil

CHAPTER 2
ZARGATH
HUMAN-BANE
34
Knives. Gurn accepted, and the slaughter that followed was
brutal. Gurn took over the guild, and Zargath left to rejoin
the glorious orc civilization.
What he found was disappointment. The orcs had no great
empire: They were merely fractious, primitive tribes living in
hovels on the edges of humanoid nations. Zargath realized
that if he wanted an illustrious orc civilization, he would
have to build it himself. He selected the largest and most
prosperous local tribes and, over the course of a few years,
he moved in, murdered his way into a position of influence,
and installed a willing war leader to rule as figurehead. Now,
with his hold over the local tribes growing, Zargath and his
followers—known as the Black Wolves—look outward,
determined to bring the orcs to prominence and every other
race to its knees.
GOALS
Zargath is an orc consumed by two desires. The first is to
create the orc civilization that he dreamed of during his
long years of servitude. The second is to exterminate every
human, elf, and dwarf in the world. Unlike most orc warlords,
Zargath has no desire to conquer other races and seize their
territory or take slaves. When the Black Wolves go into
battle, they carry out well-planned missions of slaughter
from which no adult or child escapes. The orcs leave behind
burned cities, scorched earth, and the gruesome corpses of
their impaled victims.
Zargath is not blind to the character of the orcs that
follow him. He knows that he will not be able to magically
sophisticate the race in his lifetime. His hope is to steer its
culture toward laws and values that will eventually result
in a civilization as powerful as the one the humanoids have
created. To this end, he has been a friend and advisor to a
fighter named Grikfell, teaching the bright but somewhat
small orc a few rogue tricks that helped him take down
his rivals and become the tribe’s war leader, second only to
Zargath in status and influence.
Since then, Zargath has used his alliance with Grikfell to
purge his tribe of the larger, dumber individuals by teaching
the smaller, smarter orcs a formerly foreign concept—the
value of group pride and group effort over the chaotic selfishness
that has kept the orcs weak. The orcs that follow Zargath’s
philosophy have prospered, triumphing in battle against
rival tribes, local monsters, and the hated humanoids. As a
result, Zargath’s reputation as a spiritual leader has grown.
Now, orcs from other tribes seek him out to join the ranks
of the Black Wolves, and those that resist the new order are
being destroyed.
Reforming orc society is not the only task that occupies
Zargath. He has had Grikfell lead many raids into the surrounding
countryside on missions of extermination. So
far, the orcs have limited their targets to small villages and
isolated hamlets. They use the raids to develop tactics and
strategies, and Zargath’s followers are learning the value of
group effort through practical experience.
The other major prong of Zargath’s plan involves his alliance
with Gurn Sirensong, the leader of the Gray Knives. To
Gurn, Zargath is a source of wealth and mercenary muscle.
In recent months, many valuable goods have been delivered
to the thieves’ guild by groups of strangely disciplined orcs.
In return, Gurn has been selling the orcs weapons, potions,
spell scrolls, and captives—engineers, spellcasters, sages,
retired military captains, and others who have the expertise
Zargath needs to shape his fanatical band into an army and
a civilization.
USING THIS VILLAIN
For lower-level player characters, Zargath makes a challenging
opponent over a series of adventures. Orcs are
common foes for less skilled PCs, but the Black Wolves are
more than just experience points waiting to be awarded.
The tribe can be used to give orcs depth, resonance, and
a long-term presence in the world, making the campaign
setting seem more real. Zargath fits the archetype of
the disturbing villain (see page 7), with straightforward
motives and plans that feature moral clarity rather than
ambiguity. The PCs’ course of action is simple: Zargath
must be stopped.
They can be introduced to his plans in several ways. In
an action-oriented campaign, they might hear disquieting
rumors of orcs in the wilderness—orcs as disciplined as
any human soldiers. They might encounter a group of
Zargath’s warriors and note the coordination and skill
with which they fight. Perhaps the PCs meet a survivor
of one of Grikfell’s raids and hear a horrifying account of
the attack, or maybe they start to run across the symbol of
the Black Wolves—a stylized ebony wolf in a white circle
on a red field.
In a campaign that relies more on intrigue, the PCs
might first encounter Gurn and the Gray Knives. The
guild has recently become flush with cash, and the city
has seen an increase in the trafficking of mysterious
merchandise—some of it damaged, as if in battle—along
with a growing local market in weapons. Furthermore,
citizens who have specialized knowledge, such as wizards,
engineers (especially dwarves), retired soldiers, and sages,
have begun to vanish.
When used as a recurring villain, Zargath can grow in
menace as the PCs grow in ability. At first, his stronghold will
be too well defended to assault it head-on, so the adventurers
might need to oppose him indirectly. They could help
to defend a town against one of Grikfell’s raids, recover a
kidnapped specialist, or go after Gurn to cut off the supply
of weapons to the Black Wolves.
Eventually, however, Zargath will grow confident enough
(and his army will grow large enough) to begin taking on
bigger targets—first towns, then small cities, and finally an
important city, perhaps the capital of a humanoid empire.
This escalation can lead to a final confrontation in which the
PCs defend a city and then launch a counterassault against
Zar’Fell, Zargath’s headquarters.
ZARGATH HUMAN-BANE
IN EBERRON
Zargath Human-Bane served twenty years of servitude in
the lower reaches of Sharn until his alliance with Gurn.
After his escape, he headed for the Shadow Marches,
where he discovered his people living pathetic, pastoral
lives. His new tribe worships The Dragon Below, and
its first crusade is against the Gatekeepers; the tribe