Characters / The Arts Of Dark And Light The Witchkings

The Arts of Dark and Light General Character index
Mankind | The Elves | The Goblins | The Witchkings | Others

This page is for Witchkings and those closely associated with them in The Arts of Dark and Light.Be warned, unmarked spoilers ahead.

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In General

• Book Burning: The Witchkings burned as much of the history books as they could in an attempt to restart the world from year 0.
• Cult of Personality: During their reign, they have extremely fanatical followers. They remain fanatically devoted to them even decades after the complete genocide of the Witchkings.
• Deader than Dead: To ensure the destruction of the Witchkings, the elves used magic to rend their bodies into countless particles, then did likewise to their souls. This was guarantee that there could be no chance of a resurgence of Witchkings.
• Demon of Human Origin: The Witchkings are created from a sort of demon summoning ritual, where demonic essence is transferred to human sorcerers. This effectively renders them into a new species of human that is increasingly incompatible with normal humans the further they evolve.
• Evil Is Sterile: Towards the end of the reign of the Witchkings, those with higher demonic essence became basically another species of human. These tended to be genetically incompatible with normal humans. Speer Gnasor is unable to father any children as he is too distinct from humanity.
• Infernal Paradise: Their goal was to have a new world, free from notions of right and wrong, religion and the history of the past, with humans enhanced by demonic essence. In practice, this resembled humans being modified by demonic forces, their extremely devout followers and the complete destruction of everything that wasn't them.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Their magical talent not only surpasses that of the elves, but is so far off the charts that they are able to wipe out entire kingdoms.
• Undeathly Pallor: The Witchkings appear as though they are dead and seem to have elongated limbs as well.

Known Witchkings

Ar Dauragh Speer Gnasor

You are a phoenix raised by sparrows, my son. Now it is time for you to fly. When you have grown into your strength and become worthy of your heritage, you will set the world on fire.

—From Ar Mauragh's letter to Ar Dauragh

• Changeling Fantasy: A dark version. Speer Gnasor lived what was a fairly normal life as a normal person until his 13th birthday. On that day, his supposed parents gave him a note explaining that he is really both the last Witchking and the son of Ar Maraugh.
• Death Faked for You: His foster parents burned down his house with themselves and a corpse inside it to fake his death.
• Evil Is Sterile: Played with. He most certainly cannot have children with human women but as a true Witchking, he is too heavily demon to be genetically compatible with humans and could still be fertile.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From humble beginnings to the personal creator of the werewolves.
• The Last of His Kind: His father and mother bore him in secret, that he might one day restore his kingdom without interference. The Elves had brought genocide to the rest of the Witchkings.
• Really Gets Around: He is brought loyal female followers so that he might breed future Witchkings to continue his empire. He also has sex with Scaum-Durna in the form of a human female, moments after figuring out that his demonic side comes from Scaum-Durna's brother.
• Training Montage: Even Witchkings need to study and learn. His decades of study are comprehensive and covered in a short story. He manages to outrank his tutor halfway as would be expected.

Ar Mauragh

The dream is dead, but it was glorious indeed.

• Face Death with Dignity: Played with. What little screentime he has, he spends saying goodbye to his loved one and never flinches. He even marches with his captors for weeks to provide his executioners 6 months of knowledge, before accepting his horrible death. However, the pain of getting his body and soul vaporized is too extreme for him to bear and even sources friendly to him acknowledge the humiliation.
• Kill It with Fire: He burned down his lovers' dead body and the entire fortress it was in with white fire. There were no intact remains left of the fortress or anything inside.
• Tongue Trauma: He had the tongues of many of his loyal minions removed, but its unclear why.
• We Barely Knew Ye: He is the next to last Witchking and we are introduced to his mostly peaceful surrender in the first few pages of his story.

Allies

Cajarc

It is time you learned how a Witchking makes war.

• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Despite being truly loyal, he told Ar Daraugh that his plan to create the werewolves was a terrible idea on several different occasions.
• Evil Mentor: With the caveat that he and his disciple don't believe in good or evil.
• Frontline General: He leads a raid against reavers outnumbered 10 to 1 as an elderly man. Though he did eventually receive Witchking assistance.
• Older Than He Looks: He is stated to look to be in his late 30s, but his eye-witness testimony would make him closer to 80.
• Pragmatic Villainy: After the reign of the original Witchkings, he really only commits atrocities when it is required by warlords that protect his village, even if he gleefully does so. Also, he sees the scheme to produce a demonic wolf army as stupid and evil as it really is.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Him and his fortress are the remaining secret followers of the Witchkings.
• Undying Loyalty: At the behest of Ar Maraugh, he dedicated the following decades of his life to a plan he had no way of knowing could even get off the ground. All of this while secretly gathering his followers after their existence was made illegal.

Scaum-Durna

I have come, little brother. And now that we are together at last, we shall finish what your fathers began.

— From Scaum-Durna to Ar Dauragh

• Blood Is the New Black: His arms and mouth are covered in blood after killing Cajarc.
• Depraved Homosexual: He is a male demon, but he shapeshiftes into a buxom, naked woman to sleep with men who are unaware of this. Lots of men. This is far from the worst thing he does.
• Familiar: Typically possesses a sea gull until his true form is freed, advising Ar Dauragh.
• Long-Lost Relative: To Ar Dauragh and Ar Mauragh in a roundabout way. As a Witchking, Ar Mauragh is a human wizard laden with demonic essence, in this case the demon Scaum-Karak. Scaum-Durna is the brother of Scaum-Karak.
• Sibling Murder: To provide demonic essence to create his army of werewolves, he sacrifices his older brother Scaum-Vorbis.
• Treacherous Advisor: He succeeds Cajarc as the better magical advisor. After strongly developing Ar Dauragh into a capable Witchking, he talks Ar Dauragh into developing a race of werewolves from the soul of their mutual demon brother. Scaum-Durna offs his predecessor when he won't cooperate.