A History of the Darkmen
Emmerick is our newest villain that captures the imagination. I've gotten a lot of questions about him. Where did his tattoos come from? What does it mean that he's a Darkman? Today, I'm going to give a brief summary of what the Darkmen are, their beliefs, and a little about their origins.
Darkmen are a religious group at its core. Darkmen formed not too long after the Custods and Potentates settled in the world. The Darkmen rose up in response to family tensions that formed within the Custod family.
The core beliefs of the Darkmen are that darkness hold unique and powerful magic that is only obtained by offending the light. Darkness is the absence of light. Without the light, the darkness cannot exist. So they do not directly try to destroy the light. In fact, they often just seek to offend it. For light is needed to cast a shadow.
Such tactics they use to "offend the light" are attacking villages and harming innocents in mass. In their murder and destruction, the Darkmen use dark magic to take some of the energy from those they maim, wrong, kill to increase their own dark magic. They don't have to kill or main the victim directly, those killed by others if their death was unnatural such as battle or accident can also be used. Emmerick demonstrated some of these dark wrights when Cedrick met him at Montressa in Burning.
The eviler the acts they commit, the more power the Darkman obtains. The highest of the Darkmen's order develop a black, ashy skin tone to their bodies that some cover up with magic while others allow it to show. If they continue to grow in darkness, they can even become intolerant of the light. Sunlight, or in extreme cases even candlelight, will cause extreme pain in the eyes and skin until they get away from the light, release their dark magic, or die. The top three highest-ranked Darkmen are always this sensitive to light.
Darkmen find it easiest to recruit people who are tired of feeling, most of all pain. The way to access most dark magic is to lose as much emotion as possible, most of all positive emotion. Though this is not easy for everyone and is the main reason most Darkmen never achieve such high levels of darkness in their bodies. Emmerick was one of these common recruits. But rose to power. He is not of the top three but is in the highest dozen of the Darkmen order. Heklis's reight of terror has made many angry and hurt enough to turn to the Darkmen ways to heal the ache inside.
If you want to learn more, download "The Custod Chronicles: A History Part 2". The link is at the back of The Custod Chronicles: Burning.
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