The breathtaking ferocity and warrior cunning of manticores makes them the perfect followers of Vorm, so it is indeed strange to find one in thrall to Slern, of all gods. Stitchgrue was not always bound to its dark master, however. In another life, it was Mohvlas, a royal tactician held in high esteem by Vorm’s elite berserkers. Always at the vanguard of Vorm’s assaults on rival beasts and gods in the New World, he would fall from the skies like a thunderbolt, turning even seasoned shock troops into panicked rabble. After a long and illustrious career, Mohvlas chose to take his own life rather than see himself grow long in the tooth and eventually fall to lesser, younger rivals. He flew as high as he could, folded his wings, and allowed himself to plummet to the earth, dashing against a mountainside. If the fates were kinder, this would be the end of his story, but Slern’s memory is long. The Master of Secrets remembered well the many times his careful plans and beloved abominations were scattered and crushed by the efforts of Mohvlas and his kin, and when the great warrior beast took his own life, the dark god’s necromancers sprung into action. After a perilous journey into the mountains, they eventually found the vale where the mangled remains of Mohvlas lay. There, the weary necromancers enacted a great ritual, forcing the manticore’s spirit back into its broken body and binding it to the dark will of Slern. Missing flesh was patched, gashes were fused shut, and broken bones were welded in place. In some ways, Mohvlas did pass from the world in that lonely vale, because what emerged from the mountains was no living thing, but an undead horror, cursed only to fight those it once called allies…