Evil's Mercy (M for F, high fantasy)

[IrishWolf]

I ran across this the other day on facebook and it’s really tickling my muse. Its a really interesting concept. The vast and terrible evil overlord, who’s been around for untold centuries, who cares more for the heroes come to kill him, then the supposed “Gods of Light/Justice/ect”. He tries not to kill the younger ones, teens/early twenties, it’s not their fault they were the “chosen ones” after all. It was all some prophecy the Gods cooked up and keep reusing, to find heroes.

If the Gods really want to stop his conquest of the world, they should come down and face him themselves. At this point, mortals really can’t do much to him. What they can do, is kill his subordinates and followers, maybe set his plans back for his next war of conquest or the domination of yet another civilization. Which are really more of an annoyance to him but nobody, not even the most patience of evil spirits, likes have setbacks.

Despite his mercy and compassion where heroes are involved, he’s still evil. I’m thinking he’s a spirit, which requires taking mortal bodies, so he can remain on the material plane. In order to claim the body, he has to consume the mortal’s soul, which is where he found mercy and compassion, along with more earthly desires and appetites, along with growing his power. He requires worship and blood sacrifice, to keep his mortal bodies from being burned to ash from his presence and no matter what, the body begins to corrupt. Horns and spikes appear, the flesh cracks and is filled with red glowing energy.

He attracts evil to him; dragons, orcs, goblins, the cursed, the greedy and violent. Barbarians and mercenaries, those who crave power and those who enjoy tormenting the weak. He can find uses for all of them.

So what I was thinking for a story, it’s the latest attempt on his life. Maybe his latest war has been brought to a standstill, when a band of heroes kill his generals and then make an attempt to get to him or the heroes are making a preemptive strike against him, cutting their way into his fortress and storming his throne room. When they reach him, he praises the heroes, tell them how well they had done but that it was time for them to stand down. They dont, its final battle time and the heroes lose. All of them get killed or injured, this those who survive being captured. Instead of having them slain, he sends them to be healed and begins checking up on them, as they recover from the battle, including one female hero, who calls to his, well, based desires.

How it plays out from there, well I’d love to plot that out. If your interested, send me a PM