Many years before the death of Kalak, a small band
of escaped slaves, free people, and members of the
Veiled Alliance staged an attack on the sorcerer-king
Tectuktitlay, hoping to overthrow the ruler of Draj
and bring an end to his tyranny. Unlike the heroes
who slew the despot of Tyr, however, these warriors
did not have the aid of a powerful artifact, and they
suffered the consequences of being unprepared.
The attempt on Tectuktitlay began with a staged
uprising in Draj. Few remember this event, though
riots raged through the city-state for days leading up
to the attack on the sorcerer-king. After the uprising
was quelled, Tectuktitlay’s templars scoured the citystate for anyone who either participated or witnessed
this rebellion, and had those people permanently silenced. During the second day of the uprising,
three dozen rebels penetrated the Father and Master
Temple and made their way to Tectuktitlay’s throne
room, where he had been holding court. Members of
the Veiled Alliance in the raiding party negated the
Black Guard constructs for a short period of time,
while a clan of jasuan knights held off the moon
priests in the temple, leaving the invaders to face Tectuktitlay alone.
What transpired in that throne room would make
any of Draj’s citizens believe that the sorcerer-king
truly is a god. Tectuktitlay’s power devastated the
invading force, but instead of slaying them outright,
the sorcerer-king chose to torment them by placing
upon them a terrible curse: They must wander the
deserts of Athas forever, never finding shelter and
never entering civilization again. The curse he placed
upon the invaders, which eventually gained the name
Accursed Legion, ensured that if any of them are
killed, they would rise again days afterward to rejoin
the legion. To guarantee that the legion never enters
the city-states, he sent a monstrous creature of his
own artifice, known as the Grim Lasher, to put the
whip to them whenever they get too close to civilization or when they rest in place for too long.
Over the centuries, the sight of the Grim Lasher
driving the desperate and bedraggled Accursed
Legion across the sands has become something of
a legend among dune traders. Many traveling merchants see the spectacle at least once in their lives,
and these people spread the tale far and wide during
their travels. As veteran dune traders and wasteland nomads tell anyone who will listen, despite the
group’s noble origins, the Accursed Legion is dangerous. When one hears the thundering sound of their
crodlus approaching, or sees the cloud of sand on the
horizon, that means that the legion is near, and one
should move away with haste. The legionnaires might
once have had the best of intentions, but years of
banishment in the desert have left them desperate for
release from their curse, and they do what they can to
break it. Some who have observed them believe that
they have lost all sense of who they once were, abandoning their identities, their memories, and most of
all their moral compasses—the Accursed Legion now
attacks anything that crosses its path to vent its frustration at its own plight. If the ranks of the Accursed
Legion have been thinned by losses, then those slain
by the legion might rise from the dead the following
day to join their killers in eternal banishment.
Despite the tales of the traders, some believe that
the Accursed Legion can be saved. Members of the
Veiled Alliance have carried on the work of prior
generations by searching for a way to break the curse
that Tectuktitlay has placed upon the legion. Some
believe that the legion holds the keys to overthrowing
not only Tectuktitlay, but also other sorcerer-kings;
if freed from their curse, they can share knowledge
that they possessed at the time of their failed assault.
Others maintain that their deathless state indicates
that Tectuktitlay has mastery over some form of
shadow magic, drawn from the Gray to make the
legion deathless, and that only when the curse is
lifted will Tectuktitlay be vulnerable to defeat.