Overscourges of the Major Strongholds
Overscourge of the Windborne Stronghold: Astere Navera, whose breath is black winds. A neurochanneling genius — at first, she was only a stewartry student studying nitrogen-inducing amalgams. So-called aerochannelers are known to create simple semistable constructs such as vortex rings, but Navera pioneered techniques that discovered and then addressed the problem of phase-turbulence, and her mastery of aerochanneling now resembles neuroconjuring, and some of her feats have verged on shadowcalling.
Overscourge of the Frozen Swamp Stronghold: Miksi Apo, who is one and many. According to some, an utterly unremarkable vesperbane propelled to height by a single fluke. While all mantids are capable of parthenogenesis, Miski is 1) capable of it at will, 2) seemingly always produces full-clones, without chromosomal crossover, and 3) according to the vespers, all of Miksi’s children are Miksi, and share an arete-standing. Through further endowments, the Miksi-brood grow preternaturally quickly, and all seemingly share a capacity to communicate on a level deeper than language, granting something resembling the “hive minds” attributed to the eusocial kinds or national henosis dreamed of by the second dominion.
Overscourge of the Mountain’s Crown Stronghold: Relewan, the bulwark. A dark, hulking figure who might be mistaken for a haemogen’d chimera, or a diminutive vesperbat. Relewan’s hide cannot be burned by fire, dissolved with acid, or deliquesced with enervate. When attempting to be cut, smashed, pierced, or otherwise kinetically damaged, the response resembles annealed specimens of ultradense metals found only in tiny quantities. Relewan’s body, by means of a adaptation endowment incomprehensible enough to be a nascent blood secret, devises accumulating resistance to anything which damages her. The one exception is the exception to any art of vesperbanes: but even welkinflame does not smite her as readily as it does others. Relewan is a vesperbane of renown good humor and pleasant mannerism, and in battle, fiercely protective of all her wardens — few even among the overscourges take to the front lines as readily. Yet there are umbral anomalies that give this giant pause, and she is unwilling or unable to face them.
Overscourge of the Three Lakes Stronghold: Tima Gansbrood, the poor sod. A few decades ago, the stronghold (formerly the Great Western Stronghold) was led by Alemar, a charismatic firebrand who breathed inspiration in the wardens’ ranks. It was dangerous unity, particularly in a land that had borne empires, clan-states and the grip of third dominion in short order. Alemar was a radical — an extremist, in the language of the syndics. Their countenance was revoked, and rather than oppose the Pantheca, they accepted execution. Since then, the land of lakes and rivers has witnessed no fewer than a dozen overscourges, all killed just years after gaining the title. Rather than a protracted spate of assassinations, this seems a consequence of Alemar being deposed before naming a successor, rendering subsequent claimants all syndic appointments, and they have yet to choose a vesperbane capable of leading the province for any length of time before seeing death in the line of duty.
Overscourge of the Cursed Taiga Stronghold: Battle-queen Asfal Oovela, of the umbral arsenal. A common refrain among umbrachannelers is that common weapons are a dead end, that ultimately hitting things with imbued shadowsteel is too limited for high level use. Oovela is sometimes cited as a counterexample: a scourge-level vesperbane whose approach to combat is just that. But it’s not so simple. The thing that truly sets Oovela appart is a mastery of a high level umbrachanneling technique now classified by some as umbramodulation: a reversible phase-perturbation that completely suppresses the normal force. What this means, practically, is that when even apparently unarmed, Oovela is capable of materializing weapons in a moment, seemingly from nowhere. It’s not an effect unheard of for blackbanes to utilize, and parallel spaces are a known, if headache-inducing, application of enervate engineering — but Oovela applies it with alacrity, effortlessly able to strike with six different weapons in the span of a few moments, relying on umbrakinesis to save her the trouble of weapon-movements that do not serve the central goal of striking her foe.
Overscourge of the Bleedweb Stronghold: Sir Ol-Nahan, the unfettered, scion of clan Pelamn. Ol-Nahan is a haruspex. He has no eyes, compound nor ocelli. In the sockets lies a mix of those growths of swelling blood-pustules common to plaguespitters, and ordinary flesh, wounded and rotting. Around his neck, he has fastened a pulsating sac which seems both his harusign and a dweomer of the common Broodseer’s Eye endowment. Ol-Nahan has taken the endowment to a new height, and he is hypercognizent of the presence and state of vespers, enervate, or ichor in a large radius around him. Ol-Nahan is some 63 years old, extremely old for a mantis, let alone a vesperbane. Despite his age, he remains rather spry. There are outlands forces just beyond the border of Greenweb that would march inland — Ol-Nahan politely declines them. The land of Frozen Swamp maintains that it has a right to the therids’ ancestral land in Greenweb. Ol-Nahan disagrees.
Overscourge of the Vile Blood Stronghold: Lady Uhraquls Setesbrood, the vampire. In ages past, vampirism was a phenotype that existed among the bats, its members shunned and exiled even among the myriad kingdoms. With the ephemerality of even living bat-blood, such a rare gene tendency was thought irrecoverable — and then it re-emerged. The Lady herself is a mystery; we know ‘Uhraquls Setesbrood’ was a civilian who died on the front lines of the second arthropod war — and burried generations separate now from then. Yet decades ago, she came to the Pantheca’s attention, a creature of warlust. Uhraquls led a fleet of renegade pirates who raided the northeastern coast, rising in threat level from B- to A- and verging on S-rank — until, under strange circumstances, the then-overscourge of what was then called the Isle of Green Mist stronghold named her the successor, granting her special countenance, and died a year later. The province now lies embroiled a civil war, Uhraquls purging defects in the ranks of the wardens. This is the only province of the Pantheca without a standing Vindicator presence, and it’s a candidate for expulsion: for years, the administrative council has lacked sufficient members to reach quorum, several high ranking syndics having died. Uraquls, in addition to her mastery of blood, wields an dweomer amalgam blade pulsing red and black which invites imperial comparison. She’s always seen draped in a regal leather full-coat, and one rumor has it that underneath is fur, while others claim she is flawlessly beautiful, unmarred by the cancers of haemotechnics. Her blood, when injected into mantids, can transform them into a furry chimera termed a gargoyle. The province is policed by a shadow-legion of her loyal gargoyles. Because an overscourge of the Wardens would not flagrantly violate the laws of the Pantheca, we can conclude, per the Ordinance Against Sapient Hyperservitude, that these are not thralls.
Overscourge of the Ocean’s Depth Stronghold: Lehen Ibotheca, the mother-architect: There are some vesperbanes whom they say who have evaded interdicts only by the grace of the ancestors. Lehen doesn’t believe in ancestors, only the caution and foresight of her own genius. And indeed, one can see why a mantis would be skeptical of higher powers when, by some metrics, they can create them. Lehen’s art is war-beasts, constructs of ichor that must be engineered as much as grown. Lehen, in accordance to haemogenesis regulation, has never created anything self-replicating — but the spirit of those regulations is to limit the damage a vesperbane can do. When a bane’s fruits can bat aside houses with a sweep of its tail, that it can bear no children is a small solace. Lehen was trained among the renown Mountain Country haemotechnics glutted on the blood of the Sanguine Depths — but when she was promoted, it came caveated with a relocation to the United Isles — perhaps to free the continent of the terror of Lehen’s beasts. As overscourge of the isles, her creations are the answers to the pirates and sea-anomalies that would sever them from the continent, as well as the only counterargument to Uhraquls ever-arrogating territory claims.
Overscourge of the New Protectorate of the Descendants of Snurratre: no one. This is the only province without a wardens division, and hence, without an overscourge.