Blightlord

Talontar blightlords, or more commonly just blightlords, were corrupt Talontar priests reveling in decay, feared and reviled throughout the Unapproachable East. They sought to infest its forests with the same blights that had turned the Rawlinswood into a foul mockery of a forest. Most of them served as the Rotting Man's handpicked lieutenants and emissaries, armed with the power to warp forest creatures to their own, sick purposes.

Most blightlords had once been clerics, rangers, or even druids. Though some were drawn from other classes, such as the martial or the arcane, all who sought to become a blightlord needed considerable skill at divine magic.

Activities
In, the blightlords and their minions menaced Damara, Impiltur, and the Great Dale, ensnaring creatures of the forest, particularly volodni, and twisting them into their cause. The Circle of Leth was trying to stop them from expanding past the Rawlinswood, after they had successfully ousted the Nentyarch from Dun-Tharos. The Rotting Man's secret weapon that time had been druids of the Circle of Leth, corrupted by Talona's Blight into blightlords. The Rotting Man sent parties of blightlords into Fortress Narder, hoping to discover the source of the puzzling, interesting blight found in the vicinity; it was not of their working.

On a cold night of early Marpenoth in, three blightlords had destroyed the village of Denderdale. It was possible in 1372 DR that the blightlords' attacks on Damara's border may have driven King Dragonsbane to advance his borders further out, to make them more defensible. Similarly, the Qu'encesta tribe of the Nar had plans to head south, through blightlord territory; the outcome of such a move was still up in the air.

Abilities
A curious effect of becoming a blightlord was, for a druid, that they no longer needed heed their vows against metal. More generally, they gained access to a unique priestly ability, the divine domain of the Blightbringer: granted by Talona alone and only to the blightlords, it granted them the ability to rebuke and command the blightspawned as if death had already claimed them. They also became completely immune to any disease, whether natural or not, and were granted a protection that no blightspawned creature could breach unless attacked first.

A blightlord that continued their advancement would find that their animal companions, if they had them, would become taken by blight, becoming blightspawned monsters. The blightlord would, along with their advancement in the mysteries of Talona, acquire the power of blight touch, that inflicted Talona's Blight upon those it struck; the blight was a deadly disease that could not be halted with anything short of magic, and that turned those it slew into blightspawned monsters. Not long after, a blightlord gained the ability to control the blightspawned around them.

Talona would grant them more daily uses of her blight before granting the next ability: turning every glaive they wielded into black glaives, capable of delivering icy damage and the blight touch; with a little more progress, the glaive would cause deadly bleeding wounds. At the pinnacle of a blightlord's advancement, their infected blood turned them into winter-hearted monsters, plants in all but name.

Equipment
Diseased weapons were sometimes found in the hands of Talontar blightlords.

Notable Blightlords

 * Gameliel
 * Anammelech
 * Damanda
 * The Rotting Man
 * Nashyim of the Desolate Wood

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Lady of Poison