Ghanesh

Ghanesh
Member of the Darklords
Titles	Darklord Ghanesh Lord of Helgedad
Status	Dead (killed by the destruction of the Transfusor) Spirit trapped in the Plain of Despair
Died	MS 5070
Domain	Ghanesh's Sector
Weapon	Black iron dagger
Affiliations	Zagarna (second-in-command of) Taktaal (rival) Xog (rival)
Illustrations	The Darklands: p. 73

Darklord Ghanesh (died MS 5070) was a Darklord and Lord of Helgedad.

Appearance

Ghanesh was a powerful cultist whose features resemble a serpentine shadow of a man with fine scales and slitted eyes that shine with the light of the Lake of Blood. He towered over most mortals but was shorter than most of his siblings.

His minions wore robes of silvery grey.

Personality

Ghanesh was an ambitious Darklord, and possessed enough power to be considered to be the second-in-command of the Darklands during the time of Archlord Zagarna. Taktaal was his chief rival, and Ghanesh occasionally rose above him by presenting discoveries by his Liganim and Nadziranim. However, many of these servants actually worked for Gnaag in secret, and Ghanesh was not astute enough to realise this.

Biography

Ghanesh arrived on Magnamund with his fellow Darklords in MS 3072. He was the greatest cult leader of the Darklands, able to influence the Darkspawn from the Temple of the Pentad in Helgedad, and was considered to have the greatest voice of the Gods of Darkness after the Archlord. Ghanesh sacrificed countless slaves in the Temple with his sorcerous dagger, securing supplementary powers from the Gods of Darkness. He was also the main diplomat of the Darklands, and notably exchanged correspondence and artifacts with Shasarak the Wytch-King of Shadaki.

He was one of the favourites to take over as Archlord after the fall of Haakon, but Darklord Gnaag was secretly the true commander of the Nadziranim that served him, stripping Ghanesh of his political power. Ghanesh's rival Taktaal then usurped his role as second-in-command after Gnaag became Archlord.

Some time between MS 5067 and MS 5070, aided by the Tanoz-tukor, allowing the Darklords to operate freely outside of the Darklands, Ghanesh led the first Darklands invasion into Southern Magnamund, invading Lencia. He was aided by Darklord Dakushna, who destroyed the Lencian fleet in the Gulf of Lencia. The invasion was further invaded by traitors within Lencia, many of them mages promised power by the Darklords. The two Darklords entered the Crusaders' Rest, a massive graveyard containing the dead Lencian crusaders, and rose them from the dead. The combined forces began razing the Lencian coast. King Sarnac, believed to have perished in Bor, emerged from hiding and challenged Ghanesh to mortal combat. At the place of the duel, King Sarnac fled into a tunnel, attempting to lure Ghanesh into a trap. Deep underground in the tunnels of Bor, Captain Prarg and his Borese allies used boom powder to collapse the tunnel on top of Ghanesh — not killing the Darklord, but buying Lencia time to rally its forces.

Ghanesh died in MS 5070, after Lone Wolf destroyed the Transfusor, causing the Tanoz-tukor to stop working, meaning he could not survive for long outside of the Darklands. For his failure, his spirit was trapped and tortured in the Plain of Despair by Naar.

In the gamebooks

Ghanesh is not encountered directly by Lone Wolf in his adventure. However, in The Masters of Darkness, he disguises himself as a follower of Ghanesh while infiltrating Helgedad, and witnesses the rivalry between Ghanesh and Taktaal through their followers.