Oreioth, the self-proclaimed “Lord of Lance Rock,” is a figure whose dark fascination with death has cast a long shadow over his path from a young noble of Baldur’s Gate to a feared necromancer. With a lean frame and a black beard that does little to hide the malice in his gaze, Oreioth’s presence is as unsettling as the aura of death that clings to him. From an early age, his cruel disposition set him apart from others; he found a macabre pleasure in the suffering of living creatures, experimenting with their lives in a twisted display of his dominance over life and death.

His wealthy family, desperate to redirect his morbid curiosity and undeniable intellect towards more socially acceptable pursuits, unwittingly sent him to apprentice under a necromancer. This decision would only serve to deepen Oreioth’s descent into the dark arts, providing him with the knowledge and skills to manipulate the dead. Once his mentor deemed him no longer useful, Oreioth was cast out to forge his own sinister path.

Wandering northward, Oreioth’s journey was marked by grave robbing and the exploitation of his dark magics to intimidate or outright rob those weaker than himself. His reprehensible actions saw him chased from every town he dared to enter, eventually driving him to seek solitude near Lance Rock. It was here, in an abandoned outlaw’s hideout, that Oreioth began his most ambitious and horrifying experiments yet, shunning the company of the living for the obedience of the dead.

Oreioth’s transformation into the Lord of Lance Rock signifies his complete surrender to megalomania. His kingdom, such as it is, is populated by zombies and skeletons, forced to bend to his will. The remnants of any social grace he once possessed have eroded away, leaving behind a man who barely recognizes his own name, consumed by visions of an undead empire with himself at its head. Oreioth’s dreams are of a realm where the living fear to tread, and the dead serve an eternal monarch whose throne is built upon the bones of those he once might have called peers.

Character source: D&D – Princes of the Apocalypse