Origins: Karzoug

During the reign of Runelord Haphrama, Karzoug was born in a salve den in the city of Maalistoke. What horrors he endured through the early years of his life in the city's flesh pits are unknown, for they were later stricken from history at his command.
One thing is for certain tough; when Karzoug walked from the dark gates of that city 27 years later, his path was soaked in blood and his soul charred as black as night's void.

With gold teeth plucked from the head of his last master, Karzoug was able to buy apprenticeship with a traveling Deom Binder named Thurbel. For 7 years he followed Thurbel, serving as both a lure for summoned Fiends and a slave to the wizard.
He died more than once during these years at the overzealous claws and fangs of Demons, but each time his master (who had grown wealthy through the sale of his demonic services) saw fit to have Karzoug resurrected.
Karzoug's suffering was perhaps as great during this time as it had been in Maalistoke, but during these years he rose in magical power, learning the finer points of rulership and excercise of power at the hands of amoral Demon tutors.

Thus, when Karzoug heard of Runelord Haphrama's call for new apprentices, he scuffed a summoning circle during one of Thurbel's conjurations and idly looted his master's belongings as the freed Deamon devoured the wizard's body.
With several potent magic items in tow and enough gold to impress even a Runelord of Greed, Karzoug was easily selected to serve as one of Hahrama's new devotees.

At the feet of the Runelord, Karzoug learned much of the art of transmutation and the magic of Greed. He found himself enthralled by the thinning of reality that ocurred near the slopes of Mhar Massif.
With alliances between himself and denizens from Leng, Karzoug began to master strange, eldritch powers in secret.
His pacts promised a twisting of reality, providing his inscrutable tutors greater access to the lands of men.
When, in the 206th year of his reign, Haphrama finally caught wind of Karzoug's plotting, he was too late to stop his upstart apprentice.
A virulent spell provided to Karzoug by new allies from Leng consumed both Haphrama and his other apprentice, Vhage, stripping their souls from their bodies and hurling them into the void between planes.


Karzoug took up the Burning Glaive, the Runelord of Greed's symbol of rule, at the age of 77 and began his reign as Runelord of Greed. His reign saw the rise of Shalast to new heights, as his cunning and manipulative nature wended countless paths to power.
Despite his people's dread, Karzoug's capital at Xin-Shalast rose in prominence, becoming one of the age's most breathtaking cities, though its grandeur existed only to delight the Runelord and the nobles and slaves he gathered around him.
In his 466-year reign, Karzoug surpassed all of the previous Runelords of Greed in power and, it could be argued, several fellow Runelords as well.
Like his peers, though, he was forced at the height of his influence to retreat from the world to avoid the cataclysm that befell it.
He took with him into this self-imposed exile 35 Rune Giants and his favorite apprentice, Khalib.
The plan was for the stasis to persist for some time after Earthfall, with Karzoug securely hidden between wordls in a Demiplane of his own construction (eye of Avarice) where he would be protected long enough for the apocalypse to run its course.

Unwilling to take any chances, Karzoug elected to have his protections so overwhelming within the Eye of Avarice that nothing could harm him, yet this also required what he planned on being nothing more than a temporary suspension of his ability to exist.
The plan was to have the stasis effect on his apprentice Khalib (or failing that, one of his 35 Rune Giants, or failing that, an intervention of one of a dozen other minions and apprentices who rode out the apocalypse elsewhere throughout Shalast) automatically end after a period of 100 years, at which point Karzoug's minions would awaken and go about the process of charging his Runewell to restore him fully to life.


Yet Karzoug's plans, as with the plans of the other six Runelords, vastly underestimated the nature of Thassilon's fall.
The various betrayals by those the seven Runelords counted as allies, combined with the utter and unanticipated scale of the devastation caused by Earthfall, completely disrupted not only Karzoug's complex multi-layered plans for his revival, but also those of all the Runelords. And so time passed, and Kazroug remained in stasis deep in the Eye of Avarice.
Dormant, his kind exploring realms beyond, Karzoug waited for millennia, anticipating the time when the Runelords would once again rise over Golarion.

At time, it seems, that has finally come. ..