Ahh, the peaceful river village of Nelderid, having rested for these long years in the lazy shadow of the Dead King's Spine. The peoples wore brightly colored robes of cotton, mostly to determine occupation. Blue for fisherman, red for traders, yellow for merchants, and purple silks for the... less spoken of but still quite common and well respected "professions". Quite an efficient system of identification really. Slowly, the black garbed figure strode through the small village, flowers in window sills wilted as he passed, fruit ripened and rot, fish gave off putrid odors and even the flies dropped to the ground, dead. Those he passed in the streets stared in awe and in fear, as all knew that black was the garb of a killer or criminal, and something else about the man put a sense of intense dread into their hearts. The Dead King merely grinned, a molar long rotted falling out of his sickly gums, and he raised his hands to the sky, the black aura of dark magic surrounding him like inky smoke.
Not but an hour later, the town lay in ruin, and the Dead king sat in a small boat, manned by two undead oarsmen, a raven perched on the boat's helm. Half the buildings lay in piles of rubble, and those that were not made of stone burned with black fires, sending inky black smoke into the darkening sky, blotting out the sunlight for a second time that day. The towns people lay dead or dying in the streets, their valuables laying at Aldric's feet, though there wasn't much. An overly ornate, and quite useless longsword, a few bags of stashed away gold, a small ruby, and a steel kite shield of relatively high quality, which the dead king was currently "personalizing" with his kingdom's emblem, a blood red skull wearing a crimson crown. For the sake of accuracy, he was using blood as paint.
"What do you think? To gaudy? Not morbid enough perhaps?" he inquired of the raven perched beside him.
"No milord, I think it's quite intimidating. Right bone chilling if you'll excuse the word play!" the raven squawked in reply.
"Ohohoho! That's quite alright Dust, a little humor always gets my funny bone."The boat made its way down the river, headed west, as flames danced on the red waters surface.