"They were a group, my group, the last literary coven. If it was necromancy to commune with the dead, to raise written spirits from their tomes, then we were necromancers, not death-dealers or charlatans but people, just people, who read together and remembered in that graveyard, that forgotten place, that library for the dead". Abel, Dark Awakening, Ch. 2

Last week, we shone the spotlight on one of Abel's bookish acolytes. This Sunday, let's take a closer look at the the Unwritten himself.

A priest of Necros and one of The Ancient One’s get, studious Abel spends much of his time in the library and is never far from one of his books. This slavish dependency lends him great control over the winds and accuracy when bending them to his will but limits the sheer power with which he's able to do so.

Abel calls the Ancient One ‘Teacher’, harking back to a time when he lived and worked as a caretaker and guard of The Silent Quarter in Nulahmia. It was here, reading literature and other forbidden tomes prohibited elsewhere in the city with a small coven, that he first met and fell under the thrall of The Ancient One. The old vampire doted on Abel for many years in the guise of a tutor helping him to understand and, sometimes, access many of the tomes he would go on to share with the group. Month by month, they found themselves perverted by the nature of the texts, and Abel with them, until the night came when The Ancient One offered to be Abel's teacher for the rest of time. Of course, Abel said yes.

All are one with the Great Necromancer. Just as The Ancient One is but a vessel for Nagash's vast will, so his get are his shadows, extensions bound to him by oaths of brotherhood and blood. In Abel, we best see The Ancient One's scholarly aspect.

In gaming terms, Abel and his acolyte can usually be found on the equivalent of a Coven Throne — a wheeled platform bearing his repertoire of books, dragged into battle by the bound spirits of the duardin who once occupied the tower before the brotherhood claimed it as their own. Of all the denizens of the Mortal Realms, Abel holds a particular fondness for the mountain folk, whose love of tradition and respect for the written records and lore of their ancestors closely reflect what he sees to be his own.

Related read: Sunday Spotlight: The Acolytes Five

Flash Fiction: A Copse of Books