Doom rider

A Doom rider is one of the Wanderers, a foreign soul whose released core left room for a heart demon. It is not one of the creatures of Deopa, the Deep. Each Turning it comes out of the Mist and rides for whoever pays.

It serves in Umbra, the affinity of death and its aftermath. It strikes with cold, hits very hard, and grows stronger and harder to kill the longer it serves.

It is paid in more than coin. The bargains of the Deep's creatures consume people, and Sealborn say this demon rode so long beside them that it took their appetite. Its service costs the kingdom people as well as a high wage in geld, and some mana too. All three rise as it grows. When the pay stops, it leaves.

In time it lends the army courage before battle. Later it helps the army stand against holy strikes. Lumen and Umbra lie across the ring from each other and repel, and those of its kind say riders learn to shrug off light that sits badly on them. Last, it spreads a dread that makes the enemy's blows land less truly. The card shows what each stage does.

Kill one, and its service ends for the Turning, but its soul goes on, and so does its kind.

The riders say the demon wants to ride down into the Deep and never come back, and that the rider who carries it is not ready to go with it. Whether a rider can be freed is not known.

Player-visible facts