Back to People

Radwrack the Black

Born Raddington Aloysius Wrackfort in Kelembad, Radwrack the Black was a powerful Death Elemenstor, one of The Twelve Scourges of Battal and the creator of the mind-bogglingly evil and tortuous Wrack discipline. Much of his life-story is told in Doctor B's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Stool of the ElemenstorLance series.

Introduction

When first we meet Radwrack, he is just a small boy traveling with his family from their home in Kelembad in search of new opportunities in Portund. During a particularly bumpy portion of the journey, he is flung off their cart when they hit a bump in the road, rolls into the middle of Collinswood Grove and is knocked unconscious. He wakes on one of the forest's twisty-turny paths in the middle of a torrential rainstorm and follows it into a large clearing:

School Days

Unable to contact his parents, the school reluctantly took Raddington on as a student and he received a first-year evaluation from his instructor of "just barely passable".

While at the Graha School, Raddington found making friends difficult. He tried to adopt the nickname "Rad", insisting this would make him seem "cool" to the other students, despite the fact that insisting on a nickname guarantees the opposite.

He became infatuated with an older girl, Mellanni Starsong, but she shot him down, going so far as to sic several of her bully boys on him. They subsequently beat him to a pulp, leaving him for dead in the middle of Collinswood Grove, a dangerous forest that bordered the school.

Whether his innate ability kept the wood's creatures at bay or his torn and tattered clothes kept him hidden, he lay unmolested for several days. Awaking starved for food, Raddington began digging around in hopes of finding some root vegetables, but ultimately unearthed a small shard of Rubian, awakening his powers as an Elemenstor.

Raddington returned to the school and began experimenting with his newfound powers, ultimately finding that his greatest strength came when he used his bitterness and resentment as a focal point. This led him to eventually decide (secretly at first) to become a Dark Elemenstor. To go along with his new course in life, he began wearing black and attempted to grow a sinister looking van dyke, though this proved difficult at the age of twelve.

In his fourth year, he was put on academic suspension for spending all of his time learning dark gears instead of actually studying Daigon-Taming. This had the effect of spurring him to even more dark magic experimentation, culminating in the infamous "Turn-the-Student-Body-Into-Flesh-Eating-Ghouls Incident", as it was later called, and Raddington's expulsion and imprisonment.

Imprisonment

Raddington was sentenced to thirty years in Xaxthor Prison and initially shared a cell with three Demistructors. He continued to work on his Elemenstor skills, and developed Wrack, using his cellmates as his test subjects.

At this time he took on a new name "Radwrack" and blasted his way out of prison, leaving a trail of corpses behind. A Title Bestower, called to the scene, declared Radwrack to be "the Black", a title that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Empowered

Flush with power, Radwrack fled the prison and returned to his old school. He tortured select members of the student body and faculty (including paying special attention to "that Mellanni bitch"), sent the rest fleeing into the surrounding wood and razed the school itself to the ground.

He then began a slow path of destruction across the land, ravaging town after town, leaving a trail of dead behind him. But he found this to be less than satisfying and he began to consider larger schemes that might accomplish his goal of conquest in less time.

On top of all this, Radwrack began to feel the unfortunate downside to the use of Wrack. His body, sacrificed for the discipline, became more and more weak and frail. This led to something he had hitherto always avoided: the Transchanting of a Furniliar; a comfortable wicker chair which he could use to transport himself without adding to the stress on his withered form.

It is around this time that Radwrack was taken out of his normal timeline to help form The Twelve Scourges of Battal and fought in the Great Elemenstation War. Following their ultimate defeat, he was returned, more intent than ever on finding success in his own time.

Leaguon of the Demistructors

Radwrack's life took an unexpected turn when he found himself again in the company of Demistructors. Perhaps unaware of his previous dealings with their kind, the Demistructors took Radwrack on and his natural musical ability (no doubt due to his early upbringing in Kelembad) soon saw him take over as their leader, known as the Leaguon or Arch-Conductor.

Radwrack proposed to the group that he could lead them to a period of unrivaled irritation, annoying people across the length and breadth of the Shield. Secretly, however, he proposed to harness the power of their weapons, The Horns of Demistruct, along with his own Elemenstation to take over all of Graha and, eventually, the whole of Battal.

What no one could have expected was that Radwrack's leadership would result in the Demistructors' achieving the Melody of Soon-To-Be-Broken Dreams. The effect of this accomplishment was to not only bring a brief period of unrivalled peace to Graha (for about a week), but it also resulted in revival from the dead of several of Radwrack's victims and Radwrack himself was overcome by waves of remorse. The Demistructors that Radwrack had led to this pivotal event also received a Moment of Clarity. Thus recognizing that their aims and Radwrack's were not the same, they expelled him from their group. But there was one more effect of the Melody, one that would have far-reaching effects for not only Radwrack, but all of Battal.

The Wicked Wicker

During the aforementioned playing of the Melody, there was a change that went largely unnoticed for quite a long time. Radwrack's furniliar, a wicker chair, gained the power of Elemenstation for itself. With Radwrack in a weakened state, the chair began to exert influence on his will. Within a short period of time, Radwrack's consciousness was totally subsumed into that of the chair, which now took to referring to itself as the Wicked Wicker.

Early on, it was easy for the Wicked Wicker to hide its influence. Radwrack continued to provide the outward face of the Wicker's evil and to outsiders still seemed to be in control. But as time went by and Radwrack's body continued to wither, it became clearer and clearer that he was incapable of the acts in which he was apparently engaged.

In the year 768, the Wicked Wicker was cornered and driven into exile, hiding in a deep cave just off of what would eventually come to be known as The Accursed Lake.

The Second Great Elemenstation War

Biding his time, the Wicked Wicker, still with the emaciated body of Radwrack nestled in it, waited for the right opportunity to emerge from hiding and strike out again. But the Vampyric Wars and the tumult that encompassed the land meant that the proper time did not arrive for several millennia, not until the year 22,024.

In that year, the Wicked Wicker, again using Radwrack as a front, created the Wicker Men and formed alliances with various world powers, eventually leading to the Second Great Elemenstation War.

Eventually, the Wicker's duplicity was again revealed and he finally cast Radwrack aside, declaring himself to be the lord over all Battal before finally facing defeat.

Radwrack's Rebirth

Radwrack, meanwhile, did not simply die of neglect. Immediately after thrusting Radwrack's body aside, the Wicked Wicker struck a particularly powerful gear, intended to bring forth a legion of fresh troops from the past. While this attempt failed, it opened a wormhole in time and sucked Radwrack's near-dead body back in time, dropping him back at the moment of the playing of the Melody of Soon-To-Be-Broken Dreams (perhaps as an additional effect of the Melody). He was found by a young woman with no memory of her past and she nursed him back to health. The events of his time under the influence of his furniliar were completely lost to him and when he finally regained consciousness, it was as if no time had passed.

When Radwrack finally died, the Demistructors were said to have built a tomb for him where the tunes of the Melody of Soon-To-Be-Broken Dreams were said to play continuously. Legend says that the spot became a pilgrimage cite for a generation until the location was lost or forgotten. The veracity of these claims has not been verified, but many believe the tales and spend great time or expense searching for the tomb's location. Elemenstor Prigglesnap claimed to have knowledge of its location, but this was never verified.

Notes

Some aspects of Radwrack's experiences at the Graha School of Daigon-Taming were adapted into sub-plots for the television show Wizbits: Elemenstor High.