'Enter the extraordinary fantasy world of Descent: Legends in the Dark through the eyes of its most notorious necromancer as he begins his conquest of the realms of Terrinoth.
'Waiqar, Lord of the Mistlands, is a necromancer of supreme power, arrogance, and skill. Driven by his hunger for power, he has the whole of Terrinoth in his sights. But before he can raise his undead armies and march on the Baronies, his hold on the Mistlands must be complete. Waiqar’s court is rife with scheming and deception, from corrupt vampires with plans to usurp him, to an apprentice harboring dark ambition of his own. As his enemies vie for power, Waiqar’s own plans come to fruition. For power is hard won but easily lost, and this great necromancer has more to lose than anyone.'
My only real experience with Descent: Legends of the Dark are the books produced by Aconyte; it's a game that kind of slipped past me, and that I've never really had the chance to play. Each time I read one of the books though, such as Zachareth and The Raiders of Bloodwood, I find myself getting more and more interested in this world and its lore. I loved the deep dive of Zachareth, and the focus on a villainous character, and I thought that it was my favourite of the series, but writer Robbie MacNiven has blow it out of the water with his new villain focused book, Waiquar.
Waiquar begins by introducing readers to Tomaz, a student at Grayhaven (a place that will be familiar to those that read Zachareth). Tomaz has had an interest in necromancy for years, studying the dark magical art in secret for years, and since coming to Grayhaven found himself meeting like-minded students. This small death cult turns on Tomaz, however, and drags him from his bed in the middle of the night. Bound and gagged, Tomaz is taken far from Grayhaven, and is eventually brought to the dark and festering swamps of the Mistlands. It's here that he comes face to face with the undead for the first time, as he's taken by skeletal knights deeper into the territory of the living dead.
Tomaz is our entry character, as he's brought to Zorgas, the main seat of power in that dark and forsaken land. Here he's brought before the greatest necromancer in existence, the ancient and powerful Waiquar, who called upon the hidden servants and worshippers hidden throughout the world of the living to bring him a human student of Grayhaven. Tomaz is a gift to Waiquar's apprentice, Tristayne. He's ordered to keep Tomaz alive, to keep him safe. Now Tomaz finds himself as one of the only living creatures in the Mistlands, and whilst his physical safety seems assured by the will of powerful entities, he now faces a constant nightmare of death and horror around him.
Whilst this is happening, Waiquar is dealing with unrest within his kingdom. Waiting patiently for the perfect time to lead his forces of the dead against the rest of Terrinoth, some of his subjects have begun to speak out against their lord, mistaking his patience as a sign of weakness. When an outside, ancient, force begins to whisper in the ears of several members of the court plots begin to form to challenge Waiquar for power and rule. As open dissent begins to take root Waiquar will have to lead his forces into combat in order to maintain his grip upon his kingdom.
Waiquar is a book about fantasy politics and shady double-dealings. Secret alliances are made, oaths are broken, plots are formed, and full open warfare takes over the Mistlands as people make grabs for power. It's all of these interesting, engaging things, but with the undead. The book features necromancers, skeletal soldiers, vampires, spirits, and ghoulish beasts rather than people. Everything in the Mistlands is a horror of some kind, something from nightmares, yet they're not mindless monstrosities but thinking, calculating characters with more depth than you'd first think. This makes Waiquar one of the most enjoyable and engaging fantasy novels that I've read, as it's all a dark, twisted version of what you come to expect from high court drama fantasy.
Most fantasy stories, when dealing with the undead, fall into the trap of making everything into a monster. There might be a powerful figure or two that has some kind of personality and agency, but for the most part the undead are treated as mindless figures, or monsters. MacNiven goes the opposite route with this, and near every creature in this book has some kind of agency and personality. The skeleton soldiers that make up Waiquar's army aren't just mindless automatons, we get to know his key generals, understand their drives and motivations, and get inside their ancient heads. This shift away from the expected makes the book a lot more interesting, and means that you can never be sure exactly where loyalties lie.
Despite never really leaving the Mistlands, and even then staying mostly within a location or two when there, the book manages to pack an incredible amount of world building into the pages. As said earlier, I'm not a huge fan of the franchise, and my lore knowledge is relegated to a few books, but this book really expanded upon that. Thanks to the massive age of the characters involved the book is able to delve deep into the history, to take readers back to times long passed, as well as exploring what's happening in the world at the present. The book does a wonderful job at slowly giving you more and more information, of slowly expanding your knowledge without giving you huge info-dumps and lore drops that could cause you to become overwhelmed. The information you're given feels natural, it fits with the moments, and it allows you to feel like you have access to all of the key information to get everything you can out of the story.
Waiquar has everything that I love about fantasy stories, it has complex double dealings and betrayals, court politics, the outbreak of war and huge battles, dangerous monsters, deep history, and complex characters. The book is incredibly clever in that is gives you a lot of key information early on that explains the core story of the book, yet it's done so in so subtle a way that once it's revealed at the end you feel silly for having not realised before. MacNiven makes Waiquar look incredibly smart, not by pulling some obscure info out at the end or giving you a reveal that you could never see coming, but by allowing the audience to not realise that they've already been given everything they need.
Come the end of the book I was honestly upset that the story was done, I'd come to love the world that MacNiven had created, and wanted to explore it further. There are a couple of characters that I'd come to really enjoy reading, and there's one in particular who goes through quite a big development that the end really feels like the start of the next chapter of their story; a chapter I really want to read. This book is up there with my favourite fantasy novels, it's got the scale and scope of an epic, and it feels like this could be the first entry in an amazing series dedicated to this character and his evil schemes. I really, really hope that we get more of Waiquar and his court, but if not, we've got a fantastic book that I'm going to be reading again and again.
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