Editing Malus Darkblade (section)

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.) 

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and the latter inducted him into a Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he escaped by reporting them to Khainites. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for clemency and a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Hauclir, Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir - which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation - and one of her slaves  Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with Tanithra (even killing her own slave in a fit of pique). He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

The confrontation was interrupted when Malus reminded them that the Writ means he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's infidelity sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Tanithra herself started to realize and resent this, which Malus planned around for later use. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered the remaining Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the commandeered ship and considering his promise fulfilled; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed. Tanithra, fed up with Bruglir's exploitation, captured Yasmir and revealed the plan to defeat the Skinriders. She then pledged herself to the Skinriders and Nurgle on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships for herself, even wanting to be flayed and then wear Yasmir's skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders. This resulted in Bruglir dying by Malus' hand and the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unraveled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus slew some while others fled, but was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger. This was a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had long wanted to kill his father due to the latter hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals, and killing him under those circumstances made Malus an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus went on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to Naggor, and was nearly caught. But a regiment of knights from Naggor killed the knights of Hag Graef and brought Malus before his uncle Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth knew what he'd done Fuerlan, who was also present at the meeting. Malus' tortures had left Fuerlan a heavily scarred, mentally unstable alcoholic swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he both had nowhere else to go and was a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir ridiculed Malus for ruining their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.