Training: Forge, Training Yard
Innate Abilities: Rotting Decay: When the Diseased One dies, it leaves behind a nasty cloud that will cause poison damage to any enemy units that enter it. The cloud lasts for about 20 seconds.

About: The Diseased One's blossoming inner corruption has overwhelmed his immune system: he is a breeding ground for every imaginable plague. An ordinary man afflicted with a tenth of the Diseased One's maladies would be dead within the hour. Yet he has learned to draw just enough vital energy from his corruption to stave off death, and so he lives in a nightmarish twilight of fevered delusions, racking pains, and his desperate, scrabbling will to live.

Lurching about the field like a drunken man, the Diseased One is a clumsy fighter at best; it is not difficult to end his tortured existence. However, as he expires, his body explodes from the sudden internal pressures of rot and decay, spreading pestilence across a wide area.

BATTLEGEAR Projectile Vomit: The Diseased One can temporarily relax his control over his illnesses, spewing a stream of virulent vomit that is extremely harmful to the living. Death Wail: By consuming the flesh and soul of a living being, the Diseased One learns the true horror of the corruption that consumes him from within. As he wails, he releases the very soul of his victim to terrify horses and sap the willpower of his enemies.

Training: Blade Garden, Training Yard
Innate Ability: Darkness: Upon the Unclean One's death, a dark cloud surrounds the area where he died and reduces the line-of-sight for enemy units in the area to 0 for a brief period.

About: The Unclean One has nurtured the core of evil within himself to such a level that his mortal shell cannot contain it. As a result, his body begins to manufacture great quantities of black, tarry, vitriolic goo that he must constantly struggle to expel from his lungs and stomach. Hacking, coughing, and vomiting almost constantly, these benighted souls struggle for life with every rasping breath; eating is difficult, and sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time would be fatal.

In battle, the Unclean One flings his wretched slime at opponents, searing and dissolving the flesh of those unlucky enough to be struck. Should he be dispatched, the blackness in his soul is released, blanketing the field with a hideous parody of night.
 

BATTLEGEAR Spreading Goo: The Unclean One can exert some control over his bubbling evil, and may transform it into a vicious sticky substance that drastically slows oncoming enemies. Death Sentry: After eating a hapless peasant, the Unclean One can imprison its soul in the grisly remains of its skull, much as he imprisons his evil within himself. This abomination is known as a Death Sentry. The Unclean One can see distant lands through its vacant sockets, and its agony torments all those who pass nearby with wracking pains.

Training: Forge, Blade Garden
Innate Ability: Eruption: The unit explodes in a damaging spray of maggots when he dies, unless it has the Rebirth Battle Gear.

About: The Infested One's corruption is literal indeed; his swollen belly is a host to a mass of hungry maggots that devour his raw, bleeding flesh as quickly as it can heal. He lives in a state of constant suffering, yet identifies, perhaps, with his maggots: from their brutal, swarming life energy, he siphons the strength to continuously regenerate his body.

When angered, the Infested One flings writhing clots of starving maggots at his foes. These burrow into healthy flesh with terrible, swift efficiency. Upon his death, his 'children' abandon his cold, worm-eaten corpse en masse, seeking new hosts upon which to feed.
 

BATTLEGEAR Rebirth: In the ultimate act of brotherhood with his pestilence companions, the infested One may devour the bodies of the living, trapping their souls within him. Should the Infested One receive a fatal wound, this raw vitality generates torn flesh, effectively raising him from the dead. Famine: The act of consuming one of his own clan enables the Infested One to forcibly rip worms from this stomach and fling them across an enemy's rice fields. This is painful and costs stamina, as the worms prefer the taste of flesh and do not relinquish it easy. It is far more painful to the crops and those who depend on them.

Training: Blade Garden, Forge, Training Yard
Innate Ability: Soul Lick: When engaged in combat, the Warlock drains stamina from enemies within a radius.
 

About: Students of the Forbidden Path are defined by their shortcomings: the collapsed fortitude of the Diseased, the failed self-control of the Unclean One and the cannibalistic hunger of the Infested. The astute Warlock, however, has conquered all of these pitfalls and discovered how to balance the delicate dance of life, corruption and death within his soul. No longer prey to sickness and torments, these elite sorcerers of the Forbidden Path are able to fling bolts of destruction across great distances and suck the living energy out of the weak. They are mightily feared, and the mere act of opposing one drains courage from the stoutest fighter.

Despite its confidence, the Warlock has not the sturdiness of the truly healthy, and is best kept from the front lines. However, from time to time he may sap the strength close to him to regain strength.

BATTLEGEAR Lythis' Dark Arson: When summoned, Lythis can make the Warlocks's ranged missiles burn with an unholy flame. Tausil's Life Siphon: The Staff Brother can teach Warlocks to drain life from his allies to dustain himself. Sehk's Soul Chill: The Brother of the Leaf carries the cold of the deep forest within him, and when he wishes a warlock may share it and cast it froth at his enemies.

Training: Two Warlocks enter the Warlock's Tower. One Master Warlock leaves.
Innate Ability: none

About: Master Warlock: "I am death."

The end of the Forbidden Path is a mystery unknown to humankind, save for those who have tasted its fruits. The Final test of a Lotus magician's skill, wisdom and strength takes place in the Master Warlocks' Tower, an enchanted fortress of such evil that none but a full fledged warlock can set foot within its walls and hope to survive.

When two warlocks declare that they have attained perfect understanding of the Tree of Corruption, they enter the tower together,. Nobody knows what terrible wisdom is imparted there, what dread specters arise from the past, or what fantastic duels take place. Only one Warlock emerges from the Tower, and with him he carries the polished, grinning skull of his opponent. Thereafter he is a near-immortal terror on the battlefield, commanding wizardries beyond imagination, swinging the skull with the force of a giant's hammer.

Though it is speculation, some guess that the true winner of the Warlock's Duel is actually the gleaming skull, and the Master Warlock, for the skull is beyond pain and death, and forever whispers the black, unknowable secrets of the grave in his captive owner's ear.
 

BATTLEGEAR Lythis' Soul Thresher: At the Blade Brother's building the Master Warlocks's energy blasts can be tuned to cleave not just the body, but the soul itself. Tausil's Unlife : Through the branches are cut, the trunk may live Tausil can teach his greatest disciples to raise his allies from the dead. Sehk's Ephemeral Corridor: Amid the dappled shadows of the forest, distances can be illusory. Sehk can grant Master Warlocks insight into the art of teleportation.