Back to Famous Furnilars

The Wicked Wicker

The Wicked Wicker was a wicker chair furniliar transchanted by Radwrack the Black during The Magic Sword Kings Period. It was intended to serve as a mode of transportation for Radwrack, whose body had deteriorated due to the adverse affects of his use of the Wrack discipline.

Most of the Wicked Wicker's activities are chronicled in the novel/epic limerick Something Wicker This Way Comes, although his early existence is covered in later chapters of Doctor B's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Stool.

Early years

The chair proved a worthy servant to Radwrack as he engaged in his early attempts at conquest throughout the land of Graha. But things changed during Radwrack's tenure as Leaguon of the Demistructors, a group devoted to irritation through music. Radwrack, quite unintentionally, led the Demistructors into the performing of the Melody of Soon-To-Be-Broken Dreams, a magical song that often has far-reaching effects. One such effect was that Radwrack's furniliar attained the power of Elemenstation. This it kept to itself for a long time, while gradually using its powers to overcome the will of its master, Radwrack.

First Rise to Power

Radwrack had, by now, been removed from his position with the Demistructors and the Wicked Wicker (as it now took to calling itself) had to build its power base from scratch. It formed an evil organization known as The Dragon's Hand, a gathering of villains and neer-do-wells from across the breadth of Battal. In this effort, it used Radwrack as a front, making most of the Hand's membership believe that it was Radwrack, not the chair, that was leading them.

One follower who was not fooled was Damien Darkhorn, a low-level Dark Elemenstor, who harbored doubts about Radwrack, particularly the way his mouth and voice didn't seem to synch up. He found like-minded members of the Hand and they conspired to overthrow the Wicked Wicker, eventually succeeding in the year 768. The Wicker's duplicity was revealed and it was driven into exile.

It hid itself in a cave in the area eventually marked by the existence of The Accursed Lake, where it engaged in evil experiments and planned his return.

In Exile

While in hiding, the Wicked Wicker first began experimenting with alternate forms of transchanting, experiments that would culminate in the creation of the Wicker's personal bodyguard, the Wicker Men. One particularly nasty experiment was the creation of the Cryptien, a species of undead spider-beasts that even the Wicker found too disgusting to deal with.

Return to Power

The Wicked Wicker's return to power came from an unusual direction. On one of its rare trips outside of his hiding place, he stumbled upon Panther and Beetal's Circus of Phantasms, a troupe dedicated to entertaining the masses through horribly evil deeds. The Wicker (again using Radwrack as a front) took control of the Circus, utilizing their evil Clowns, Phantasms and vicious performing creatures to wreak havoc throughout Battal.

But the activities of the Circus did not go unnoticed. Gavment Rayling, roused from his drunken stupor by an ill-advised attempt of the Circus to capture him and transform him into an Elemenstrosity, began hunting for the powers behind the Circus, his only clue being the presence of several Wicker Men. Although he doesn't get far, despite teaming up with Lyta A'lon and gathering quite a following, his actions provoked the Wicker into unleashing his armies years ahead of schedule.

For several months, the forces of the Wicked Wicker stormed through the land, capturing the lands of Graha, much of what had once been Kelembad and the Ruins of Blee; indeed all of Terle. The Wicker made alliances with several nations, forming what seemed like an unstoppable army of evil. Eventually, the other lands of Battal noticed that something was going on up North and everyone wanted in on the action. This marked the official beginning of the Second Great Elemenstation War.

The End

Throughout the war, the Wicked Wicker mostly managed things from behind the scenes. However, at the moment of The Great Elemenstruation, the Wicked Wicker felt that its power of Elemenstation was draining away--slowly.

Naturally, the Wicked Wicker set about using its waning power to locate the problem. So long as its minions didn't know what was happening, it still controlled a mighty army (despite suffering drastic losses at the hands of the newly-powered Elemenstors). Eventually, the Wicked Wicker took its remaining forces (minus, for some reason, the Cryptien) to invade the legendary continent of Zonardia in search of the Ecco Caverns--for reasons never specified in canon but presumed to relate to the Wicker's fading strength.

The trouble was, no one, least of all the Wicked Wicker, knew where to find Zonardia, so the army ended up wandering the countryside somewhat aimlessly. Naturally, this made a lot of people uncomfortable, and eventually some soldiers were sent out to see what the wandering army was up to. The resulting protracted battle got quite out-of-hand, quickly attracting far too many Elemenstors in search of Epic deeds, and lasted long enough to be called the Third Great Elemenstation War. It is presumed that the Wicked Wicker perished in this conflict as soon as its powers of Elemenstation vanished completely.

But ever after, old transchanted wicker chairs were viewed with suspicion and doubt--much to the delight of wicker chair furniliars everywhere, who like to scare children by mumbling thinly-veiled threats about what they'll do "as soon as my powers come back."