Scarboril society is one giant, brutal game of King-of-The-Hill; the only way upward is over whoever is above you, and more often than not it takes a certain kind of maliciousness and callousness to make it anywhere in the brutal hegemony. Nevertheless, all Scarboril look up to the Slaughterthanes with an almost alien mix of fear and jealousy.

Slaughterthanes are the hulking leaders of a Scarboril holding, tyrant and warlord that rouses the chattering warbands to action in their bid to prove Scarboril supremacy across the Lands. Their weapons, the terrible Scornblades and Wyvernhunter arrows, are forged by the most talented of slagmasters and their forge-slaves, yet their armor is surprisingly ramshackle; a patchwork of trophies pried from the corpses of favored conquests. Their bodies, hardened and enhanced by magic rituals from court Hatemeisters, grow to terrible size and might. Some even fuse bound fiends with their flesh to further empower them, or make deals with aberrant beings in exchange for more power.

The Slaughterthanes are the paragons of Scarboril society; paranoid, murderous, narcissistic psychopaths who build their legacies on a mountain of corpses. While any decent folk would revile such characteristics in the leaders, the Scarboril revere these traits, lifetimes of indoctrination ingraining an adoration for the title of Slaughterthane. Only twenty two Slaughterthanes may exist at any time, by decree of the Kill-King himself, and Slaughterthane is a title held for life; is it any wonder they are always paranoid of the hidden knife waiting to cut their reign short?

The Slaughterthane's lair will always be its wretched palace, a hulking domain of half-rotted buildings stacked haphazardly upon itself. These halls are filled to the brim with countermeasures and traps in between lavish furnishings and stolen finery. These palaces sit in the center of the Slaughterthane's hold, often either the heart of their largest settlement or on top of a defensible location.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the Slaughterthane takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the Slaughterthane can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

• The Slaughterthane roars for reinforcements, summoning 1d4+1 Scarboril to fight, and die, for it.
• A hidden mechanism is tripped, causing hidden gouts of flame to erupt from the floor in a 30 foot radius. All creatures in this radius must succeed a DC 18 Dexterity save or take 6d6 fire damage, or half as much on a successful save.
• The Slaughterthane invokes his latent sorcerous blood, conjuring a wall of roiling energy 20 feet high and 40 feet wide. Any creature in the area when the wall is conjured must make a DC 18 Intelligence or take 4d6 force damage. The wall fades one the next Lair Action.

Regional Effects

The region containing a legendary Slaughterthane’s lair is plagued not only by the latent energy within the Slaughterthane themself, but also their legion of raiding Scarboril, which creates one or more of the following effects:

• All plantlife and terrain within 30 miles of the Slaughterthane's palace devolves into marshy fens and boglands.
• Scarboril raiding parties wander within 30 miles of the palace, hunting for victims.
• The sun perpetually hides behind thick, dark clouds that persist within 60 miles, yet it never seems to rain.

If the Scarboril Slaughterthane dies, these effects fade over the course of 2d6+2 days.