

Until the last century, the Mordesh of planet Grismara had a flourishing civilization whose refinements in alchemy made them the envy of the galaxy. Having attracted the attention of the Dominion and been invited to join, their ongoing success was all but inevitable.

In 1578 AE, Victor Lazarin, widely acknowledged as the greatest alchemist in Grismaran history, announced his creation of the Everlife Elixir – a substance he claimed granted immortality. The Mordesh were convinced of Lazarin’s brilliance, and the elixir was distributed worldwide. Yet cries of rejoicing soon turned to moans of despair. The elixir eventually became unstable, leading to necromantic physical degeneration coupled with a mindless cannibalistic rage.

It is said that in the Contagion’s first outbreaks, the casualties mounted too swiftly to be measured. The only certainty was that a civilization of billions lay within a hairsbreadth of extinction after just a few weeks. The Dominion response was a brutal and uncompromising quarantine, while below the Mordesh suffered and perished. While almost falling into the Contagion’s madness himself, Lazarin created a vaccine known as the Vitalus Serum. Despite failing to cure the disease, the serum suppressed its psychological symptoms and s the few remaining Mordesh survivors.

In desperation, the Mordesh turned to the Exiles, who smuggled them piecemeal through the Dominion blockade. Forced by dwindling numbers and their hunted status to become practitioners of artifice and deception, they formed a covert intelligence group, the Black Hoods, to wage campaigns of sabotage and assassination against their enemies. Seen by the Exiles as an unsavory but necessary evil, the Mordesh now ply their dark arts on Nexus in hopes of finding a cure and wreaking vengeance on the Dominion who deserted them.