The Northern shores of the Alik’r are littered with the shipwrecks of mariners, smugglers and pirates who foolhardily risked the rocky jawline of Iliac Bay. Amidst all the deadwood and debris Salmaran, a necromancer of the Withered Hand cult, performs vile ritual to raise the drowned from the seafloor and direct their carnivorous voracity against the Redguard of Sentinel.
Salmaren is grotesque, his body so twisted and corrupted by the magics he attempts to manipulate, he now resembles the very wretches he raises from the depths of the bay. His ash-mottled skin is stretched taut across his ghoulish face, his lips as blue as the waters, set firm in rigid snarl. This is the price mortals must pay for swimming in such dark waters as necromancy. One only need look Northwards to the Hags of the Reach for further evidence of such a toll.
In much the same way that the gladiator is weakened by every small cut, bruise, and swelling he suffers in the arena, so it is with the necromancer. Some have hypothesised that it is the Gods way of preventing mortals from becoming too powerful, though I think the dark elves might have cause for issue with that theory.
It is not by chance that the first lesson taught to every Battle-Mage and Spell-Sword of the Imperial Legion is equilibrium. That sorcerer who can keep prime balance between strength of arm and strength of mind becomes much feared by both enemy and ally alike.
Alas for poor Salmaren, who it turns out knew as much about balance as a Khajiit whose lost its tail.
S.K
The Tamriel Drifter 