Part 1: Lore and Fan Art

Props to A Curvy Goonette for writing this the following background info:


This is a demon.


_{No one wants to tell him who broke his favorite sword}

That big fiery dude we see in the Episode 7 cutscene is Kha-Beleth, the Demon Sovereign. He has uncontested control over the demonic inhabitants of Sheogh, and does all he can to further Urgash's will.


_{Big K-B ain't about the subtlety, ya'll}

The exact nature of Sheogh is a little nebulous. Do evil people go there when they die? Or is it just another plane of existence for demons, unconnected to the souls of mortals? Either way, a demon from Sheogh cannot reliably enter Ashan without increasingly arcane and difficult methods relative to that demon's power. K-B himself is unable to step foot on Ashan unless a specific seal is broken. So K-B needed a half-demon heir to open the only stable portal to Ashan, giving his unending legions free reign to destroy Ashan and further Urgash's goals of chaos. This portal was locked by Shar-Elam, a mortal wizard of great power who attained divinity as the Seventh Dragon of Order. So its his skull we're looking for in Dark Messiah, since he don't need it anymore.

Ultimately K-B finds a suitable mate to get his freak on with, Queen Isabel Greyhound of the Griffon Empire (aka the good guys). Which is where Heroes of Might and Magic 5 pops its head in.


_{Does that nun look a touch demonic to you? She should.}

Most people didn't play HoMM 5's campaigns, because they're annoyingly difficult and do their best to make players hate them. Suffice to say wacky hijinks ensue, including the rebellion of a former dark elf demon lord and the involvement of a dead elven shaman generally mucking about in everything. Honestly most of HoMM 5 is spent dealing with other races' problems, and only a few campaigns directly impact the storyline of Dark Messiah. Ultimately K-B gets his woman, and they do the deed. Sareth is the result. He's whisked away to Sheogh immediately after being born.

Which is kind of where Arantir appears, in the expansion Tribes of the East (which is very good and you should play it...it has orcs!)


_{He did lose his bitching horse though, and gained a few pounds.}

Unfortunately he plays a minor role in HoMM 5, generally just running around looking for demon cultists and immediately preparing for the worse when he hears of K-B's success in producing a half-demon heir. HoMM 5 ends with the "good" guys (Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Dark Elves, Orcs, Necromancers, Wizards) thinking they have beaten the demons, with only Arantir knowing better and he ain't telling anyone.

At some point between the end of HoMM 5 and beginning of Dark Messiah, Sareth is removed from Sheogh and given over to the care of demon cultists (Phenrig) to train and prepare him for his duty in freeing Kha-Baleth. Honestly they did a pretty shit job of it, maybe they were trying to be subtle or something? Maybe they should have been more direct, since Sareth obviously didn't know about the bitching armor upgrade he gets when he is transformed into his demon half.


_{Centipede swords are my favorite yaaaaay :>}

Also this is not related to a certain ability that will be shown in the next video, thats related to Xana's ability as a succubus. Speaking of which, we should mention succubi.

Succubi are the ranged unit of the demon faction in Heroes of Might and Magic 5. They're pretty good! Unfortunately Xana is just a boring random succubus and has no relation to Biara or any other succubus from HoMM 5. She doesn't even look like her immensely more badass sisters from that game.


_{I wish Xana looked this cool. How do those wings work anyway?}

So that's that. I skipped over a lot of the plot of HoMM 5 but like I said most of it is dealing with the problems of other, more boring races. Like elves.


FAN ART!
Melaneus rejects your choices and replaces them with his own:

Big zero draws the creature that will end existence.