Night Monarch

The Night Monarch must be a Literomancer It appears that popularity and name recognition among Literomancers also plays a role.     The living Literomancer who will become the next Night Monarch must also suffer from intrusive thoughts of self-doubt and perhaps other mental health issues relating to low self-esteem, or other thoughts that undermine their sense of their own capability. In many cases, desperation also appears to have made certain people susceptible to the temptations that lead them down this dark road.

Erin Righ wanted the power to destroy The Company after they brought harm to Lord Galakrond.

AuthorGoddess confessed to a feeling of isolation and a lack of belonging.

ECC Books felt that his Literomancy was mediocre at best, and he desperately wanted to matter.

Lord Galakrond was desperate to defeat an enemy, although no further details have been given publicly.

AttorraRu confessed to crippling self-doubt, and a sense that she simply wasn't good enough as a Literomancer.

The Night Monarch is believed to be subconsciously chosen by living Literomancers prior to the next Word War. This theory spawns from a series of dreams about a "Night Monarch election campaign" that most living Tome Knights reported in 2022.  

No one quite understands where the Night Monarch gets their power from. The most commonly-accepted theory is that they are chosen by The Iron Tome itself. Other theories suggest that they are either chosen by some external evil force, selected by the original magic that created the Iron Tome, or are simply a force of nature in a literomantic universe, as inevitable as eclipses.  

It is hard to say what qualifies as a "duty" for an undead tyrant who controls the very will of their followers. However, the Night Monarch drives the Undead Horde onward to continue generating Dark Literomantic energy in order to claim the Iron Tome. While the Night Monarch appears to somehow be able to get their hands on the Tome every Halloween, they cannot open it to use it. It is understood that they must defeat the armies of the living with their Horde of undead in order to win the Tome's favour and gain access. No one knows, or wants to know, what will happen if they ever do.  

In order to win the Iron Tome, the Night Monarch must defeat the living forces allied against them. They are empowered to raise the dead as Zombies or Tome Zombies for this purpose. There seems to be no limit to the number of undead the Night Monarch can create, although would-be undead must be dead first. They must also command those undead in battle against the living. They seem to concentrate their efforts on the living Literomancers, in particular the living Tome Knights, who are sworn to protect the world from the Undead and other supernatural threats. Defeating the populace at large is a secondary goal. This may have been the only saving grace for the world thus far.  

There seems to be an effectively unlimited supply of dark Literomantic Power for the Night Monarch to draw upon to raise their undead army and make their bid for the Tome. Being able to direct millions to obey your every command is a powerful allure as well.

If the Night Monarch fails to defeat the living and acquire the Iron Tome, they lose all of their granted powers. Whether or not they are Resurrected with the other zombies depends on the mercy of the House Leader among the living who has claimed the Tome.

There were almost certainly Night Monarchs who existed in the earlier Literomantic Age, but very little record of them survives. Theories as to why vary.   The most prevent theory is that most of the records of such a being were destroyed in the various persecutions of Literomancers that took place over the centuries. Conspiracy theories exist: it's a viral internet theory that either the Illuminati or the Vatican have stolen all records of the Night Monarch and the Undead Horde and hidden them away somewhere.   An intriguing theory proposed in Dr. Geoffrey Davis' book The Shadow War: A History of the Literomantic Great Houses, suggests that Literomancers were not exactly forthcoming about what they actually did, and the existence of the Night Monarch was actively covered up by The Great Houses to avoid widespread panic. Mythologists propose that records of previous Night Monarchs do survive in the form of legends of powerful, evil beings, such as Lilith, or the Wendigo.   But historians and anthropologists have proposed what they consider to be the most likely theory: that since the Night Monarch was just part of accepted reality, nobody bothered to write much about them because they assumed people would just know. Only a small percentage of written history survives through centuries, and it is possible that most of the information that did exist on the Night Monarch is simply not part of the material that did.

In the modern Literomantic Age, most of the world has been actively transformed by the existence of the Night Monarch. Many Christian denominations believe they are the Antichrist of Biblical legend. Some Muslim sects believe the Night Monarch is a powerful djinn that has broken free of its prison. Zoroastrians believe the Night Monarch represents Angra Mainyu incarnate.   Some Asatru were convinced that the Living Dead Girl was an incarnation of Hel, goddess of the Underworld and architect of Ragnarok, and that ICC DeadPeople was an incarnation of Nidhogg. A few Chaos Magicians, Lovecraft fans, and Cthulhu cultists were convinced that Lord GalaWight was the herald of the Elder Gods.   Buddhists believed that AttorraRu was the incarnation of the dragon that was subdued by Kwan Yin, while some Christians, Jewish mystics and scholars, and Neo-Pagans believed she was the incarnation of Lilith as the serpent in Eden.