Peasant: "My struggles above the earth merely delay my final
sleep there."
 
Innate Abilities: Building, Repairing, Training, Gathering Resources. About: The peasants of the Lotus Clan are truly a strange race. Thin, wiry and pale, they perform their labors with religious fervor. Their zeal is unsurprising; they witness more dark and unholy miracles during infancy than the zealots of many other faiths glimpse in ten lifetimes.
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Innate Ability: Healing: The Channeler uses ravens, instead of stamina, in granting health to allies. About: The channeler is an anomaly among the Lotus. By the laws of the Forbidden Path, Channelers are only women allowed to rise beyond the ranks of the peasantry. Their studies are not the Path at all, but an even more ancient and secretive religion passed down from mother to daughter. Only those who devote themselves irrevocably to this religion ever learn its true nature, and the elder practitioners of the Forbidden Path - even the awful Lord Zymeth - know better than to prey into its riddles, which are far older than the Lotus Clan itself. Of all Lotus adepts, only the Channeler is able to truly mend the wounds of another. She is bonded to three raven familiars, but must snap the brittle neck of one of them in order to fuel her dark spells of regeneration. A sibling from the aviary eventually replaces the sacrificed raven, but there is invariable a period of mourning before this happens. Despite this, a Channeler's ravens will fight for her if she must stand to battle.
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Innate Ability: Blade Sharpening: He will sometimes sharpen his swords and have increased damage to his next attack. About: Novices of the Forbidden Path who react to their agonizing Rites of Initiation with anger and struggle are marked as the children of Lythis, dark bladesmen of the Three. During their apprenticeship at Lythis' forge, Bladed Acolytes meditate upon their natural affinity for violence. This rage is focused outwardly, upon the enemies of the Lotus, and inwardly, upon their physical inadequacies. Frustration slowly and painfully reshapes them, until their elongated limbs and steely skin cause them to resemble the wicked, curved scimitars they carry. When not engaged in meditation, Acolytes may be seen sharpening, polishing, and occasionally speaking to these swords. The Forbidden Path does not lend robust health to its practitioners, and the Blade Acolyte is less study than a mundane swordsman. However, his inhuman agility and deep understanding of violent death grants him terrifying skills in combat.
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Innate Ability: Melee Counterstrike: When hit in melee combat, the Leaf Disciple's opponent takes a small amount of damage in return (from the whirling leaves). About: Initiation with cold calculation and vengeful thoughts is recognized as a spiritual brother of Sehk, the Crafty One. Along the strange, disorienting paths of his Blade Garden, Leaf Disciples learn to twist and distort their minds and surroundings through sheer force of will. Such distortion is not easy, and Disciples must expend an inordinate amount of effort in study before they can even manipulate the razor-thin, paper-light leaves of the Tree of Corruption. On the field of battle, these leaves spin and whirl about a Disciple's head like a flock of angry sparrows. With an indolent flick of his finger, he can send them whistling towards and enemy's head or cause them to slice and slash at nearby foes. Enough small cuts can bleed the strongest enemy to death, and no Disciple ever seems to run out of leaves.
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Innate Ability: Whirling Staff: Does area effect damage when engaging multiple units in melee combat. (As of 2/22/02, this innate is not working in the game. Should be fixed in BP3). About: Those novices who pass through the Rites of Initiation with quiet, stoic hopelessness demonstrate their kinship with Tausil, the Forsaken One. These initiates endure endless, repetitive drills at the Training Grounds, repeat interminable chants of droning monotones, and maintain ceaseless and solitary vigils over the Tree of Corruption. From existence, they gradually learn to accept emptiness as the sole truth among the distractions of life. In combat, the Staff Adept moves quietly, with little apparent interest in his surroundings. Yet the emptiness of his soul gives him a painful awareness of - and loathing for - those who disturb his inner silence. He is utterly fearless, and is more than able to engage multiple opponents with the emotionless, technically perfect spins and flourishes of his staff. For such a frail-seeming opponent, the Staff Adept finds pain surprisingly irrelevant.
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Inner
Strength: When empowered by Lythis' Shade, the Blade
Acolyte learns to contain and repair damage to his decaying
body, even as he parries and thrusts at his baffled opponents. 
Scrye
Leaves: With Sehk's help, a disciple may bind his sight
to his spinning leaves, viewing his surroundings in mad,
kaleidoscopic glimpses. By flinging these leaves aloft, he can
briefly see vast landscapes in their metallic reflections.
Dark
Canopy: Granted Tausil's insights into nothingness, a
Staff Adept may spin his weapon overhead with such flawless
precision that it deflects missiles from all nearby allies.Diseased One: "In my scabrous, fevered skin, you see a man who
belongs to Death. In your healthy flesh, I see the same."
 
Innate Abilities: Rotting Decay: When the Diseased One dies, it leaves behind a nasty cloud that will cause poison damage to any enemy units that enter it. The cloud lasts for about 20 seconds. About: The Diseased One's blossoming inner corruption has overwhelmed his immune system: he is a breeding ground for every imaginable plague. An ordinary man afflicted with a tenth of the Diseased One's maladies would be dead within the hour. Yet he has learned to draw just enough vital energy from his corruption to stave off death, and so he lives in a nightmarish twilight of fevered delusions, racking pains, and his desperate, scrabbling will to live. Lurching about the field like a drunken man, the Diseased One is a clumsy fighter at best; it is not difficult to end his tortured existence. However, as he expires, his body explodes from the sudden internal pressures of rot and decay, spreading pestilence across a wide area.
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Innate Ability: Darkness: Upon the Unclean One's death, a dark cloud surrounds the area where he died and reduces the line-of-sight for enemy units in the area to 0 for a brief period. About: The Unclean One has nurtured the core of evil within himself to such a level that his mortal shell cannot contain it. As a result, his body begins to manufacture great quantities of black, tarry, vitriolic goo that he must constantly struggle to expel from his lungs and stomach. Hacking, coughing, and vomiting almost constantly, these benighted souls struggle for life with every rasping breath; eating is difficult, and sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time would be fatal. In battle, the Unclean One flings his wretched slime at opponents, searing and dissolving the flesh of those unlucky enough to be struck. Should he be dispatched, the blackness in his soul is released, blanketing the field with a hideous parody of night.
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Innate Ability: Eruption: The unit explodes in a damaging spray of maggots when he dies, unless it has the Rebirth Battle Gear. About: The Infested One's corruption is literal indeed; his swollen belly is a host to a mass of hungry maggots that devour his raw, bleeding flesh as quickly as it can heal. He lives in a state of constant suffering, yet identifies, perhaps, with his maggots: from their brutal, swarming life energy, he siphons the strength to continuously regenerate his body. When angered, the Infested One flings writhing clots of starving maggots at his foes. These burrow into healthy flesh with terrible, swift efficiency. Upon his death, his 'children' abandon his cold, worm-eaten corpse en masse, seeking new hosts upon which to feed.
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Innate Ability: Soul Lick: When engaged in combat, the Warlock drains stamina from enemies within a radius. About: Students of the Forbidden Path are defined by their shortcomings: the collapsed fortitude of the Diseased, the failed self-control of the Unclean One and the cannibalistic hunger of the Infested. The astute Warlock, however, has conquered all of these pitfalls and discovered how to balance the delicate dance of life, corruption and death within his soul. No longer prey to sickness and torments, these elite sorcerers of the Forbidden Path are able to fling bolts of destruction across great distances and suck the living energy out of the weak. They are mightily feared, and the mere act of opposing one drains courage from the stoutest fighter. Despite its confidence, the Warlock has not the sturdiness of the truly healthy, and is best kept from the front lines. However, from time to time he may sap the strength close to him to regain strength.
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Innate Ability: none About: Master Warlock: "I am death." The end of the Forbidden Path is a mystery unknown to humankind, save for those who have tasted its fruits. The Final test of a Lotus magician's skill, wisdom and strength takes place in the Master Warlocks' Tower, an enchanted fortress of such evil that none but a full fledged warlock can set foot within its walls and hope to survive. When two warlocks declare that they have attained perfect understanding of the Tree of Corruption, they enter the tower together,. Nobody knows what terrible wisdom is imparted there, what dread specters arise from the past, or what fantastic duels take place. Only one Warlock emerges from the Tower, and with him he carries the polished, grinning skull of his opponent. Thereafter he is a near-immortal terror on the battlefield, commanding wizardries beyond imagination, swinging the skull with the force of a giant's hammer. Though it is speculation, some guess that the true winner of the Warlock's Duel is actually the gleaming skull, and the Master Warlock, for the skull is beyond pain and death, and forever whispers the black, unknowable secrets of the grave in his captive owner's ear.
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Projectile
Vomit: The Diseased One can temporarily relax his
control over his illnesses, spewing a stream of virulent vomit
that is extremely harmful to the living.
Death
Wail: By consuming the flesh and soul of a living being,
the Diseased One learns the true horror of the corruption that
consumes him from within. As he wails, he releases the very soul
of his victim to terrify horses and sap the willpower of his
enemies. 
Spreading
Goo: The Unclean One can exert some control over his
bubbling evil, and may transform it into a vicious sticky
substance that drastically slows oncoming enemies.
Death
Sentry: After eating a hapless peasant, the Unclean One
can imprison its soul in the grisly remains of its skull, much
as he imprisons his evil within himself. This abomination is
known as a Death Sentry. The Unclean One can see distant lands
through its vacant sockets, and its agony torments all those who
pass nearby with wracking pains. 
Rebirth: In the ultimate act of brotherhood with his pestilence
companions, the infested One may devour the bodies of the
living, trapping their souls within him. Should the Infested One
receive a fatal wound, this raw vitality generates torn flesh,
effectively raising him from the dead.
Famine: The act of consuming one of his own clan enables the
Infested One to forcibly rip worms from this stomach and fling
them across an enemy's rice fields. This is painful and costs
stamina, as the worms prefer the taste of flesh and do not
relinquish it easy. It is far more painful to the crops and
those who depend on them.
Lythis'
Dark Arson: When summoned, Lythis can make the
Warlocks's ranged missiles burn with an unholy flame.
Tausil's
Life Siphon: The Staff Brother can teach Warlocks to
drain life from his allies to dustain himself.
Sehk's
Soul Chill: The Brother of the Leaf carries the cold of
the deep forest within him, and when he wishes a warlock may
share it and cast it froth at his enemies. 
Lythis'
Soul Thresher: At the Blade Brother's building the
Master Warlocks's energy blasts can be tuned to cleave not just
the body, but the soul itself.
Tausil's
Unlife : Through the branches are cut, the trunk may
live Tausil can teach his greatest disciples to raise his allies
from the dead.
Sehk's
Ephemeral Corridor: Amid the dappled shadows of the
forest, distances can be illusory. Sehk can grant Master
Warlocks insight into the art of teleportation.
Haste: With some effort, Issyl can warp the flow of time in his
allies' bodies, letting them move, attack, and recuperate much
more rapidly.
Teleport: Koril never has to stay where he is if he doesn't want to. A
wave of the hand, an exertion of mental strength, and he is
elsewhere.
Create
Golem: With a wave of his staff, Lord Soban can call a
golem from the ground, a tireless peasant laborer made of dirt
and rock.
Heavy
Rain : The storm-clouds are at Zymeth's beck and call.
When he wishes, he can raise the humidity around him until a
rainstorm results, and then call lightning from the resulting
storm.
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