We’ve all heard about the great and famous deeds and persons from the Age of Legends, but they are, of course, only part of the story. The Age of Legends had its fair share of nitwits, fools, and embarrassing moments, which not even the Brown Ajah has ventured to touch. This article seeks to expose these less grand sides of the legendary past.
The names of Semirhage and Ishamael are used to scare wayward children, but the name of Frederick the Forsaken holds no such terror, and with good cause, for Frederick was the least terrifying Forsaken imaginable. Originally a less successful actor and sometime retailer of cheap jewelry and other gaudy trinkets, Frederick was a vain man who turned to the Shadow because he didn’t like the uniforms of the forces of the Light. Apparently they were too plain, for Frederick preferred more colorful outfits, preferably pink with lots of gold. That’s right, people, Frederick the Forsaken was a regular dandy, and hoped to obtain immortality so he could spend the next eons perfecting his wardrobe!
As it turned out, Frederick became a big-time embarrassment to the Shadow, and spent most of his time trying to sell gold plated chains, fake Rolexes, and other tawdry items to the soldiers of the Dark. The forces under his control were invariably defeated, for the enemy could always tell them from afar by their colorful outfits. Unconfirmed reports even mention a Fade wearing a pink velvet suit, complete with a broad-brimmed hat with an ostrich feather.
He also tried his luck at doing infomercials for the Shadow but his tacky wardrobe tended to make Darkfriends repent their ways rather than bring others over to the Dark. Fredrick was not imprisoned with the other Forsaken when the Bore was sealed, for he never showed up for their meeting at Shayol Ghul. Apparently Ishamael had discovered that the gold watch Frederick sold him was just a cheap copy, and Frederick therefore wisely absented himself. Frederick eventually ended up on the Seafolk islands, and had a profound influence on local fashion. His later whereabouts are unknown, but some authorities hold that he acted as a fashion consultant for the Tinkers.
We all know the story about the drilling of the Bore: a highly-skilled research team led by Mierin Eronaile assisted by the mysterious Beidomon drilled the Bore to reach a new source of Power which both men and women could tap, and on the surface this is true, but the real reason why the Bore was drilled has long been cleverly concealed, until now. It turns out that the Bore was drilled quite by accident while Mierin was trying to get rid a few layers of fat! Apparently the later Forsaken had gained quite a lot of weight due to all the doughnuts she ate while brooding over Lews Therin, and was using the research lab at Collam Daan to work out after hours. The mysterious Beidomon was, in fact, Mierin’s aerobics instructor. While doing a few flip-flops Mierin accidentally bumped into a table full of ter’angreal, and KABOOM! the Bore was drilled. It was one of those rare incidents when pastry changed the course of history.
Just like he constructed the trollocs to function as infantry troops, Aginor also attempted to engineer other creatures to fulfil other important military functions. One such creature was the o’reilly rat, which was supposed to obviate the need for human company clerks. As anyone who has been in the service will know, a company clerk is essential to the welfare and smooth running of the outfit, but for some reason the Shadow’s armies did not attract good company clerks. Aginor therefore sought to remedy this unfortunate situation by constructing a shadowspawn that would be the perfect company clerk and the o’reilly rat was the outcome of his experiments.
A good company clerk is adept at hoarding all sorts of equipment, for one never knows what the company may need in the future. Aginor therefore mixed human genes with the genes of packrats. The result was very much what he had hoped for: the o’reilly rat combined human intelligence with the packrat’s natural instinct for hoarding and stealing, and became equally adept at both.
There was, however, one fatal flaw in Aginor’s plan, namely that the o’reilly rat refused to had out any of the equipment it hoarded. Instead of distributing necessities (like a good company clerk), this shadowspawn would make a pile of all its acquired possessions, perch itself on top of it, and furiously attack anyone who tried to obtain as much as a new cap for his canteen or a pair of mittens. This habit made the o’reilly rat a very poor company clerk indeed.
The creature’s habit of stealing proved even more disastrous. Human company clerks will, when necessary, go outside the proper military channels to acquire needed equipment, but the o’reilly rat took this practice to extremes. Very soon the shadowspawn had emptied every depot in sight. Even worse, the creatures not only raided depots, but also stole from their own outfits. This had dire consequences for both alertness and morale. One of the Shadow’s armies is rumoured to have been utterly routed because its o’reilly rats had stolen every piece of equipment the soldiers possessed. When its flaws became apparent, Aginor discontinued the o’reilly rat program, and no specimens are known to have survived the Breaking of the World.