As Chief Curator and Head of Acquisitions for the Arcane Archives of the Ultimyr Academy, Demnok Lannik was unstinting in his quest of lost, rare, and prohibited tomes. No blighted temple was so ominous, no cavern path so treacherous, that any anxiety for his own continued existence could discourage him from entering if rumours mentioned that some pamphlet of primordial lore might still continue to exist in its depths. However, so often did his investigations trigger the anger of protector entities, that he finally found it essential to master the arts of magic. He turned himself to studying sorcery with the same thorough possessiveness that marked his quest for incunabula, becoming the most influential Warlock of the Academy in less time than most practitioners required to complete a course of undergraduate work. Almost as a postscript, he carved a staff of Dreadwood and beckoned into it a captive spirit from the Outer Hells.