Blades of Hassan Stolen from Family Taken to Alamut Locked up and drugged Left alone with your mind Simulate death and dieing woken up and brought outside. Chorus: Do Hassan's bidding with your knife heed Hassan's word Take another life Taken in by virgins served a feast in heaven meet the emissary there you will do his command in the best way you can taking lives of fellow man Chorus Failure, not a choice thou shall not see the light Hassan decides, when that is right indulging not in your drug withdrawal your punishment Do not Fail Again. Chorus/end ________________________________________ Blades of Hassan is the story of a fictional boy whom is brought into the fold of the world's first group of Assassins. Hassan abducted young children, imprisoned them and simulated the experience of death. Upon awaking the children were brought into a garden by young maidens and served a feast as well as given psychedelic substances. This was done in order to convince them that they had died and gone to heaven but were to be God's hand in striking out and killing those who he would not have in the world. Hassan was the emissary, God's voice to them. Should they fail in an appointed task the addictive drugs would be denied them and they would fall into withdrawal. Thus, failure was discouraged and loyalty ensured. Music and Lyrics by Xenophon.

The Great worm rise from the pits of crimson Hungry mouths descend to feast on the flesh of the sacrificial lamb Boiling blood drips down from the gnashing jaws of the beast From atop a bleeding mound of death sits the blood god. Prechorus Toppling the great corpse flower Crippling the Lotus Tower Chorus Amid the bloody refuse more lotus towers rise. from the deep black waters where all sunlight dies Devour with blind fury, belching blood into the sky Commanding war-born worship, and ritual suicide. Prechorus The altar proclaims crimson trophies, tokens of war. The revelers paint the world red, in his name skulls piled high, a monument to war glory. The bloody handed god, raises his spear to the sky. Prechorus Chorus Prechorus I am the demon who spits on the lords, of deceit I am the serpent who feasts on the flesh, of the weak I am the great lord who sits on the throne, of the damned I am the great worm who waits to consume, all of man. Cowards Beg Cowards Scream The blood god's ire is what they glean Falling to thorns below Stifling the crimson flow. The great worm awaits at the base of the tower with hunger in his eyes. Gathering the corpses, the human detritus, the feast will soon begin. _________________________________________ This track was initially intended to be about ritual suicide, with Aztec imagery in mind I began sculpting images of the sacrifices given to a blood thirsty god of war. But this creation swiftly outgrew my bounds and a doctrine of blood spilling and murder was formed in the dark corners of my mind. The crimson lord of war, the bloody handed god, the great worm, among other titles tolerates no cowards, no beggars. Those whose cowardice displeases him are placed within a lotus tower. A great mountain of calcified corpse's, arising from the blood slicked muck. From this tower they are compelled to fling themselves over for all eternity onto the jagged rocks below. In the guise of a giant serpent or worm, the lord of war periodically gathers and gorges upon the scores of the dead. These periods are marked festivals, where in the tribes honouring him in any of his many names, make war and gather trophies, usually skulls, and spill blood in his honour. Lyrics: Nagaarasha and Zyrnitra Music: Xenophon, Zyrnitra, Lord Morbulus, Ginnugagap

I lay down my offering for the wolves of the night I spill my own blood in their den. I become the predator who destroys mankind Spawn of Anyasiri be thou my hands! The sorrow of shades sweeps forth with foul might The howling hordes ceaselessly churn. Souls compelled are souls possessed And so the torch is lit. Angel of Endless Hunger Tsurumah, Mursiras, Mog-Pharau Spit forth the tongueless howlers In aeon of weakened sun Angel of Endless Hunger Tsurumah, Mursiras, Mog-Pharau People of weeping summer Spring will never come! Amidst cut-tongue cacophony, Bloody rapists of man. Min-uroikas, great pit of obscenity. Aurang and Aurax ageless in malice. Whispering the silent screams The gasping of many reeds. Souls compelled are souls possessed. The world pyre ignites. Angel of Endless Hunger Tsurumah, Mursiras, Mog-Pharau Spit forth the tongueless howlers In aeon of weakened sun Angel of Endless Hunger Tsurumah, Mursiras, Mog-Pharau People of weeping summer Spring will never come! Spring will never come! __________________________________________ Wicked North is inspired heavily by the No-God Prince of Nothing series by Canadian author R. Scott Bakker. The No-God aka Tsurumah, Mog-Pharau among other names, is seemingly the antithesis of existence. His only purpose to destroy. Brought into some semblance of "life" by "The Consult" a mad cabal of sorcerers seeking to save themselves from ever-lasting damnation by sealing the world shut. Hoping to accomplishing this by annhilating all men (Men being known to the Non-men as the people of summer, for they burn so hot and pass so quick.) The No-God's very existence made every womb barren, every child died in still-birth. The No-God destroyed entire nations beneath screaming hordes of Sranc (Also known as Tongueless howlers), a perverted war like people who sexually delight in carnage. The very threat of Sranc caused mothers to raise the knife to their babe's to save them from the barbarity. The No-God was destroyed having killed most of the peoples of the ancient north, the most advanced civilization on Earwa. The Consult, headed by Aurang and Aurax, who are the last two Inchoroi, a race of rapists and weavers of flesh retrieved the No-God's remains and have been attempting to resurrect him ever since to finish their genocidal task, and his resurrection draws ever closer to completion. The world will be closed shut, and all who survive thrown into the harems of the Inchoroi! The world pyre ignites! Lyrics: Nagaarasha and Zyrnitra Music: Zyrnitra

It's as if men could only ape the language of god Debase and brutalize his song, But when sorcerers sing men die! Rend the flesh from the bones licking clean the bloody wake feast on the filth and plot to burn heavens gates I listen to the torment cries as they echo through the air set fire to thy enemies take heart unto their screams Shivering in ecstasy I'm bathing in their agony Roiling in the ashen ground as Arafel hath done I harken to the silent screams of victims yet to come. Lead me to the demons shrine of he who dwells in night with him dwell in endless bliss and taste of his great might bring now forth the sacrifice with weeping wounds and hateful eyes Call upon the spider god of blackest flame, and purest blood. Come hither my almighty beast Do your masters will Devour these pathetic men And savor every kill Summoned from a black abyss where chaos rules with night child of Demogorgon Shall feast with great delight Let swing the blades of slaughters past Let rise the morning star For he-who-hungers-for-the-flesh Does love his bloodied child (Mad cackling laughter with the occasional 'yessssssss!') Wards flicker and fade away as songs bring men to their knees Scoring fields of all life Hearing not the screams The song sings him a lifeless husk and all life simply fades Away. _____________________________ Initially this began as the story of a man who's family was burned at the stake after he fled into the wilderness after declared a heretic. This was not the case but the extremism of the church and his lust for the destruction of those who wronged him drove him into dark pacts with being's from outside gods creation which both drove him mad and gave him godlike power. He eventually summoned one of these beings into the earth and laid waste to the town of his birth, the inquisition and all those he encountered, until at last his soul was absorbed into the outside. The primary source of inspiration is historical satanism in Europe, who were said to turn to Satan in the face of the corruption and tyranny of the church. A microcosm of the fact that we as a society create our own worst enemy. I drew from many mythologies and figures in the story of this song. Arafel is the fog covering the world in the apocalypse, twisting over the scorched earth. Demogorgon who has become a demon of Christian mythology but was consdered as a corruption of the demiurge. A dark twisted reflection of God in many senses, considered the supreme being of the threefold world. From a literary perspective he is used by John Milton in Paradise lost not as a demon, but as a being from outside existence in realm where chaos rules with night. His name itself is said to be a curse. Milton's Demogorgon is closest to the one of my imaginings and is a good representation of the forces invoked by my sorcerer within the song. Lastly their is some influence once more from R. Scott Bakker. In that my descriptions of the practice of magic beings songs and wards as well as the opening part of the song which is a direct quotation from his work. Lyrics: Nagaarasha Music: Zyrnitra, Lord Morbulus, Ginnungagap, Xenophon