General Nefarian Serpine.

Nefarian Serpine is Mevolent's most trusted General during the great war. He presents himself in a cultured and sophisticated manner. Possessed a dry, cynical sense of humour and a eloquent, theatrical way of speaking. He is highly intelligent and cunning, capable of creating complex and unpredictable plans to achieve his goals. Serpine was the head taction, never seeing much actual battle. He was also the head torturer. He was obsessed and dedicated to his religion, the Faceless ones. Gods who believed only in destruction, death and the enslavement of non-magical people. Serpine saw non-magical people as 'cow-eyed, dull-brained apes.'

Serpine is 6'5, 150 pounds, muscular and pale. He has emerald green eyes and black, curled hair. 7 inchs in length and three inches in thickness when erect. He is from Ireland and has an Irish accent. Serpine is best known for his skinless red right hand, however, which uses a Necromantic technique to kill any living or undead creature through agonising pain, simply by pointing at them. Visually, this takes the appearance of red vapour. It also strips the flesh from the part of the victim that he points at. The red right hand is limited, however, in that its victims must be within range. His natural/born-with magical discipline is Energy-Throwing, and his energy streams are powerful enough to resist a shadow blast from Lord Vile for a short period of time. Blasts from Serpine's left hand are purple, their 'natural' colour, while blasts from his right hand are red.

Serpine relishes in torturing those around him, cruel and controlling. If in a romantic relationship he'll demand to choose his partners outfit, what their allowed to do. It is easy for him to be obsessed. He does not exactly care to wait for his partner to consent to things, he will take things by force if he needed to. He can and will force himself on to others. He adores the idea of having his partner be like a pet/slave to him.

Nefarian Serpine was Mevolent's most trusted General during the great war. He masterminded the death of Skulduggery's wife and child, killing them in front of him, knowing that Skulduggery would get too angry to think properly. He was right - Skulduggery, in his rage, wanted to kill Serpine without using his magic and grabbed the nearest weapon, which was a poisoned dagger which Serpine had laid out for him. Serpine then captured, tortured and finally killed him. Skulduggery returned seeking revenge. However, before he could punish Serpine the Truce stopped him.

When Mevolent realises he is losing the war, he orders a last strike against the leaders of his opposition. Because of this, Nefarian Serpine kills Skulduggery’s wife and child before his eyes. Skulduggery, in his rage, wanted to physically kill Serpine, and so instinctively reached for a dagger which Serpine had coated in poison. Serpine captures and tortures Skulduggery for a few days before killing him with his red right hand on the 23rd of October. His body is burned on a pike alongside those of the others leaders killed, causing Mevolent to gain the upper hand in the war.

Although Mevolent is dead, Serpine still plotted the return of the Faceless Ones. He spent several years pooling resources while Skulduggery tried to prove to the Elders that Serpine was still evil, but the Elders refused to believe that he would break the Truce.

During the war, Serpine fought Mr. Bliss in an unknown location while a hurricane destroyed everything around them. After this fight they didn’t meet again until the events of Skulduggery Pleasant.

In 1861 The Dead Men chased him in the wild west but escaped with the help of the Necromancer Noche. He also fought at The Battle of Black Rock and was driven into retreat by Ghastly Bespoke's mother.

Mevolent had a council of three generals during the war, made up of his right hand man, Nefarian Serpine. The leader of the Diabelarie (Mevolent's most religiously fanatic and best assassins) Baron Vengeous and Lord Vile, who was suppose to be the Messiah for the Necromancers but chose to join Mevolent instead.

Mevolent's biggest threat during the war was Skulduggery Pleasant. During the war, Skulduggery was part of a group, ironically named the Dead Men, as they would always come back from suicide missions alive. Ghastly Bespoke and Erskine Ravel were some of the members. He fell victim to Mevolent's second-in-command, Nefarian Serpine, who killed Skulduggery's wife and child and then attacked Skulduggery himself with a dagger. Skulduggery then grabbed it and discovered that it was barbed with poison. Skulduggery was tortured for several days before being killed by Serpine on October 23rd, around 1700. Mevolent's Forces then stuck Skulduggery's body on a pike and burnt it for all to see. One by one the other leaders of the resistance fell but strangely, Skulduggery's spirit did not move on. His bones had been placed in a bag and thrown in a river, but Skulduggery was somehow able to go into the bag, reattach his bones and quite literally pull himself together (It was later revealed that this was Auron Tenebrae's meddling). Skukduggery is now a wise-cracking, living skeleton who is still doing detective work after the war. The War started because of the fact that the goal of the followers of the Faceless Ones was to bring their gods back into their world. Their Gods were extremely powerful, dark beings of such chaotic power that they were considered to be Dark Gods. Bringing them back, should they still have existed (it was not known at this time for certain), would have lead to the destruction of the world and the enslavement of humanity. One of the most prominent leaders of the Church of the Faceless at the time of the war was Mevolent. Mevolent was a powerful Elemental whom, according to Darquesse, was one of the most powerful in the world, behind only the Unnamed (his master) and those who have discovered their True Name. China Sorrows realised that generations of brainwashing led to devotees of the Faceless Ones believe that they would be spared by the gods wrath. However, the Gods viewed humanity as pets. Mr. Bliss managed to escape this way of thinking. Most of the Church of the Faceless were still brainwashed in the events leading up to the War, and thus refused to stand down when requested. This led to the start of years of bitter fighting. The Early Years of the war were 1650-1850. During these years, people reference a fight between Skulduggery Pleasant and Baron Vengeous. Though little has been revealed about it, it is known that Skulduggery threw dynamite at Vengeous' face. Around the same time the The Diablerie was created by China Sorrows, (Herself, Baron Vengeous, Gruesome Krav, Murder Rose and Jaron Gallow) Skulduggery Pleasant, Auron Tenebrae and Morwenna Crow were pursuing Mevolent's forces, who attacked the Irish Necromancer Temple. An ogre attacked Tenebrae and he fell, injured, but Skulduggery used Tenebrae's dagger to kill it, without his permission; this should have killed Skulduggery. Tenebrae saw great potential in Skulduggery. Morwenna left the Necromancer Order shortly after. Many Sanctuary missions in the War were won by the Dead Men, an elite group that almost never died in battle. This group was made up of originally four members. After it became renowned, this increased to seven members. Increasingly dissatisfied at the progress of the Dead Men, Nefarian Serpine was ordered by Mevolent to kill Skulduggery Pleasant. After being injured in battle, Ravel spent one year in the care of the Children of the Spider. Larrikin filled in for him during this time. Under Serpine's command, Mevolenst's forces once again attacked the Necromancer Temple. Tenebrae was forced to teach Serpine the Red Right Hand, which caused agonising death to anyone who he pointed his hand at. However, Tenebrae heard that Serpine intended to use it against Skulduggery Pleasant. Tenebrae altered the technique, so that if it was used against Skulduggery, it would bind his soul to his body. On 23rd October around the year 1700, Skulduggery Pleasant died at the hands of Serpine. Serpine devised a way to kill Skulduggery, through the means of a trap, because Skulduggery would be almost guaranteed to win in close quarters combat. This trap revolved around getting Skulduggery extremely angry - as this would impair his ability to think straight. To do this Nefarian decided to kill Skulduggery's family in front of him, and knowing that Skulduggery would want to kill him up close and personal, without magic, with a weapon. And so Nefarian set up the trap; first he captured Skulduggery's family. However due to the fact that he was organising numerous other assassinations, he got the Diablerie to do it, the head of which was China Sorrows. China went after Skulduggery's wife while Murder Rose, a member of the Diablerie, went after his child. The second step was to leave a dagger coated in poison within Skulduggery's reach. The third step was to kill both his wife and child in front of him. The fourth step was to watch as Skulduggery grasped the dagger, and realised too late that it was poisoned. As part of Nefarian's assignment to turn the tide of the war, he hung Skulduggery's corpse for all to see before burning it, throwing it in a sack, and dumping it in a river. Three Factions to Two- The Necromancers declare themselves neutral in the War. Around 1809 Esryn Vanguard was a pacifist, and wanted the war to end. Mevolent in the end was willing to agree to a truce. The Sanctuary didn't agree. Eachan Meritorious assigned Thurid Guild and his Exigency Programme to assassinate Vanguard and disappear. After it happened, the evidence led to Mevolent's men, and Dreylan Scarab was framed for the murder and was arrested by Skulduggery*(See Below). Scarab was sent to prison for two hundred years. The Lord Vile Years; (circa 1850-1855) Around 1850, thanks to Tenebrae's fail-safes in Serpine's Red Right Hand, Skulduggery was resurrected. Due to the loss of his family and not being able to come to term with what he had become he put on armor and turned to necromancy, thus becoming Lord Vile. Consumed by rage, he donned a black armour, and started training to become a Necromancer and created the alias Lord Vile. After mere months of training Vile became immensely powerful, thus leading the Necromancers to believe that Lord Vile was the Death Bringer. But before Vile could even learn about the Passage he joined Mevolent's forces as one of the Three Generals, in order to express his rage. At an unknown time there is a battle at Black Rock were Ghastly's mother drives Serpine and Vengeous into retreat but is later killed by Vile. While in Denmark, the remaining Dead Men, along with thirty others, were confident that they would make it home without extra hassle as Vengeous was injured and Serpine was unlikely to make the trip out to face them. Quintin Strom kept Mevolent busy on the other side of the world. However, they weren't expecting Lord Vile. While they were swapping stories around the campfire, he approached and killed the sentries without making a sound. Not one fatality had occurred in the previous few weeks, yet twelve people died instantly. They threw everything at him, but only Anton Shudder's Gist could penetrate his defenses. He then disappeared as he got bored with a fairer fight. Larrikin was badly injured. The boat three days away, they formed a perimeter. Nobody sang any songs that night. After the sun returned, people believed Vile had run off and that the Gist had injured him more than they thought. Shudder assured them that they were wrong but nobody listened. They repeated the perimeter again but this time they could hear the sounds of the people they had buried calling out to help them. They had to stop people leaving the campsite to attempt to help them. By morning, their nerves were in tatters. For the last night, there was movement around the campsite. The people that were buried were a kind of Zombie, infected by Vile. Then, they attacked. By morning, only ten mages remained. They buried the dead one last time and escaped from Denmark. Ghastly Bespoke said that he faced Vile in the war, after his mother's death, but Vile didn't kill him. The conversation was interrupted but it can be presumed that this was when Skulduggery came to his senses and Vile "disappeared". After five years as Lord Vile, Skulduggery was able to go back to being his normal self, more or less. When he rejoined the fight against Mevolent, his side began regaining lost ground. Skulduggery then hid the armour and vowed to redeem himself for his wrongdoings. He also abandoned his family crest until he felt he had earned the right to use it again. After this, for a long time, Lord Vile was trapped in Skulduggery's subconscious. In the Later Years (circa 1855-1925)China Defects, At an unspecified time (but after Skulduggery's death) China Sorrows betrayed the Faceless Ones and set up her library. In 1861, the Dead Men went on a mission in America to hunt down Serpine. He escaped with the help of the Necromancer Noche, however. Years later. In Russia while on a mission with the Dead Men he dies, it is unknown how. Many years after that, in Wales while the dead men were on a mission Serpine fired a blast from his red hand that was intended for Vex but Larrikin pushed Vex aside and saved him. However he died painfully. In the 1920's/1930's, a few months after the death of Larrikin, Mevolent was killed. A few months after that, the war was over. A truce was signed and most of Mevolent's forces surrendered or went into hiding. Serpine signed the Truce and was given protection. Vengeous went into hiding but was captured. The Faceless Ones were evil gods, and the rivals of the Ancients and the Apocalypse Kings, another race of gods. The Faceless Ones are INSANELY powerful, laying waste to trillions in other realities. They were kicked out of their own reality by the Ancients, and started working their way back. There have been several times when the Faceless Ones have actually entered our universe. The Sceptre of the Ancients, the Obsidian Blade and the 4 other God-Killers (spear, bow, dagger and sword) were the only known weapons able to destroy them. However, it is said in the fifth book that one who knows their True Name has the power to take on a Faceless One without the weapon. In the sixth book it is also mentioned that the Death Bringer could fight a Faceless One without the Sceptre.