No one truly knows the identity of the knight now called Mallobaude. Some claimed he was a commoner unwisely raised to knighthood after saving the Duke of Lyonesse on a hunting expedition. Others said he was a Knight Errant who rode into the Border Princes and returned as his company's sole survivor. In the end, he proved to be the bastard son of King Louen Leoncoeur himself.

Whatever his origins, Mallobaude had once been a dashing and heroic knight, one of the finest young lances in Bretonnia. He was a magnificent warrior, and a man whose honour and principles seemed bound in iron. As a Knight Errant he earned his spurs and became a Knight of the Realm, but his devotion to the Knightly Code was so great that he immediately laid aside his lance and rode out as a Questing Knight, seeking the Lady's blessing and a revelation from the Grail about the purpose his life should serve.

Mallobaude crossed the whole of Bretonnia, devoting himself body and soul to the life of denial and hardship demanded of a Questing Knight. He appeared content to let admiring stories of his deeds circulate among the nobles of Mousillon. It was said that he crossed the Massif Orcal and cleared whole valleys of Greenskins, fought bat-winged Harpies in the Grey Mountains, and halted the advance of an entire Goblin tribe at Axe Bite Pass. Other tales placed him rooting out a Chaos cult among the foreign merchants of L'Anguille or hunting the monstrous Blue Hag of the Forest of Châlons.

One of the most persistent stories tells how, after long years seeking the Grail, Mallobaude grew weary of his hardships and stopped at a Grail Chapel. The Grail Damsel welcomed him, but Mallobaude was grim-faced and angry.

Why had the Lady forgotten him? Had he not done enough for her? Had he not slain the monsters of Bretonnia, aided the innocent, and punished the wicked? Yet he had seen no sign of the Grail and received no message from the Lady. He railed against devoting his life to the Quest and gaining nothing in return.

The Grail Damsel had counselled many Questing Knights, and she gave him the answer she had given them. The Quest for the Grail, she told Mallobaude, was not a journey undertaken to earn the Lady's recognition, nor a trial that won the right to drink from the sacred cup. The true quest was to reach this point of despair and continue in spite of it.

That was the true test of a knight: not the strength of his sword arm, but the strength of his soul. It was not a question of whether he could slay every monster in a forest, but whether, knowing that his lips might never touch the Grail, he would continue the Quest all the same.

Mallobaude considered her words. If they were true, all that remained was to press on, to pit himself against the most terrible dangers and face them with passion and courage until at last the Lady came to him as promised. At dawn, Mallobaude rode out from the Grail Chapel and did not rest until he reached the very place where his despair would be tested: the Land of Despair itself, Mousillon.

Mallobaude found misery enough in Mousillon. It was almost certainly he who rode against a host of Undead gathered near the Orphan Hills, and who entered the caves beneath ruined Pont'Resolu to put the malevolent Rat-men to the sword. No one can say what other adventures he endured in the Lost Duchy.

The only certainty, according to Mallobaude himself, is that he eventually came to rest at the edge of the Forest of Arden. He had been hunting Beastmen and other monsters, but instead discovered a foul, brackish stream. As he watched, its grey-green cast and clouds of flies fell away, revealing a magnificent clear lake wreathed in cold mist. A hand rose from the water bearing a radiant golden chalice, and Mallobaude knew that he had finally found the Grail.

To drink from the Grail could have only two outcomes. If the slightest stain of sin remained in his heart, its magic would kill him instantly. If he was pure, as a true knight should be, he would receive the Lady's blessing, never know fear again, and return to civilisation as a hallowed Grail Knight.

Mallobaude took the Grail, certain that his years of questing had cleansed him of every taint. He drank its waters and was not struck dead. He believed he had passed the test and received the Lady's blessing. Then he saw the truth.

Mallobaude did not die, but neither did he become a Grail Knight.

Instead, he received a revelation concerning the Lady of the Lake, the Knightly Code, and the very heart of Bretonnian chivalry. Somehow, rather than becoming a Grail Knight, Mallobaude had pierced the Lady's magic and discovered her true nature. Or perhaps madness had taken him, and his exposure to the misery of Mousillon had produced a fevered hallucination. Whatever the cause, Mallobaude believed what he saw to be the truth, and it was terrible.

Only his closest fellow conspirators knew what Mallobaude had seen when he drank from the Grail. It was horrifying enough that he rejected everything knightly and cursed even the Lady's name. Overcome with grief, he returned to Mousillon with his hopes in ruins, seeking only death in the Land of Despair. He did not find it. His sorrow became anger, and his anger hardened into hatred.

He had been lied to from birth, and worse, he had lived that lie. Yet he could still set matters right. By overthrowing the crown and abolishing the worship of the Lady of the Lake, he could undo the wrong inflicted upon Bretonnia. First, however, he needed an army and a dukedom of his own. Only then could he make a claim upon the throne. It was a plan of lunatic ambition, one that would make Mallobaude the first man to usurp the throne of Bretonnia. The dedication that had sustained his Grail Quest through despair was now turned towards a crusade against the Lady and the crown.

Mallobaude revealed his terrible vision to several nobles of Mousillon, and many joined him. Some shared his outrage at the lies imposed upon Bretonnia. Others were merely bitter and wicked men seeking revenge upon a realm that had made them outcasts. These nobles committed their resources to Mallobaude's first objective: claiming the title of Duke of Mousillon. Their forces would be needed both to repel any attack by the King and to retake the Ducal Palace by force.

The expedition succeeded, and Mallobaude walked as master through the halls where Maldred and Malfleur had met their doom.

Mallobaude's plan depended upon forging an alliance of often wicked and treacherous men and women through the force of his personality alone. Fortunately, his charisma and powers of persuasion rivalled those of any true Grail Knight. The “truth” he preached about Bretonnia was outlandish and difficult to believe, but he delivered it with such conviction that many who heard him accepted it completely.

He was gracious and generous to his allies, and even offered enemy nobles a single opportunity to join him. For many years, Mallobaude remained an exceptionally honour-bound knight. He had never ordered the execution of a fellow noble; instead, he allowed them to defend their lives in single combat. This was hardly a fair chance, for Mallobaude was among the most gifted warriors ever raised by Bretonnian chivalry, but the thought of slaughtering a noble like an animal remained abhorrent to him.

At his core, however, Mallobaude was utterly ruthless. He extended none of this comparative mercy to peasants or foreigners. Countless commoners, mercenaries, and foreign adventurers were executed at his command, or suffered worse fates. His belief in his cause was so absolute that he would send brave men, even nobles, to certain death if it advanced his purpose.

Though still bound by his personal conception of honour, Mallobaude had abandoned the Knightly Code entirely. Having rejected the Lady's grace and the King's authority, he felt no shame in such unchivalrous practices as employing mercenaries or blackpowder war machines.

More sinister still, devotion to his cause had eclipsed Mallobaude's sense of right and wrong. The walking dead were said to answer his call, and if the King invaded Mousillon, the living would march beside the dead in Mallobaude's army. Some nobles with whom he dealt bore the darkest reputations: Necromancers, witches, and even Vampires. Mallobaude courted them all, asking only whether they could help him achieve his purpose.

Mallobaude was rarely seen in Mousillon and appeared to possess no single base of operations. Instead, he attended the courts of the nobles who supported him, helping them recruit and deploy their forces while, it was whispered, ensuring their loyalty. He wore black plate armour from head to foot, earning the name Black Knight, and never raised his visor except among his fellow noble conspirators.

He was said to be handsome but intense, as ageless and inscrutable as a true Grail Knight. His deep, resonant voice could persuade a man to commit the most terrible acts. Mallobaude's heraldry was a golden serpent upon a field of black, displayed proudly on his shield and barding and upon those of the elite knights who formed his personal retinue.