Banes of Chaos

The Banes of Chaos are a triad of spiritual forms taken by the Chaos Serpent when disunified, each of great power and manifesting from one of the three Forces of Chaos. While not innately evil, these Banes become perverse corruptions of themselves when not balanced by their counterparts in Order, and given rampant freedom, are capable of wreaking the destructive havoc observed throughout their appearance in Ultima VII Part Two.

History
Order forces brought the Banes of Chaos into being by splintering the Chaos Serpent at the height of the Imbalance War, ensnaring them in specialized prisons housed in the counterposing Temples of Logic, Ethicality, and Discipline before departing Serpent Isle. The Banes remained therein for centuries, through the New Sosarian epoch, until Batlin's interference brought about their escape in the events shortly preceding the Avatar's arrival in the realm.

The Bane of Insanity
The Bane of Insanity embodies an inability to overcome emotional impulses with rational thought, and was imprisoned in the Temple of Logic. Insanity was the first Bane to be captured by Batlin, after his entourage slew a "beast of ice" in the tundras of the frozen north.

When Batlin fell to the Banes' subsequent escape, Insanity twisted Iolo to become Mad Iolo and descended upon Fawn, where he derided its citizens' idealistic worship of beauty. Laughing as he did so, the maniacal Daemon's Soul saw fit to besmirch the city with plague, famine, and vermin, while massacring nearly all inhabitants within. Spared from such a fate, however, were the hitherto estranged, disfigured Ruggs, and Lady Yelinda, whom Mad Iolo allowed to live but flayed by means of a sorcerous curse, taunting her that only the Avatar could "prove whether Beauty was skin deep." Leaving Fawn defiled, the Bane of Insanity retreated to the Castle of the White Dragon to reunite with his Chaotic brethren. 

The Bane of Anarchy
The Bane of Anarchy embodies a lack of standards of conduct, and was imprisoned in the Temple of Ethicality. Anarchy was captured second by Batlin's men, having possessed an unspecified entity who took refuge deep in the ancient city of Skullcrusher.

When Batlin was later overpowered and killed by the Banes, Shamino was quickly possessed and became the ruthless Shamino the Anarch. Preying upon the city of Moonshade, this glowing being usurped the position of MageLord and abolished all established law, carrying out arbitrary executions and leaving Adepts to turn against each other in the ensuing disorder. Having slaughtered all but a handful of remaining survivors and turned the Magister Fedabiblio to stone, Shamino the Anarch then found refuge with his two counterparts in the Castle of the White Dragon. 

The Bane of Wantonness
The Bane of Wantonness embodies action without self-restraint, and was imprisoned in the Temple of Discipline. It was the last to be trapped by Batlin, having eluded capture until well after the Avatar's appearance on Serpent Isle.

After the initial release from its temple confines, the Bane first seized Iolo's wayfaring wife, Gwenno, and drove her to ambush an encampment of the trapper Hazard's accomplices in the frozen north, swiftly dispatching most of them before those remaining were finally able to overcome her. Robbed of its host, the Daemon's Soul moved far south to Monitor, where it took hold of the teenage Cantra soon after the Avatar's arrival in the city. Beseeched by the young girl's distraught mother, Harnna, the hero was eventually able to track Cantra to Shamino's long-abandoned castle, where she had been cornered by Batlin. Before the Avatar could intervene, however, the sage murdered the girl and captured the Bane occupying her, before departing the grisly scene for the Shrine of Order.

When Batlin was later felled by the Banes' further escape, Dupre's form was commandeered and transformed into the reptilian Wantonness Bane. First turning to Monitor, he opened the city gates to its goblin scourge, enabling them to enter freely and butcher the populace. Wantonness then set upon the Inn of the Sleeping Bull and massacred all remaining occupants, before taking up residence in the Castle of the White Dragon with his two daemonic accomplices. 

Defeat and reunification
The Banes' brief but devastating rampage was quashed when the Avatar infiltrated the Castle of the White Dragon and struck down their vessels with the Black Sword, temporarily trapping the chaotic beings within the blade's vacant Ether Gem before a final transfer into three Soul Prisms. The hero then journeyed to the Shrine of Chaos deep within Skullcrusher to complete the reunification of the Chaos Serpent, joining the captive Banes with the balanced soul of self-immolated Dupre, and delivering the restored deity to the Ethereal Void through the opened Wall of Lights.

Trivia

 * The incantation the Avatar uses to reunify the Banes into the Chaos Serpent is, “In pri kli ort ailem, Priin ort inten mani,” which approximately translates to, “Create unity (of) three things, unify magic maintain life.”


 * The Banes' wholesale massacre of Serpent Isle's population is one of many design cutbacks enacted in order to meet the game's production deadline. Prior to this truncation, the three Banes were to have remained in each city, imposing twisted regimes of cruel and unusual punishment upon their new subjects, before being defeated by the Avatar. Several latent portions of this discarded plot remain in the final release's USECODE file.


 * There are three unused portraits for the Black Sword (seen below) contained in the game's FACES.VGA file, indicating that it may have originally been intended for conversations with the Banes to take place during their capture in the Ether Gem.