Skilgannon the Damned

Skilgannon the Damned is a fantasy character, created by the author David Gemmell.

Skilgannon the Damned

Skilgannon is character created by David Gemmell. He is the main character in Damned series of books White Wolf and The Swords of Night and Day.

His proper name is Olek Skilgannon, though he is known largely by his surname.

He is a Naashanite swordsman who wields the Swords of Night and Day. The blades are possessed by demonic entities and were forged in imitation of the Swords of Blood and Fire.

The title of The Damned is given to Skilgannon after the massacre he led at the city of Perapolis, butchering the entire population in the name of his love, Jianna, the Witch Queen. Skilgannon cannot stay loyal to Jianna after this, and leaves her and all the riches and power he had as a General of the Naashanite army. He also leaves because he loves her, and she him, but he knows she could never form an open relationship with him because she uses her beauty, and her body to create allies. Jianna could not accept Skilgannon's leaving her especially with the swords of Night and Day, even if she loved him deeply, and so she sends one of her lovers to reclaim the swords and whether under Jianna's instructions or not he then attempts to kill Skilgannon. The assassination attempt fails and he and his men are slaughtered single-handedly by The Damned. Skilgannon continues on his way, and eventually joins a monastery.

Skilgannon ends up as a priest called Brother Lantern who follows the way of the Source of all things. In the town he serves in, a government appointed official, called an arbiter, starts to stir up a mob to attack foreign town members and the priests. When the mob stabs the Abbot, Skillgannon is unable to contain his murderous rage and disembowels the leader, scaring off all others. He also forfeits his priesthood and is forced to leave the city.

Skilgannon is instructed to take a fellow priest with him to the main temple in the capital city youth, whom played some part in the trouble in the city, to a nearby city named Mellicane. On his travels he comes across a town being slaughtered by Joinings (later called Jiamads) These half beast-half man, Creatures are held at bay by Skillgannon's swift defence, and tactical skills.

Skilgannon meets Druss and aids him in his travels. It turns out that Druss seeks to kill the man who has been Skilgannon's main enemy in the past and so they travel together. Druss influences Skilgannon greatly although he does not realise this until much later.

Skilgannon's death is mentioned in The Swords of Night and Day. The great Zharn king Bakila had threatened to overrun Angostin. Leading a coalition army, Skilgannon had repelled the Zharn attack. Bakila turned his army against other nations in the coalition, and extinguished them one by one. Eight years later Bakila invaded Angostin again. Faced with impossible odds, Skilgannon had led a suicidal charge at the Zharn king, and died moments after killing Bakila. Skilgannon had been 54 years old.

In The Swords of Night and Day Skilgannon is resurrected as a young man, a thousand years after his death, to help overthrow Jianna who has returned and is ruling over the lands as a tyrant known as the Eternal.

Family
There is little mentioned directly of Skilgannon's family, except that his father, Decado (Fire-Fist), was a Mercenary general. There is also a family tradition that all males are named either Decado or Olek, alternating at each generation. When Skilgannon's young wife Dayan had died, he had sought out the lost Temple of Resurrection, even though he had not truly loved her. More than anything, it was to ease his own conscience.

At the end of White Wolf, the Joining Priestess Ustarte says that Garrianne (an insane woman who uses Waylander's crossbow) is pregnant with Skilgannon's child. Garianne decides to follow the naming tradition of Skilgannon's family and so calls their child Decado.

The next mention of this appears in The Swords of Night and Day, when Skilgannon is told that he had a child by Garianne, who had never told him. A later descendent of Skilgannon was called Decado, also known as 'The Ice Killer' (He was Skilgannon's great grandson). This Decado was part of an elite group of warriors known as the Dragon but after their disbandment wandered looking for a worthy opponent and on finding none joined the legendary The Thirty who were warriors priests of the Source and destined to all die in the same battle.

In The Swords of Night and Day it is revealed that Jianna's lover and general, Decado, is the reincarnation of Decado 'the Ice Killer', a descendant of Skilgannon and perhaps one of the few people to ever exceed his skills with the blade. This is revealed to the reader when Skilgannon realizes during a duel with Decado that he could have been killed on a number of occasions but Decado had held back.

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