Darius sends a secret message in ancient runes to MacLeod in Seacouver, Washington asking him to protect Victor Paulus, another protégé of his, from Grayson.

MacLeod tells Richie Ryan (Stan Kirsch) Darius' legend: two thousand years old, an ancient general and Grayson was his second-in-command.

However, a deleted line from the script has MacLeod say: "Maybe what the Old One told him finally made sense to Darius",[3] suggesting an intellectual realization of the horrors of war rather than the overwhelming positive power of the holy man's Quickening.

MacLeod is eager to get back to fight, but Darius vehemently tries to show him the worth of human life and the futility of war.

Later, MacLeod in turn visits Darius for a game of chess, and suspects what happened when Inspector LeBrun comes in to investigate the murders and mentions poison gas.

In the following episode, "The Beast Below" (1993), MacLeod is searching for Immortal Ursa (Christian Van Acker) and visits Darius for help.

Grace is harassed by Immortal Carlo Sendaro (Georges Corraface), who has stalked her ever since she left him decades ago.

At the beginning of the episode, MacLeod mentions to fellow Immortal Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey) that Darius has premonitory dreams about his own death.

He meets their leader, renegade Watcher James Horton (Peter Hudson), who believes all Immortals to be threats to mankind and considers Darius "a malignant evil that has walked this earth in the form of a man for the last two thousand years.

After setting Fitzcairn free, they return to the barge and along with Tessa and Richie scatter Darius' ashes in the Seine River while MacLeod says, "Fifteen hundred years ago, you led an army of barbarians to the gates of Paris.

You disbanded your army, and spared the city, but you broke a promise to yourself - to march west from the Ural mountains until you'd reached the sea.

A clue written by Darius on the old book hidden in the rectory leads MacLeod to a bookshop in which Joe Dawson (Jim Byrnes) works.

"[8] Dawson cannot believe the existence of the Hunters, a group of rogue Watchers dedicated to killing all Immortals: "We would have never hurt Darius.

MacLeod returns to Seacouver from Sudan, where for nearly three months he has been helping Darius' protégé, Victor Paulus and his lover, Immortal Cynthia VanDervane.

In Highlander: The Series, Darius is portrayed as tall and thin and always wearing "a rough Franciscan-like robe with a cowl".

[9] The Watcher Chronicles - a collection of character profiles available as a CD-ROM and as bonus material of the Highlander: The Series DVD edition - describes him as "not the oldest or strongest, [but], perhaps, the wisest.

"[2] As a general of Late Antiquity, he is described as selfish, manipulative and cynical, a skilled commander and an accomplished strategist.

"[11] In Shadow of Obsession, Joe Dawson states, "All the reports mention the sense of sanctity, the aura of peace that surrounded him.

"[4] He is actively involved in promoting and maintaining peace, "preaching his message to those who would become the peacemakers of their own generations,"[1] such as Victor Paulus.

[2] To help mankind to fight violence, he has studied Buddhism and Hinduism[5] and is now a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Brothers of the Poor.

Executive Producer Bill Panzer explains, "Duncan MacLeod needed somebody to talk to, who was Immortal, who was significantly older than he was, and with whom he had some kind of epiphany-like experience in the past.

[13] Creative Consultant David Abramowitz recounts, "We wanted to create a character who was once a warrior, who gave up warfare because he realized there were other things in life.

"[14] The script of "Band of Brothers" describes Darius as a monk with a "hideously ugly face",[9] but when the producers cast the part, they chose German actor Werner Stocker, who did not fit this description.

Abramowitz explains, "Darius, originally in the script, was written as almost to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, to be physically ugly and with a glorious soul.

"[15] Panzer comments on Stocker's performance as Darius, "He had a kind of tranquility, but yet you believed that he could have been a great and brutal warrior.

"[16] She explains, "The arrival of Darius, aside from bringing in a great character, represented the first time that someone questioned the basic premise of the show.

"[21] The season 1 promotional booklet recounts, "Just days before going into production [of "The Hunters"] actor Werner Stocker was stricken ill and was unable to work.

"[17] Abramowitz recalls, "I got a call at three o'clock in the morning, saying Werner would not be available, we were shooting in a day and a half, and there was fear if we were going to have to shut down.

[24][25] The consequences of those unexpected events are described in the promotional booklet : "The season finale went on to mark a huge shift in the Highlander saga, forever altering the future of the series with the introduction of "Hunters" and "Watchers".

This, Horvath explains, led the creative staff "to create wise, advisor-type characters to fill the void in MacLeod's life left by the death of Darius.