Harken Zeiss (Bio)

==Apperance==
6'2", 170 lbs. Nut brown skin and dark, short-cropped hair. Also a large variety of crystal shards embedded in his front-side.
==Inventory==
The Rod of Seasons. Two touch-hole front-loaded slug pistols. A kick-ass looking monocle. A collection of Happy Masks and a few other magical items.
==Strengths & Abilities==
Harken Zeiss has a large collection of trinkets and odds and ends that can perform many different functions, from the mundane to the magical. For example: A monocle that fires Beamos lasers; two working firearms of Terminian make (something not yet invented in Hyrule); Happy Masks of varying use (Bomb Mask, Heart Mask, Bunny Hood, Stone Mask, Giant Mask). He also has something of a silver-tongue. The shards of magical crystal embedded in his body also allow him to use a variety of magical rotes, fueled by his own body's energies.
==Weaknesses==
Mr. Zeiss is getting on in age, and while it's not that bad, he does show the signs. He's also overly aggressive in obtaining things that catch his fancy, no matter what they are, and will fixate on the one thing until he owns it, no matter what the cost (though, of course, he does try to get everything as cheap as possible). The crystal shards embedded in his body cause him no shortage of pain and discomfort, and they drain his physical strength when he uses them to perform magic.
==Background==
Generations ago Termina was put under great threat by a magic far greater than anything anyone in the world had ever seen. A great cataclysm loomed in the very sky. The moon was falling. All to blame on a magical item known as Majora's Mask. A simple child rose to awaken the protectors of Termina: The Four Giants. With this brave boy's help, the Giants were able to avert this tragedy and save the world. How did a simple child pull off such a grand feat? Why, by the power of the Happy Masks, of course!
Or so goes the legend told in modern-day Termina, a truly steam-punk world after the years of advancement in clockwork. Technology is at a peak, and life could hardly be better for the denizens of Clock City. At least, that's the way it is now...
Such was not the fact of the city a year ago. The mob had the people of Termina locked in their steely grips. And at the top of the mob was one powerful man: Harken Zeiss. Every vice and pleasure was his at a word. Nothing was too expensive, or too outrageous. Earning his ire was a death sentence. The law could not touch him. All lived in fear of him. And then he set his eyes upon the fabled Happy Masks from legend, and this challenge proved to be worthy of his efforts to apprehend them. He spent a fortune on researches and expeditions and excavations. He grew crazily obsessed with having these infinitely rare items. He drove his people into the ground, all efforts focused on finding the Happy Masks.
And his efforts, slowly, paid off. To an extent. The price was higher than he had anticipated. Displeased with Harken Zeiss, who may have been a totalitarian criminal overlord, at least was pleasant company and cared for the well-being of people (as long as they continued to serve him and keep him in power), his own lieutenants plotted against him. They acted on the day the Mask of Truth was to be delivered. Instead of this very powerful artifact, which held the ability to read the minds of others when worn, the box contained the Bomb Mask, which was activated when Harken opened the shipment. The blast rendered him unconscious.
For half a year he was held under house arrest while his lieutenants ran the city and hoped that the reasonable man they once knew would return. It was in this time that he was able to seduce one of the female servants that served him his meals. They hatched a plan to break him free. She brought him the keys to the warehouses, and was able to manipulate the guards into not being posted one night. Together the two of them slipped into the warehouse, recovered all that they could carry of his things, and disappeared into the night, with grand schemes to strike back at the traitorous men who had imprisoned him.
Such was not to be the case. When it was learned that Zeiss had escaped, an immediate death sentence was placed on him. The lieutenants knew their former leader too well, and realized that he would intend to kill them and retake his role at the top. They liked the way the city was running, with a council in charge rather than a single man. And so Harken Zeiss was forced into Exile, for if his face was ever seen, recognized, by a Terminian, it would mean extermination.
Eventually he grew tired of this existence. Though he lived in comfortable extravagance still, due to all the items he had recovered from the vaults and his pretty little lover (or more to the point, willing servant), it was too boring. Nothing new ever happened, just the same day, one after the other. He couldn't seek out new items to acquire, new and more powerful artifacts to own and master. And so he packed his things and left the woman alone in what had been their home for many months. He was optimistic, and headed outward, into the forests, in search of a neighboring unmapped land which might offer new dalliances and people that he might subjugated. Back home, the woman cried herself into a sorrow-filled death, refusing to eat until the man she loved returned to her.
He never did.
Ironically, however, he tried. He was without someone to fetch him food and drink from the surrounding foliage, and was forced to fend for himself; something he had never had to do before. It made him miserable, and he turned back to fetch the girl and bring her to continue to serve him. Unfortunately for Harken Zeiss, he had stumbled into the Lost Woods of Termina, and could not find his way back. Every tree looked to the the same, and every path lead in circles. He continued on without destination for hours, and then days. He began to worry, for the first time in his life he felt true terror. Delusions started, he dreamed of off flashing lights, strange whispers in the dark, the sensation of falling, then rising, moving without walking.
When he woke he found that he had made his way through the forest, finally, and had arrived, at last, in a new land.
Having spent some time in Castle Town, Harken acted on the side of Hyrule during the First Defense of Castle Town. He managed to use his cane to destroy a quarter of the glacier threatening to crush the city, but in the process the cane was destroyed and its focusing crystal exploded into shrapnel which embedded itself in his body. This shrapnel, painful and uncomfortable, is starting to act a bit weird, though. He has spent the past day working with the survivors to clean the streets and reclaim the town, gaining their allegiance while fomenting unrest and possibly sowing the seeds of a populist revolt. This turned into the basis for his little guerilla army, which came to call itself Harken's Haunts. In the Battle of Castle Town, one of Harken's old compatriots, Tobias Pepperwhistle, made himself known, and together they managed to perform a Subjugation Rote on the berserker Darknut Taur Dagnir. Now, the three of them and the Haunts wage a hopeless battle against the other factions fighting over the ruins of Castle Town. For the past few weeks, they've all been readying themselves for an assault on Hyrule Castle, the base of operations for Penumbra and his Duskblooded Host.
==Season One Mini-Summary==
Having spent some time in Castle Town, Harken acted on the side of Hyrule during the First Defense of Castle Town. He managed to use his cane to destroy a quarter of the glacier threatening to crush the city, but in the process the cane was destroyed and its focusing crystal exploded into shrapnel which embedded itself in his body. This shrapnel, painful and uncomfortable, is starting to act a bit weird, though. He has spent the past day working with the survivors to clean the streets and reclaim the town, gaining their allegiance while fomenting unrest and possibly sowing the seeds of a populist revolt...
Category:Terminians
Category:IW Player Characters
Category:DrEvilGenius
Category:Harken Zeiss
Category:IWS3 Player Characters