Brennen of Alara

"Look straight at the people you kill; don't take your eyes off them for a second. And don't ever forget them because they won't forget you. Ones who kill are always chased by death, always living alongside death… work that risks one’s soul is truly beautiful!"
-Brennen of Alara
== History ==
"Playing God is indeed playing with fire. But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus, the patron saint of dangerous discoveries. We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown. The Titan Prometheus wanted to give mankind equal footing with the gods — for that he was cast from Olympus. Well my friends, the time has finally come for his return."
-Brennen of Alara
Brennen was born in the distant land - possibly on another plane - of Alara. Brennen rose from obscurity when he allied with Raolin to found the Band of the Raven, a mercenary company. The company campaigned throughout the planes of existence, working for the highest bidder and acquiring a reputation for treachery and brutality. Throughout the land, he was simply known as Brennen the Pyromancer. Brennen departed from the Band of the Raven to pursue his own arcane research. At that point, he disappeared for a time from the annals of history, before resurfacing in Celymnaia. There he adventured for a time, before joining a military police force and rising to the rank of sergeant. There he won a reputation for cruelty and a willingness to obey any order, until he poisoned his commanding officer, and was killed in a standout within the guardhouse. After the rise of Lothaire Parvaiz, he was resurrected and commanded to do the bidding of the Druid Emperor, at which point he disappeared from history again. He died sometime thereafter, and was counted among the heroic spirits on Tir na Og. He was resurrected by Silvius, and helped him in his rebellion against Nim Lawfey. There, Brennen once again acquired a reputation for a callous disregard for human life. He created many constructs and machines of war, commanded troops on the battlefield, and set fire to the city of Emperor’s Tooth, killing everyone who lived there. During the rebellion, Brennen commanded the 2nd Company in Farcraft's forces, which became known as the "Phoenix Blacks." Black, for their uniforms, and Phoenix because of Brennen's nickname and their high casualty rate; the highest of all Farcraft's companies. It was joked that in every battle the 2nd Company would die, and rise again from the ashes. Some officers in the Phoenix Blacks would serve with Brennen for a long period of time, including Vockers, his Equerry, who would go on to become a Brigadier General in the Northern Imperial Army. 
Alongside Vitreous Vrinn and a task force of mages, Brennen helped repair the throne in Thunderdome, before taking his men north to the great domed city in the arctic, claiming the throne there. Called Xiclotl by the local inhabitants, Brennen colonized the city and descended into the subterranean city of Thule, where he found the Silver Key, the Pallid Mask, and the Hyperborean Maiden. He has turned it into a scientific and arcane research facility, where he can create terrible constructs and dread spells undisturbed. Brennen was crucial in the repair of the Southern Throne, and it was he who recognized that the Thunderdome was one half of a larger spacecraft, with a second throne completing a larger whole. 
Shortly after establishing the Northern Final Empire, Brennen would instigate the eruption of Mt. Voormithadreth, laying waste to the forest of the Serpentfolk, killing most of them and driving the others into exile. The fires he set were so hot that they turned the trees to stone. Silvius would late humorously refer to the incident as the "Great Accident." In reality, Silvius had been afraid of the implication that the serpent bound to his soul had worshipers and descendants, and asked Brennen to kill them. Brennen issued a rare complaint, saying that Silvius wanted to appear morally clean before the world and to shift his butcher's work to the consummate butcher, Brennen. Brennen stated that he was at peace with his identity as a destroyer, but that he had chosen his path of his own free will, and resented Silvius' hypocrisy. Silvius granted that Brennen might have a legitimate grievance, but that he owed him that and much more for what he had done to Amber. Brennen acquiesced to his request. 
After his resurrection, Brennen set up a shrine to the god Arawn, who was responsible for releasing his soul from the Islands of the Blessed. He considered the god to be a patron of sorts, to whom he apologized for his necromantic acts. He consigned countless slain foes to the death god. 
In Thule, Brennen found a degenerate descendant of the Hyperboreans. He learns much about Thule and the Hyperboreans from her. At a point, he believed she is holding back from him, and employs torture. He is unsuccessful, and something in her gaze convinces him to stop. He resolves to kill her, for he quite rightly fears the implications of freeing her. Nonetheless, he never quite gets around to it. He eventually starts confiding his secrets and plans to her. 
Using her lore, Brennen was able to reconstruct a Shoggoth.  
Brennen would attend the wedding of Rick of Aglazdere and Triniana of Windemere, which was his first appearance in the outside world. After the wedding, he would put on a pyrotechnics show, awing spectators by bringing Aglazderian stories to fiery life in the night sky. Brennen would latter host the Northern Arcane Symposium in the Northern Dome, inviting mages from Nadezhda and Arendur to attend and discuss a possible alliance to foster the progress of arcane magic. These discussions would prove fruitless, for all three nations were already planning for war, and had no intention to share their secrets with one another. 
== Dialogues with the Hyperborean Maiden ==
"In Thule, I came across a strange creature. She had the form of a woman, but with hooved, hairy goat legs, scaled, serpent-like arms with long claws, and wispy feathers on her upper arm. She had a greenish hue and long black hair, with sunken, staring eyes and extensive scars on her face. 
In all other respects she could be mistaken for a short human woman, or perhaps a gnome. She spoke a garbled language that I took to be Deep Speech, but I later learned to be an ancient tongue called Aklo, spoken by the Hyperboreans who once ruled this land. The creature would later claim to me that her language was taught to her kind by their gods. I did speak with her, at first telepathically, and later in Common, which she learned quickly. She did not tell me her name, but my men began calling her the Hyperborean Maiden. She was evasive, but in an arbitrary way. Many of my dialogues, which I wrote down after conducting them, took the form of long, meandering stories. At other times, she would fail to understand simple questions. I quickly grew fed up with her reticence, and resorted to torture. She had astounding regenerative capacities which I tested to their limits. My torments did not loosen her tongue, and so I resolved to kill her and dissect her remains. Yet something stopped me. She had been totally silent during the torture, screaming involuntarily but never pleading with me. I told her that unlike the fire, the killing word wouldn’t hurt at all. It is indicative of her hold on me that I even bothered explaining myself to her, as if I was apologizing when in reality I had nothing to apologize for. Something in her silent gaze kept me completely paralyzed. I found myself telling her that I would spare her for one day if she could tell me a story, any story at all, so long as it kept my attention.
I was enraptured. I heard her tale, and spared her for a day.  I moved her cage from the laboratory to my quarters, and swore to her that she would kill her the next day unless she could come up with another story, and this cycle repeated itself for thirty years. She never answered my pointed questions, but after a while, I stopped asking them. If I learned anything from the Maiden, it was that the cosmos would open up to me, if only I held my tongue and listened."
-Brennen of Alara
=== Thule ===
“Was there only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of others?”
-The Maiden
“This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask.”
-The Maiden
By a route obscure and lonely,   
Haunted by ill angels only, 
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,   
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly   
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
  	Out of SPACE—Out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,   ''
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,   
With forms that no man can discover   
For the tears that drip all over;   
Mountains toppling evermore   
Into seas without a shore;   
Seas that restlessly aspire,   
Surging, unto skies of fire;   
Lakes that endlessly outspread   
Their lone waters—lone and dead,—   
Their still waters—still and chilly   
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread''
Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,—
By the mountains—near the river   
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—   
By the grey woods,—by the swamp   
Where the toad and the newt encamp,—   
By the dismal tarns and pools
  Where dwell the Ghouls,—   
By each spot the most unholy—   
In each nook most melancholy,—   
There the traveller meets, aghast,   
Sheeted Memories of the Past—   
Shrouded forms that start and sigh   
As they pass the wanderer by—   
White-robed forms of friends long given,   
In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion   ''
’T is a peaceful, soothing region—   
For the spirit that walks in shadow   
’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,   
May not—dare not openly view it;   
Never its mysteries are exposed   
To the weak human eye unclosed;   
So wills its King, who hath forbid   
The uplifting of the fring'd lid;   
And thus the sad Soul that here passes   
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,   ''
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,   
I have wandered home but newly   
From this ultimate dim Thule.
-The Maiden
=== Hastur ===
“According to some sources, Hastur would not be a conscious entity, but a pure force of Entropy, a cosmic principle that opposes order and normality and incorporates cosmic destruction, pure and simple. This ‘Destruction of the Order’ would manifest itself at all levels from the subatomic to the cosmic, with an influence that spans all levels of reality. God would represent the complete anathema of creation, it would be a chaotic force contrary to the cosmic germinative principle. He is the unspeakable destruction, the one who annihilates all things from the inside out, acting subtly, like a cancer dedicated only to erode the constitutive matter of creation. In his presence, nothing could exist, in the face of his abyssal darkness, everything would be deterioration and corruption without return.”
-The Maiden
“For all intents and purposes, Hastur is an unpredictable entity whose potency and breadth can not be contextualized by the fragile human minds. However, there are those who crawl before him, seeking his favors, and who submit to him, finding as reward only oblivion.”
-The Maiden
“Cultists of the Yellow Sign tend to have an artistic temperament and to view their horrible master, the King in Yellow, as the ultimate performance artist. They see the destruction and havoc he wreaks as a great display, and in a sense, they are absolutely correct. Of course, only the cultists are fully able to appreciate the king’s creativity. The cult also reveres Hastur to varying extents, but the cultists are never clear on the relationship between the two entities.”
-The Maiden
=== The War of the Philosopher-Kings ===
“They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud."
-The Maiden
"What is there to be said of the War of the Philosopher-Kings? It was not so much as a tragedy as it was a waste. It was not the real war. What do I mean when I say this? The war was inevitable as soon as the Philosopher-Kings disagreed about how to conduct the Long War."
-Brennen of Alara
=== The Long War ===
"The Long War is an idea that has sprung up in multiple places. In Nadezhda, it is called the War to End War Itself. The Aglazderians were more vague, and called it Project Republic. The northerners have a good word for it - Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. It was the Arendurians who started calling it the Long War, and it was they who are its most fervent advocates. Simply put, the Long War starts with the premise that mankind and the gods cannot coexist. The myth of the titan Cronus swallowing his sons is appropriate here. Either we will be devoured by our forebearers, or we, like Zeus, will turn upon our progenitors. In practice, an adherent of the Long War believes that humanity must create god-killing weapons and use them to storm the heavens. Only then, such an adherent would say, can mankind build a world in its own image.
As far as I know, only one mortal has ever killed one of the Great Old Ones. During the so-called “Demon Wars” twenty years ago, King Bolgar of Ragnarok - wielding the Black Blade of Disaster - slew the god O’Rangus on Ascension Isle. Bolgar was working in concert with his old enemy, Emperor Tolumvire of Arendur, who lured the deity out from hiding with false promises. Tolumvire bestowed the epithet of “Godhunter,” upon King Bolgar, and pleaded with him to take the essence of the slain god and ascend to immortality. Bolgar refused, and Tolumvire used the essence of the slain god to ascend and become a demon lord, faking his own death in the bargain. I believe that if the Long War is to happen, it will begin when another hero slays a Great Old One and becomes the new Godhunter. It is my mission to find the Godhunter and arm him with god-slaying weapons, just as Tolumvire paved the war for Bolgar, twenty years ago..."
-Brennen of Alara
“A hero unbound by time, overcoming the enemies before him and hunting his gods... the Godhunter continues his journey for revenge...”
-The Maiden
=== The Modern Prometheus ===
“Playing God is indeed playing with fire. But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus, the patron saint of dangerous discoveries. We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown. The Titan Prometheus wanted to give mankind equal footing with the gods — for that he was cast from Olympus. Well Brennen, the time has finally come for his return."
-The Maiden
“In an hour of Darkness a blind man is the best guide. In an age of Insanity look to the madman to show the way.”
-The Maiden
=== The Shoggoth ===
“Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes - viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile - slaves of suggestion, builders of cities - more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great Gods! What madness made us willing to use and carve such things?”
-The Maiden
"The same madness leads me to believe that I can - with the help of the Hyperborean Maiden - learn those ancient techniques by which her kind used and carved such things. The Shoggoths rebelled against the gods once before... they will be the vanguard of a great new army...
It grows. Not long ago, I was attending to the creature, and I happened to catch its gaze. For the first time, there was a hideous, primal reflection in its eyes. What is the line about staring into the abyss... about the abyss staring back? I was assailed by horror as for one, indelible moment, I realized the monumental folly I had undertaken. The feeling left as soon as it came.
The Burning of Utgard was fruitful. The captured giants have made fine kindling for Life’s Flame; It will burn bright for decades to come. But more importantly, I have gotten my hands on Nadezhda’s cache of slave collars. I had no idea they were there. When Abi Eodauga executes a mage, he sends the collars to a vault in the castle of his ally, King Ymir. When he needs to collar another mage, he calls for the giants to send him back as many collars as he needs. I have made from these collars a net of chains to encircle the Shoggoth, and I pray - mark my words, I am not a man who prays often - that it will keep it at bay for some time to come."
-Brennen of Alara
=== The Silver Key ===
“The Hyperboreans here, centuries ago, had created a tool for our own undoing: an instrument we called the Silver Key. It had many powers—more than we’d guessed when we made it, far more than we know even now—and somehow, in using it, we had let the King in Yellow into our world.” 
-The Maiden
“It’s the knife that will cut anything. Not even its makers knew what it could do. Nothing, no one, matter, spirit, angel, air—nothing is invulnerable to the Silver Key.” 
-The Maiden
“We dared to do what men and women don't even dare to think. And look what we’ve done already: we’ve torn open the sky, we’ve opened the way to another world. Who else has ever done that? Who else could think of it?”
-The Maiden
"The Hyperboreans used the Silver Key to try and return home, to Carcosa from whence they fled... thereby they brought their doom. They beckoned their god. It’s a twist of fate, isn’t it, that I will use the Silver Key to avenge them? I have stolen fire from the gods. I will cut open the Wild Abyss. I will open the portal, and storm the heavens."
-Brennen
=== The Wild Abyss ===
“Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Unspeakable One them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary King/ Stood on the brink of Thule and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.”
-The Maiden
"It leads to Carcosa. 
It’s simple, really. The Northern Throne is - scientifically speaking, if I may be so bold as to speak scientifically in these matters where reason fails us - a power source. It “powers” the Wild Abyss. And the Silver Key can open it again. 
I’m running out of time. Franz Forrawyn and the Hexenjägers are coming. I don’t want to do battle with them. I have a far grander purpose in mind for them. I never thought opening the Wild Abyss would be simple, but I have been humbled. The Silver Key was not enough. The Northern Throne does a fine job of keeping it shut, but that’s a one way street. 
The Wild Abyss calls for a sacrifice. 
The Wild Abyss is a furnace, calling for kindling. 
I thought I could cheat the Wild Abyss, to imbibe Life’s Flame and burn forever like a phoenix. I thought I could open the Wild Abyss on the cheap, because you see, I am immortal and can sacrifice myself as many times as please. But the Wild Abyss will not be trifled with. It will not be opened at a bargain price. It demands the occupant of the Throne. I could not give the Wild Abyss a true death even if I wanted to. And I do not want to. 
The Hexenjägers must be brought around to my way of thinking. They made common cause with Abi Eodauga against the White Silence; they can do it again. They will be my soldiers for the Long War, they will storm the heavens with me. Prometheus was content to steal fire from the gods, but I am the modern Prometheus and I will use the fire to raze Olympus to the ground. If the Hexenjägers hated the White Silence, they can work with me to destroy a hundred White Silences. With me, they can kill the gods. Franz Forrawyn will be my Godhunter... surely he hates the War of the Philosopher-Kings as much as I do..."
-Brennen of Alara
== Personality ==
"Brennen was known during the War of the Philosopher-Kings as a strangely quiet figure. A man who stood in the rear, contemplating everything around himself without comment upon it. Most knew him as a recluse whom rarely passed on judgement or praise. Unlike a few of the Philosopher-Kings, especially his fellow emperor Silvius, he was not seen in the public sphere often. His words were not echoed throughout Final Empire in grand speeches to stir them to action. This contrasted with his active personality during a military campaign. Whenever his feet stepped onto the battlefield, the voice of Brennen would boom out orders as one would pound a drum. He acted decisively, without hesitation as any monarch should. But as soon as the combat concluded, he would return to his silent state. Watching all, observant of all.
A deep shame was held inside of Brennen. It was his love of destruction. Breaking apart his opponents, destroying all that they were brought him an unnatural delight. His strategic mind was focused upon it, his tactics revolved around it. The absolute annihilation of his foes was a fascination that brought him inner turmoil. His passion for it was a long fought battle that he kept largely to himself, and it fueled his efforts in other areas. Such as his private writings, or the organization of the Northern Imperial Army, or the domination of the realms brought into the Imperial fold. Only his closest associates ever knew that intensity that raged within him. The calm scholar contrasted with the pyromaniac."
-Observations of Vitreous Vrinn
Those who knew Brennen as a young man regarded him as smug, cruel, and treacherous, albeit unfailingly polite. As he grew older, he put on a great show of being a gentlemanly soldier. He remained unmoved by suffering and seemed not to even notice it. He lacked a moral compass and any sense of lasting loyalty, drifting from place to place, killing anyone who stood in his way. The darkness in his soul came from an obsession with fire. Some observed that though he was a sorcerer, he had not mastered fire - fire had mastered him. To burn people alive seemed to delight him; to animate him. Other observers dismissed the idea that there was any substantive or interesting dimension to Brennen; at core, they said, he was just a psychopath. 
In rare moments of disclosure, Brennen would describe himself as a modern Prometheus, destined to steal fire from the gods and forge a new race of men from clay. Like Prometheus, he believed that great suffering lay in store for him, and after sharing these thoughts would either grow melancholy or laugh them off. 
Many of Brennen's contemporaries derisively considered him the least charismatic of the Philosopher-Kings, and even amongst his people he was known as recluse. He was only recorded as having given one public address, at the opening of the War of the Philosopher-Kings. 
Brennen had an interest in the breeding and training of animals, particularly dogs and horses. He wrote several tracts on the subject, which were published posthumously. His contemporaries often wondered whether the Phoenix Emperor had worked with animals as a child, although he seemed far too educated to have been some kind of farm boy. 
The only Philosopher-King to have been a professional soldier, Brennen was a physically robust man who retained great strength even into his old age, and enjoyed sparring with the troops under his command. 
== Address to the Northern Imperial Army at the Eve of the War of the Philosopher-Kings ==
"For twenty-seven years the Final Empire has rebelled against the branding of war as antiaesthetic... Accordingly we state... War is beautiful because it establishes man's dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical formation flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages, and many others... soldiers of the Final Empire!... remember these principles of an aesthetics of war so that the struggle for the city in speech... may be illumined by them!"
-Brennan of Alara
== Leadership Style ==
"He was a man who saw fighting only in terms of the utmost brutality. His way of thinking conformed more to a mental picture of masses of the enemy bleeding to death before our lines than to the conception of a subtle fencer who knows how to make an occasional step backwards in order to lunge for the decisive thrust. For the art of war he substituted a brutal force which, as he saw it, was guaranteed maximum effectiveness by the will-power behind it.... Despite the pains Brennen took to stress his own former status as a frontline soldier, I still never had the feeling that his heart belonged to the fighting troops. Losses, as far as he was concerned, were merely figures which reduced fighting power. They are unlikely to have seriously disturbed him as a human being."
-Assessment by Warrizek of Sarindel
Brennen was a distant and reserved monarch, preferring to delegate mundane tasks to others. His attention to tasks was mercurial at best. At times, he would throw himself upon a project with manic focus, especially when it involved his twin passions, soul gem research and golemcraft. He was also capable of malaise and apathy, and would abandon his duties out of boredom. He often mused about leaving his monarchy, but stayed on as Twin-Emperor largely due to the resources it brought him. All too often, his aides would have to do a great deal of legwork in his absence, and cajole and plead with him to retain his interest in affairs. Generally, he allowed his two top aides, General Warrizek and the mage Dar Qhoris, to make decisions by themselves, acting as a tie-breaker only when it was required of him. Any attempt by the two to involve him in their disagreements angered him, and he often berated them for failing to negotiate and compromise with one another. 
As a war leader, Brennen was ferocious and wantonly destructive. He was disinterred in the human factor, ignoring his own forces and focusing on the deployment of his arcane constructs and in the wholesale slaughter of the enemy. Altogether, he saw his role as monarch in terms of magical research and implementation, not the supervision of people. Given his great propensity for violence, it was often said that the kindest thing he ever did for his people was to not care about them. 
== Feats of Magic ==
"This world, the same for all, neither any of the gods nor any man has made, but it always was, and is, and shall be, an ever living fire, kindled in due measure, and in due measure extinguished. All things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things, just as wares for gold and gold for wares. Fire lives in the death of earth, air lives in the death of fire, water lives in the death of air, and earth in the death of water. Fire coming upon all things, will sift and seize them." 
-Brennen of Alara
A formidable sorcerer even amongst the ranks of the Philosopher-Kings, Brennen was sometimes misunderstood as an unimaginative war mage, obsessed only with mastery of fire. Such thinking represented an error. That he was a terror on the battlefield was true, but Brennen's true interests lay in research and craft. He was a master craftsman and golem-forger, second only to Rick of Aglazdere in his knowledge of the sciences. His research on the nature of the soul was thorough and profound, and his inventiveness with spells undeniably ingenious. Carnage to him was merely a demonstration of his knowledge; a performative act.
* Perhaps the greatest invention he was known for was his grim discovery of a process by which a spell scroll could be branded upon skin, allowing him to store a vast repertoire of magic upon his flesh. 
* Working with Vitreous Vrinn, he was able to rediscover the lost of art of creating flight crystals. 
* Working with Vitreous Vrinn, he was able to harness flight crystals to power a fleet of naval ships of his own design. 
* Working alongside Silvius, he was able to repair one of the broken Twin Thrones.
* Working alongside Silvius and using the Twin Thrones, he was able to repair the entirety of a broken timeline, fusing it with a severed past.
* After stealing some of the fire of Mt. Voormithadreth, Brennen tapped into a well of power that he called Life's Flame, a fire fueled by the life force of living beings.
* After sitting on the Twin Thrones, Brennen was able to weaponize Life's Flame, creating a horrific fire which poisoned all it touched.
* After sitting on the Twin Thrones, Brennen was imbibed a portion of Life's Flame, bestowing on himself a corrupted Phoenix-like ability to return to life from ash. His resurrection was powerful enough to bring him back after being stabbed by a weaker Deishorak (the so-called "Twisted Fang"), and to keep him from being fully devoured by the Shoggoth. 
* Using the Silver Key, he was able to partially open the Wild Abyss, but never fully opened the portal, as to do so would have required him to sacrifice himself. 
* Using the lore of the Hyperboreans, he was able to bring a Shoggoth to life. 
== War of the Philosopher-Kings ==
"They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud. All thrones should be made of ice, I think. Sit on that numb arse, sinking down and down, with the puddle of dissolution getting ever wider around you. Sit, dear ruler, and tell me all your grand designs.”
-Brennen of Alara 
Brennen would lead troops from the Final Empire in an attack on the Republic of New Arendur, so that he might seize the artifacts and arcane research that lay there. The attack would be ultimately unsuccessful, but Brennen would duel the demon lord Tolumvire, and banish him to the Abyss. Though he held the upper hand, he would deem the price of victory too steep to press on. Brennen would go on to war with the Kingdom of Jotunheim, killing King Ymir and his giants, and seizing the city of Utgard, giving the Final Empire a foothold in the north. When King Raine attacks Guilddon, Franz Forrawyn of the Reich Nördlich retaliates by leading his army on a dangerous seaborne attack. Forrawyn and the Hexenjägers storm the Northern Dome, intent on destroying the throne. Brennen immolates himself on the throne, killing all the Hexenjägers. In doing so, he rids the north of its premier mage-killers, and preserves both his research and the throne itself. There were those in the former imperial army, however, who whispered that Brennen had prepared contingencies for the event of his death. The truth of these rumors has yet to be tested. 
The truth was more complicated. When Franz Forrawyn confronted Brennen in the Dome, he explained the Dream to him. He presented Forrawyn with two choices. 
* Join forces to enter the Dream and make war with the gods.
* Live in a false world; like shadows on a wall. 
Forrawyn choose the last option; a false, peaceful dream free from war and magic. Brennen set himself alight in response, to try and open the Wild Abyss. He had done all he could by himself and driven himself mad doing so. But it was not to be. Brennen had imbibed Life's Fire, and could not die - and so he consumed them all in his fires, and drew them into the Nightmare.  
== Nightmare of Brennen ==
“I don’t think humanity is noble. Not in the least. It’s not just or fair on an intrinsic level. It’s not even good. Do morals matter, if our alternative is a grim and hopeless end? On this violent, brutish little planet of ours, it’s the survivors who wind up the strongest ones of all.”
-Brennen of Alara
The psychic reverberations of Brennen's rage and despair inadvertently created a transient realm within the slowly collapsing Dreamlands termed the Nightmare of Brennen, in which his undying spirit, the Shoggoth, and the spirits of Franz Forrawyn and the slain Hexenjägers reside, doomed to do endless battle in a wintry hellscape. The Hexenjägers cannot die, for they are already dead in the waking world. Brennen himself is being eternally devoured by the Shoggoth, which cannot destroy him entirely due to the power of the Life's Flame. 
Brennen would meet his end at the hands of the Third Northern Expedition. The three would confront his tortured form in the Northern Dome. Brennen possessed enough awareness to see that Venom Tilani wielded a god-killing blade, and enough cruelty to keep her at bay and stoke her futility while he began to devour Mark Patenaude and Hugo Hawkins. In a stroke of overconfidence, Brennen began to try and drag Tilani into the Shoggoth's bulk so that he could devour her. Tilani chose not to resist, and from within the creature, drove the Human Effigy through Brennen's head, killing him permanently. His spirit would pass on to the afterlife. 
== Aftermath ==
"Why must everyone make such a fuss over the death of a single soldier? The moment a soldier dons his uniform, he accepts the reality that he might be buried in it."
-Brennen of Alara
Brennen would often be mixed up with the King in Yellow in the years to come. Worse still, his Life's Flame would spawn a horrific entity known as the Living Flame, which fought on the side of the gods during the Long War. 
Brennen's legacy would live on in the deeds of one of his killers, Mark Patenaude, the Godhunter, who carried out his vision and carried an enchanted shield emblazoned with the black phoenix and flame sigil. 
== Legacy (Beyond Good and Evil) ==
"The current rampages of territorial-emotional pugnacity sweeping this planet are not just another civilization failing … They are the birth-pangs of a cosmic Prometheus rising out of the long nightmare of domesticated primate history. The phoenix must burn to emerge."
-Brennen of Alara
Brennen earned himself the dubious distinction of being perhaps the most obscure Philosopher-King. His greatest and most terrible deeds were performed long before his eventual resurrection on the peak of Tir na Og, before living memory. In the Final Empire itself, the scars of the civil war were branded on the psyches of the descendants of the thousands he consigned to the flames. Beyond his country's borders, he was often relegated to Silvius' shadow, or somehow conceived of as a vassal or a provincial governor - an impression Silvius did nothing to dispel. In truth, the secretive and spotlight-averse scholar-monarch was comfortable with this state of affairs. In the north, where Brennen was better known, he was a dark and fearsome figure, the sorcerer-king who climbed Mt. Voormithadreth to unearth the secrets of the Hyperboreans, displaced the serpentfolk from their ancestral home, brought New Arendur to its knees, massacred the giants, and turned the Hexenjägers into ash. Even after his death, the people of the Reich speak his name with distaste and fear.
Brennen's half-frozen skeleton sat on the Northern Throne for half a century before crumbling to dust after his destruction in the Nightmare. His skull is in the possession of Mark Patenaude. There are no monuments to him in any inhabited place. Category:Mages
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