Flavius Luteus Scaevola

"Picking up a book at random, I sat down in the Emperor's library to read. I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. I pray the gods will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth - a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. The ambition of Tolumvire and of Brennen pales before that which cannot rest until it seizes the minds of men and controls even their unborn thoughts.”
-Flavius Luteus Scaevola 
== History ==
The son of Flavius Luteus, a nobleman in the Final Empire and an elven woman named Meira Adwarin, both of Scaevola's parents became outcasts and pariahs for their tryst. Flavius Luteus the Elder, having nothing to lose, joined Jotunheim's Rebellion as a military officer, and died bravely in battle. After giving birth to her son, Scaevola's mother fled the rebellion to return to her homeland, leaving him behind. She would never seen or heard from again. The young Flavius would grow up around the rebels, who would move him to the growing city of Arendur, which Jotunheim considered a better home for a child than a war camp. A witness to the empire's birth, Scaevola would come of age during the Demon Wars, and be drafted into the Arendurian Army, seeing action. He and his unit were on patrol during the destruction of Oranor, sparing him from certain death. Scaevola would live for a short period of time in Forester's Town, before rejoining his former unit and forming a mercenary company known as the Wyrms of the Mountain. During this time, Scaevola traveled from one elven community to another, trying to find his mother, without success. He made many lasting friendships among the elves, and for many years considered settling down among them. The return of the Illuminated and the foundation of New Arendur shattered those plans, and prompted his return. 
== Personality ==
“Limitations foster creativity. Tell an artist to paint anything, and he may struggle, but tell him to create something specific, in a set amount of time, for a certain audience, and these constraints might well push him to produce something he might never have come up with on his own. We grow and evolve by testing ourselves. That’s my personal philosophy.”
-Flavius Luteus Scaevola
Flavius Luteus Scaevola is a man who, believing himself rootless, did violence to all that he had. Offered a chance to start anew among his mother's kind, the wood elves, he would instead join their oppressor to make war on them. A war hero in the Arendurian Army, he would abandon his homeland's ideals and sell out his country to a foreign power. A man committed to the principles of peace and equality, he channeled his outrage to play the part of the demagogue, stoking hatred and division to fan the flames of war. A man who fundamentally distrusted power, he would spill the blood of his countrymen in a grim quest to rule over them. A man who hated magic and the arcane, he would make a covenant with a great old one, wielding its power with wild abandon and striking down those who opposed him. Scaevola's Arendur is a a just and safe nation for those who buy into its premise, certainly. He is a reasonable man behind the mask of a demagogue, and while he believes that the Reich must one day fall, he is not in a hurry to bring that about. He is mad and damned, however, a true terror to anyone who believes in mankind's claim to a fate of its own. The mask he wears - the man he pretends to be - is that of someone who cares. Scaevola lost any regard for his life or the world the day he opened the King in Yellow. 
As a result of a bad stutter, Scaevola can be taciturn and withdrawn, preferring to offer short, bland remarks. Even his anger is forced and affected for fear of stumbling over his words. As long as he is speaking from prepared speeches, he can overcome his impediment and even present himself as a graceful orator, although during his Senate run, supporters spoke more of the intensity of his gaze then the memorability of his words. 
Flavius Luteus Scaevola once wished for New Arendur to prosper. His marriage to Charlotte Bellerose was the first time he tried to seek happiness in the world. The King tested his faith by asking him to sacrifice her, prompting him to beg the King to accept his daughter instead. For his lack of faith, the King struck his wife down with a wasting illness. Around that time, he had his familiar severed from him to free himself from the King. He now realizes that the King in Yellow is an agent of annihilation, and welcomes the end of the Dream of the Old Ones.  
And yet, Scaevola is a remnant of a forgotten era. A survivor of a perished generation. The Arendurian leaders were reactions to the circumstances they were born in. The generation that produced the magocracy of New Arendur - Tan Blackhand, Voidwatcher, and Grundelthum Sunder - were forged in the choking grasp of Monopoly's Final Empire, crushed beneath the heel of fallen heroes and mind-slavery. Revolutionaries at heart, they believed in structure and system, in meritocracy and rule of law, but were never able to shed the rigid and authoritarian mindset of their past. They never stopped believing in the cult of the hero and the supremacy of the mage. It was their rule that produced the generation that would head the Church, one that remembers how their proud autocrats hoarded their right to rule and stifled their lessers under the trappings of reason and contrived tradition. Small wonder that they would yearn to be part of something greater than themselves, to submit not to the authority of man, but to god. Scaevola is a part of something else entirely. He is child of Arendur, born during the empire's eight year reign. His generation perished in that city; almost no children were counted among the survivors. Those that did are now long dead. Scaevola remembers hope. He remembers the chaotic, exhilarating struggle to survive against the odds; the shared loss, the war of all against all as the newly made Arendurians tried to forge a new identity. He remembers the partisans and the rebels, the citizens council and the rugged pioneers, the industrialists and the robber barons. He remembers being a child witnessing Tolumvire's defiance of fate, but not the circumstances that inspired it. And he remembers how it was all for naught. How it was all in vain. Unlike the generation before him, he was not a proponent of Arendurian exceptionalism, but one of its few surviving victims. 
Small wonder that he would destroy even the memory of those times. Scaevola does not even believe there is any lesson to be learned from them. 
== War of the Philosopher-Kings ==
"I am not supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what 'humanity' shall henceforth mean. 'Good' and 'bad,' applied to them, are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be derived." 
-Flavius Luteus Scaevola
Able to gain employ as an officer due to his history, Scaevola and his men were initially assigned on peace-keeping missions against the local wood elves, who resented their Arendurian overloads. Though he harbored doubts about warring with his kin, he persisted and established a reputation from himself as an skilled, fearless swordsman and a decisive leader, though he was mocked for his stutter. At the start of the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Scaevola was deployed to Forester's Town to defend against the Final Empire. Scaevola was chosen for a daunting mission - the assassination of Brennen of Alara. Under the pretense of peace negotiations, Scaevola was presented as the Arendurian ambassador, where he met with the Phoenix Emperor outside Forester's Town. On cue, he drew a Deishorak named Twisted Fang, and ran Brennen through the heart. The Emperor cried out, but did not fall, instead becoming wreathed with flames that burned hot yet did not consume him. Even the blood that spilled from his seemingly mortal wound was set alight, turning to ash. Scaevola did not flinch, keeping his hand on the blade and running it through to the hilt. Later, as he recovered, he would describe that what kept him from feeling the agony of the fire was the feeling of the Emperor's heartbeat through the blade. Eventually, he could not longer hold the dagger, not for lack of courage or desire, but because his charred hand went limp. As Scaevola fell to the ground in agony, Brennen withdrew the weapon, and the flames wreathing him faded away. Standing there in a cloud of ashes, the Emperor of the Final Empire hailed Scaevola's courage, and let him go free. He excoriated Arendur for its perfidy, and declared that he would raze Forester's Town to ground, kick-starting the Battle of Forester's Town. 
But none of this was of any import to Scaevola. His act of courage was applauded, and he won the name Scaevola - left handed. Many began to compare him to Tan Blackhand, who similarly had a malformed right hand. Scaevola spent much of the war convalescing from the hand injury, which never fully healed. Once the wound had stabilized, he was assigned a new mission - leading the team that was sent to explore the ruins of the Northern Dome. He found it abandoned and eerily silent, a ghost city filled with the graves of mages and Hexenjägers side by side. In the dome itself, he found a set of three curious relics - a mask, a book, and an amulet amongst Emperor Brennen's belongings, unearthed from deep beneath the city. Scaevola took them back to the Illuminated, but on the way, read the first half of the book, which was a play entitled the King in Yellow. Upon his return, Scaevola was granted an honorable discharge from the army. He had already shown a hesitance to fight his kindred elves, and been exposed to what the Illuminated knew to be dangerous artifacts. Unwilling to fight for the mages any further, Scaevola grew to hate the leaders of Arendur, who he blamed for years of war and suffering. His mind altered and warped by his contact with the items, he became a swift convert to the worship of the King in Yellow. Determined to summon the great old one to the world and use his power to destroy the Tower of the Illuminated, he founded a political party, the Carcosai, to propel him for a quixotic Senate run for the Slums of New Arendur, running against Ophelia Octavia. His entry on the political stage came with a seminal novel, Fear and Loathing in New Arendur: A Journey to the Savage Heart of the War of the Philosopher-Kings. He would win a vocal minority of popular support among his constituency - indigenous people, veterans, rebels, the disenfranchised, those distrustful of magic, and opponents to the war. Many aspiring wits and newspaper columnists whispered to each other that Arendur was witnessing the second coming of Tolumvire of Arendur, although those who had known the Emperor, such as Curtin and Tan Blackhand, despised the comparison and considered Scaevola to be a broken man and a cheap demagogue. Nowhere in his speeches did they hear the vision and pride of their former sovereign. Scaevola would direct his men to secretly contact the Reich, asking for their help securing the mask, book, and amulet that he knew lay in the vaults of the Illuminated. In return, he would use them to destroy the Tower of the Illuminated and deliver New Arendur to the hands of the Reich. The Reich would accept his offer, dispatching Khamsa, Aldia, Nephenee, and Karai. The heist would emerge as a failure, with only the book falling into Scaevola's hands, the amulet remaining in the hands of the Illuminated, and the mask - the item he truly needed to summon the King - in the hands of Khamsa. His run for Senate would fail, and the War of the Philosopher-Kings would end without any meaningful change in New Arendur. And yet, it was only the beginning. 
== After the War ==
"Indeed it is hard to grasp why our age hasn't already given birth, by spontaneous generation, to its hero, that demon who will stage without scruple that horrifying play that reduces the whole age to laughter and to unconsciousness of the fact that it is laughing at itself?"
-Grundelthum Sunder
Scaevola would remain in hiding for the rest of New Arendur's existence as a sovereign nation. Upon the arrival of the Reich, he would betray his country and sneak the Hexenjägers into the city. Afterwards, he would run for office again, this time not as a demagogue, but as a bland, quiet candidate palatable to all factions. His previous relationship with the Reich would see him accepted as the de facto leader of the Senate and of New Arendur at large. Scaevola would mastermind the Second Northern Expedition, with the full intention of allowing Special Agent Shorden Hiem - the current bearer of the Pallid Mask - to become the vessel for the King in Yellow. 
With the help of Theresa and Mary Starkweather, Scaevola would found the Church of Transcendental Theosophy. After the end of martial government, a plebiscite was held to determine whether or not the Senate should be reinstated. The people resoundingly voted no, and the Church took full control of the levers of power. 
The character of the church was originally civil in appearance, with few overt references to the King in Yellow. Nonetheless, the New Arendurians yearned for a spirituality which was missing in their lives; a tradition they could hold on to. The heroes of Old Arendur - Tolumvire and his brethren - were taboo, having been practitioners of witchcraft. Scaevola took several steps to change the culture of the city. He ordered that Tolumvire, Tan Blackhand, and the Illuminated be subject to damnatio memoriae; their names stricken from all records. He spoke in terms of a cultural redemption and reawakening, with the conquest at the hands of the Reich being necessary to purge the twin Arendurian demons of witchcraft and secularism. He introduced the more heavily religious aspects of the Church without preamble, at first exhorting and then requiring the open worship of the King in Yellow. This was greeted at first with confusion, then bemusement, then resignation, and finally acquiescence. Two generations later, and few living would even remembered a different way of life, much less cared. The final step was a heavy revision to the Constitution of the New Republic, in which Scaevola took the original founding document drafted by Tolumvire, and edited it himself. After clearing it with the Office of the Gauleiter, he presented it to the New Arendurians as his own - although of course, they recognized its historical significance, yet were forbidden by law and custom to speak about it. In time, it was accepted, and the rule of Flavius Luteus Scaevola became unquestioned and absolute. 
Twenty years into his reign, Scaevola would grow enamored with and eventually marry a half-elven woman from a wealthy merchant family, named Charlotte Bellerose. The wedding was a private affair, and Lady Bellerose, as she was called, shunned public life and knew little about the Great Old Ones. After giving birth to their only child, Cassilda Lucretia Scaevola, she would grow ill and suddenly die. Observers would note that the best part of Scaevola died with his wife. He would never re-marry. 
The truth of the matter was that after his marriage, the King in Yellow demanded that Scaevola offer him his wife as his bride. Scaevola, who did not believe that the King would return his wife by virtue of the absurd, could not make the movements of faith. He begged for a reprieve, offering the King his unborn daughter instead. The King agreed, but cursed Charlotte so that she would die birthing their daughter Cassilda. Not long afterward, Scaevola would grow interested in the experiments of St. Franz's College and demand that the scholars their severed his familiar from him. The act would permanently damage his soul, unshackling Scaevola from his duty to his patron. 
At some point after the war, a company of Janissary Frontier Troopers - the Claws of Conquest - fled their crumbling country and made a journey to find a new home. Only twenty of the original fifty survived, and made it to New Arendur. Their leader at the time decided that they would scorn the worship of the Maker, and serve the King in Yellow instead. Scaevola magnanimously allowed them to serve as his personal guard; they are now known as the Aglazderian Guard. None of their original members yet live, but every time the twenty of them lose a member, they induct a new member following their ancient traditions, even giving them an Aglazderian name. They serve other security purposes; it is rare for more than two to be present by Scaevola's side at any given time. Their current leader, Captain Amani, is one of Scaevola's closest confidants are personal bodyguard.  
After the destruction of the King in Yellow by the Third Northern Expedition, Flavius Luteus Scaevola would disappear mysteriously, sparking numerous conspiracy theories.  
== The Great Awakening ==
"The Colonel had a high opinion of himself, and he doubtless sincerely believed that he personified an Arendurian "tradition" of selfless service. But he was not, in truth, a man of tradition...As a military commander and later as New Arendur's head of state, Scaevola broke virtually every bond he entered into. He was not the man of dogged, faithful service, but the man of image, manipulation and betrayal."
-Euphrosyne Luciana Arcanus
Scaevola's disappearance was in fact planned. The King in Yellow's death permitted him a chance at freedom, which he gladly took. The other priests had no choice in the matter, for their souls no longer belonged to them, and their pacts were simply transferred to Hastur. Scaevola chose not to continue his pact. Half a century ago, the King had deemed Scaevola unworthy of leaving the Pallid Mask long ago, and had consigned him to the thankless task of ruling New Arendur. Breaking his pact was of little concern, for the Great Awakening enhanced Scaevola's innate psionic powers enough to compensate. Though he was somewhat weaker then before, his power was now entirely his own to wield as he saw fit. Above all, Scaevola wanted to return to the place where it all began - the Northern Dome - and do what he could not and none other had dared, to pass into the Wild Abyss itself. 
Scaevola would tell only two people of his departure - Helga Answith, with whom he entrusted the nation, and his daughter Cassilda. 
In a curious twist of fate, Scaevola would outlive his successor as Pontiff. 
== Vox, the Man from Outside, and the Battle of the Warehouse District ==
“Myths and legends die hard in Dragonsmouth. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.” 
-Vox
For the first time, a man has come in from the Outside. He is a well-traveled half-elf with one limp right arm and a stutter, but a demagogue’s charisma for anyone that looks into his eyes. He has missions for the party that involve waking the statue to draw the Godhunter’s attention, and ultimately seizing the Waygate. He goes by the name Vox. He wants to travel to the place that Rhan-Tegoth came from, on the other side of the Waygate.
His arrival prompts a furious investigation on the part of the military into who opened a gate to let him in. Lylebor, Stornheist, and Eisenberg are all suspects, and the military promises that whichever warlord opened a gate will be deposed, and that everyone loyal to them will be slaughtered. 
Vox comes to the Winner’s Pharmaceuticals while Jack is alone there. He wants drugs and he wants to run for office in the Civic Council in the Warehouse District, to become, as he puts it “Warlord-Councilman.” His main goal is to cause chaos. If the party helped him in his campaign, he will give them information about the truth of what they are looking for. However, their assistance will inevitably lead to suffering. 
While voters are at the polls, Dr. Davaulus, speaking for Doc Anderson’s Workshop and Clinic, puts out a statement.   
“We, the members of Doc Anderson’s Workshop and Clinic, consider this election illegitimate. We will not allow a candidate, by murdering his opponent, to rise to power uncontested. Nor will we stand by and allow the so-called outsider, Vox, to put our district in mortal peril by denying our people’s access to medicine and vaccination against the nightmare plague. We reject the outcome of any sham election, and proclaim that the ‘warlord’ of the Warehouse District will be the creator of the cure, Dr. Reiner Davaulus.”
Dr. Davaulus has allied with Victus Carrazinion and hired the Erinyes Company to enforce his rule. Vox says to Flex Jackson - who is holding a camera - that, “Myths and legends die hard in Dragonsmouth. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.” The Warehouse District erupts into violence. 
Qualins Rachmirol has rearranged the squads as a “training exercise,” putting the Children of Adam into specific squads. She, Cardinal Carrazinion, and Vox have coordinated everything to purge the Erinyes Company of Children of Adam, and indeed Vox himself never planned to win the election. On that front, Roger was correct. His intent was always simply to stir chaos. 
The Erinyes Company has been instructed to secure the Warehouse District as a whole, and the squad of Children of Adam, numbering 12 people, has been unknowingly deployed to fight Vox himself by the docks. The journalist Flex Jackson has been brought to the area, seemingly to interview Vox, but in reality to get him killed to make him a martyr in the eyes of his followers. 
== Final Hour ==
"Kill Flex Jackson but take his camera - in front of my supporters - he needs to be made a martyr. He knows too much but the footage speaks for itself."
-Final words
Vox won the Battle of the Warehouse District, presiding over an orgy of violence documented on Flex Jackson's camera and culminating in the deaths of many of his own supporters. Speaking to his benefactor, Onyx the Indestructible, Vox used his final words to urge her to kill Flex Jackson and take his footage. Onyx, who had long mistrusted Vox and heeded the words of the spirit in her sentient sword, called for a nearby sniper to gun Vox down. As Vox - once called Flavius Luteus Scaevola - bled amongst the bodies of his supporters, Onyx examined his personal effects and came to solid conclusions about his true past. After some thought, she decapitated the Pontiff of New Arendur with the sword. 
His legacy was debated. Galar Insabatius, who witnessed Vox's final moments, remarked that Vox's role was like that of the heat emanating from a dangerous object. Jack the Winner thought he was "a junkie who knew too much about the world." Onyx the Indestructible, however, never revealed the reason she killed him, saying only that he was "a bad guy." 
== Commemoration Speech ==
Thank you for being here today. I am deeply honored to stand with you, commemorating the battle that was fought on the soil of this very town half a century ago. Since then, we have faced momentous change and overcame insurmountable threats. Many of you have shed blood and tears for New Arendur, or know a loved one who has paid the ultimate price. I bow to you. I acknowledge your sacrifices. You are the mortar and brick of our nation. 
I remember the Battle of Forester’s Town as one who fought in it. Fellow veterans, I remember your faces! I see you all, and take comfort in the brotherhood of soldiers. It is a bond only we will know. There are things we can never forget, about which we do not speak. We have made a virtuous world for our children, so that they may live ignorant of the mistakes of the past, free of the burden of history. 
After the battle, we left civilization behind. The scribblers were closing in on all sides. The clerks with their purple tongues and darting eyes, their shuffling feet and sloped shoulders, their bloodless lists. Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering! Acceptable? Who dares to say any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?”
Scripture tells us that “the important message is that we are all descended from the Gods”, and the King in Yellow can come into play now. The face of He Who Should Not be Named is portrayed to us as the face of a human-like Daemon, so should we assume by this that if we are made in the image of God, then it is in the image of that God of human hierarchy? In this statement then, if the King would be the god of hierarchy on whatever level, that He is represented as such, then are the other Gods somewhat more weird? “The most important aspect of this sovereignty”, the scripture tells us, “is our personal responsibility for all conditional aspects of our lives.”
Of the hundreds of men and women who have died in Arendurian military service, the vast majority are “everyday heroes.” They are brothers and sisters who fought alongside us, who have left unfillable holes in families, communities, and hearts across this country. Their friendships, their bravery, and their commitment to duty will never be lost.  As long as we continue to honor them with our actions and remember their sacrifices, they will never be forgotten. 
No matter what obstacles we must overcome, we will endure. We will always endure. That is who we are as a people, long-suffering and imperiled by an uncertain future, but always able to count on our resilience. 
May we ever know victory. May fate be ever in our favor. May our cause ever be just. 
== Political Platform ==
"So great has been the calamitousness of these times, and such the inveterate malice of the heretics, that there has been nothing ever so clear in our statement of faith, nothing so surely settled, which they, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, have not defiled by some sort of error. For which cause the Church of Transcendental Theosophy hath made it Its especial care to condemn and anathematise the principal errors of the heretics of our time, and to deliver and teach the true and theosophic doctrine; even as It has condemned, anathematised, and decreed."
-Flavius Luteus Scaevola
When Flavius Luteus Scaevola ran for the Senate, he ran as an explicit repudiation to the Illuminated, blaming them for the political ills in Arendur. His main political positions were as follows:
* Returning the reigns of power to the people who originally made Arendur great - the farmers, the soldiers, the industrialists, the artisans, and the pioneers. The mages did not make Arendur, but stole it and subverted the spirit of the nation. 
* Reconciling with the indigenous Wood Elves and departing with factionalism. The mages are sowing hatred and division to stay in power. In reality, New Arendur is composed of one people, bound by unity of purpose, not blood. 
* Ending involvement in the War of the Philosopher-Kings. New Arendur has more in common with the other powers than the mages would have you believe. The War was fabricated by mages seeking arcane supremacy, and is of no benefit to the common man. 
* Calling for a religious and spiritual revival in New Arendur. The people have blinded themselves in their quest to rationalize everything. The mages, in their quest to understand and control all things, have lost the ability to become a part of something greater. 
In his speeches, Scaevola tended not to refer to the Illuminated by their name, but as "the mages." This was, he claimed, to deny them their self-righteous claim to enlightenment, but it was also to explicitly tie them to the other mages in the War of the Philosopher-Kings. 
== Works ==
* Fear and Loathing in New Arendur: A Journey to the Savage Heart of the War of the Philosopher-Kings
* Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail in '25
* Encyclical No. 1: "On the Significance of Chaos as the Spiritual Heart of Our Worship"
* Encyclical No. 2: "On the Primacy of the King in Yellow amongst Gods and Scripture"
* Encyclical No. 3: “Cosmic Insight and the Suspension of Ethical Boundaries”
* Encyclicals No. 4 - No. 22
* Battle of Forester's Town: A Play in Four Acts
Category:Arendur
Category:Four Tales
Category:Mages
Category:Carcosai
Category:Church of Transcendental Theosophy
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Category:Half-Elves
Category:Wyrms of the Mountain
Category:Arendurian Army
Category:Pontiff of the Church of Transcendental Theosophy
Category:Dragonsmouth
Category:Messenger of the Outer Gods
Category:Dead
Category:Chaotic Evil