Abi Eodauga of Nadezhda

## Abi Eodauga

### Aliases

Marshal of Nadezhda, First Minister of Nadezhda, the Frostwraith, the Mammoth Tusk

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

*“Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."*

-Abi Eodauga of Nadezhda

## History

Born in the Reich Nördlich, Abi Eodauga's mother died in childbirth. Expecting a girl, her dying wish was to name the child after her own mother, Abigail. Her heart-stricken husband honored the request, forcing his soon to be irate son to shorten his name and take a fist to anyone who mocked him over it. Cursed with sorcerous power, Abi Eodauga was forced to leave the village of his birth and travel around the Frostfell, spending extensive time in the Reich Nördlich, Nadezhda, and Jotunheim. By the time he had mastered his abilities, he was a strange, nation-less young man, truthfully able to blend in where he chose.

After living for years on the run during the nearly universal persecution of mages that ran rampant in the north, Abi Eodauga received a prophecy from the winter god Telchur, proclaiming that within two years time, the deities Iborighu and Auril would sire a monstrous spawn who would bury the world in endless winter. Hearing this, he gathered a host of allies and overthrew Marshal Rurik of Nadezhda, taking control of the country’s enslaved mages. Allying with Ymir of Jotunheim and Franz Forrawyn of the Reich Nördlich, he brought down the great demigod of winter, and became the most powerful leader in the north.

Abi Eodauga lost his hand in his battle against Rurik Tarrenforge, but made himself a magical prosthetic from Rurik's gauntlet.

During the great battle against the Windwalker, Abi Eodauga would befriend Franz Forrawyn's wife, Walpurga Forrawyn. The fact that Walpurga was hiding sorcerous powers became apparent to Eodauga, who saw what the Hexenjägers and even Walpurga herself could not see. Eodauga had spent years of his life hiding his own arcane abilities, and out of compassion, approached her to teach her how to control and conceal her powers. Walpurga accepted, but during the final battle against the Windwalker, used her magic to save her husband's life. After the battle was won, Eodauga offered to collar Walpurga and take her into custody in Nadezhda. Franz Forrawyn refused, and executed her for witchcraft. This would be the start of a truly bitter rift between Forrawyn and Eodauga. The witch hunter and the sorcerer had always distrusted each other, but had been able to work effectively as allies. That would never be the case again, and their newfound antipathy would lend the War of the Philosopher-Kings a personal dimension.

## Personality

A secretive man, the Marshal remains distant from all but his closest friends, whom he trusts greatly. Though not necessarily a good liar, he can hide his intentions and fade away into a crowd. He has a crude and ironic sense of humor, and is unfazed by most things. Though a cunning tactician, he has an irrational and childish side, at times displaying a surprising inability to grasp simple concepts, or see things right before his eyes.

Had Abi Eodauga died fighting the Windwalker, he would have been remembered as a great hero. He was always a harsh and ruthless man, with little capacity for introspection or anticipating consequences, but old age hardened his attitudes towards the world.

Abi Eodauga lost his eye in his battle with Khamsa, but when the high priest of Hleid (and his eventual successor) offered to heal it, he refused, saying that he would bear the wound until he was able to exact revenge on Khamsa. Many onlookers flattered him by comparing him to the one-eyed god, Odin, which amused him greatly - through the irony of the fact that Odin had given up his eye for wisdom was lost on him.

## Leadership Style

A direct and forceful leader, Abi Eodauga holds tight to the reigns of power, directing day to day operations within the Nadezhda. He trusts his close circle of allies, former adventurers all, who have almost unlimited authority to act on his behalf. He solicits their advise, but makes the final decisions alone. Merit is valued in Abi Eodauga's Nadezhda, and skilled soldiers and civil servants can rise quickly if they win esteem in his eyes. Government officials are generally trusted to carry out their appointed duties as they see fit, but Abi Eodauga is quick to interfere and override decisions he disdains. The common people are not particularly valued under his rule, and aside from tending to their basic welfare, the Marshal does not think much about how his decisions will affect them.

## Feats of Magic

*“There will be snow driving in from all directions, fierce winds, and cold colder than you have ever imagined cold could be, an icy cold so cold your lungs will ache when you breathe, so cold that the tears in your eyes will freeze. There will be no spring to relieve it, no summer, no autumn. Only winter, followed by winter, followed by winter.”*

-Abi Eodauga

The Marshal of Nadezhda was held in low esteem by some practitioners of magic, who considered him to uninventive, enamored of brute force, and as having added nothing to the corpus of arcane knowledge. It was undeniable, however, that Abi Eodauga was one of the most powerful war mage of his generation, and among the most powerful of any generation. In his chosen element, he was a master of frost and ice who could manipulate the weather to wipe out entire enemy hosts without having to engage them in battle. Above all, Abi Eodauga focused on his power to transform himself, taking the form of a colossal wintry beast, perhaps a yeti, or a wendigo, or a titan, against which no force could contend. Franz Forrawyn was able to defeat him only because Abi Eodauga had to engage him in close combat, where his magic was vulnerable to Forrawyn's otataral blade. Conventional wisdom stated that no mage, not even a Philosopher-King, would stand much of a chance, although both Silvius and Brennen disagreed with that assessment; Khamsa was also able to defeat him by trickery and by engaging him in an indoor setting where he could not transform.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

*“This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no better than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places where the humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation.”*

-Abi Eodauga

Abi Eodauga would found the Northern Alliance, a coalition formed by Darguzze, Rhomduil, Jotunheim, and Alba Coralis, dedicated to the conquest of the fractured southeast. He was greatly feared, for at the time, so many warriors had flocked to his banner that his army was three times larger then the armies of every other Philosopher-King combined. His downfall would come during the Alban civil war, when Arthur Coralis would take power as the ninth Philosopher-King in the newfound country of World's End, winning the Reich Nördlich and Guilddon to his side. Abi Eodauga's Nadezhda would go on to invade World's End and seize its capital, Scarbantia, only to be undone when the northern Final Empire, led by Twin-Emperor Brennen, would launch an attack on Jotunheim, killing King Ymir and preventing the giants from coming to Abi Eodauga's aid. World's End and its allies would turn the tide, invading Nadezhda and laying siege to its capital, Torzhestvo. Upon the death of his last remaining friend and chief general, Dolom Tkerekin, Abi Eodauga would risk everything in a final pitched battle. There he would find death at the hands of Franz Forrawyn, the north's preeminent mage-killer. And so, Abi Eodauga would become the first Philosopher-King to die. Despite Forrawyn's reluctance, Emperor Arthur insisted on giving him a proper funeral. With nothing to shackle it to the Prime Material Plane, Abi Eodauga's soul departed to the realms of the gods of winter.

## Legacy (The War of All Against All)

*"The Nadezhdans are human beings who have become cannibal monsters. We suffer the eternal pain of need, our essence a hunger that will never be sated. The more we conquer, the more ravenous we become. Consumed by consumption, we will lay waste to humankind."*

-Abi Eodauga

Even among the Philosopher-Kings, Abi Eodauga would be harshly excoriated by history. Despite not being the first monarch to declare war, he would become associated with with the violence, intolerance, and unabashed militarism of his era. Even among mages, he had few apologists, for his wholehearted embrace of the slave collars was not forgotten. In the lands he had once ruled, now part of the Reich, his name became a curse, linked in people's minds with the tyrannical mage lords that had ruined the frostfell over a century ago. Lamentably, he would be forgotten for his great heroism in the war against the Windwalker, for by the time of his death, few survivors of that time still remained to tell that story.

Abi Eodauga is buried amongst the graves of the Nadezhdan war dead, not far from Dolom Tkerekin's grave. His tombstone is no more ornate than the others. The only monument present is one commemorating the loss of life in the War of the Philosopher-Kings, which has a number of names carved in it. One of the names is his.