Emperor Atriox Vektelarian

Atriox Vektelarian

 *I alone hold back the tides of chaos.*

Atriox is the god of wisdom, poetry, war, death, divination, and magic and the emperor of the vektan-noverian empire. He is the patron of rulers, wanderers, and outcasts. He was born in the Appalachian Wastes, a post apocalyptic version of Virginia, among the survivors of a nuclear war. All of his chronicled adventures take place in the Noverian Age. At the age of twenty-one, Atriox fought in the Battle of the Raids.

He battled for, with, and/or against numerous factions (including most of the nations of the Arkverse world, among them the Messia), he fought alongside other adventurers, thieves, and pirates such as Vilgefortz and his Lem, the Vektans and the Sky Pirates, among many others.

He battled numerous sorcerers and cults, monsters, gods, and daemons (including some of the Old Ones), and was helped as well by many of those.

After many years of ruling Vektan Noveria, Atriox temporarily abdicated in favour of his daughter, Ash, and departed across the universe to investigate mysterious forces which menaced the empire, and discover new lands to explore. His ultimate fate is not recorded.

## Personality

*"I am a seeker of knowledge! This has always been true. I hung from the World Tree for nine days and nights, racked with pain, in order to discover the secret of runes."*

Atriox is a calm and calculative warrior. His thought process is a cold and careful one. He is willing to make long term plans and short term alliances if it means that his goals will be advanced even slightly and almost no one really knows what he's doing or planning, an example of this was when he disguised himself as an half-troll named X, while everyone else believed that he had disappeared from Valhalla. Atrioxis also a seeker of knowledge, since he sacrificed his left eye, and hanged himself for nine days in order to obtain knowledge over the universe and master reality itself through the runes. His ideal of justice and the greater good overrides any atrocities he might make, granting him a will to pursue his goals that many lack.

Another noticeable trait is his sense of humour, largely absent in his public appearances, but very much a part of his character. He is a loyal friend to those true to him with a code of honour and chivalry that often marks him as more civilized than those more sophisticated people he meets in his travels. Indeed his straightforward nature and barbarism are constants in all the tales.

A conspicuous element of Atriox's character is his chivalry. He is extremely reluctant to fight women (even when they fight him) and has a strong tendency to save a those in. He also has a tendency is to subvert and undermine a leader's authority, and eventually supplant (and often, kill) them.

Atriox is an intelligent and resourceful leader and is both liked and respected by the men under his command. His extensive experience in the military has made him gruff and battle-hardened, but at the same time he was always sure to protect his armies from unnecessary risks and always adhered to his strict moral code to only undertake battles when no other choice was available.

Atriox followed a rough code of honour throughout his life. Although willing to engage in acts of thievery and mercenary work, he remained loyal to those he genuinely saw as comrades. Atriox was an unrepentant womanizer for much of his life, but he remained respectful of women. He was at times shocked by how "civilized" people of his era sold their daughters and treated them like property.

Atriox was a fiercely proud man, preferring death to surrender. Atriox can be extremely ruthless when angered, As a young man, he would kill a man for insulting him, although by middle-age he had mellowed somewhat.

As emperor of Vektan Noveria, Atriox showed genuine love and concern for his subjects. He once boasted that under his rule "no noble dares maltreat the humblest of [his] subjects."

Despite being a brutal and mischievous god, as a god of war, Atriox values courage and bravery, ordering his valkyries to only bring to Valhalla those warriors who died in battle sacrificing themselves for their causes. He also likes to reward those who have done services to him.

## Appearance

Atriox has "sullen" or "smouldering" blue eyes, usually hidden behind his mask, a "mane" of long black hair, and is scarred across most of his body. Atriox's height and weight as an adult are subject to speculation - some estimates make him 6' 6" (1.98 m) and up to 250 lb (113 kg).

## Powers

* **Inhuman Strength:** Atriox possessed strength way over the hardiest of his race. He was physically one of the most powerful humans who ever lived, considered as having the strength of ten to twenty men. Yet, he did not have the strength of a demi-god of legend, and would be staggered by two men's combined momentum and weight.
* **Peak Human Durability:** Atriox's great physical size, musculature and mental toughness is considered to have the ability to withstand injury superior to those of ordinary humans. His skeleton was seemingly more resistant than the norm: he was simply knocked out when falling on the head in a ravine, when others' would had been split open.
	+ He was also more resistant to poison, ending up a "living corpse" instead of dead after ingesting juice of the Purple Lotus which should had killed an ordinary man, or two. Similarly, Atriox considered that there was *"no such thing as too much to drink"*, and awakened every morning with a clear head.
* **Peak Human Endurance:** Atriox could stay awake for days as well as exert himself for a considerable amount of time without rest before showing any signs of fatigue.
* **Preternatural Speed and Agility:** Atriox possessed considerably greater speed and agility than a man of his size should have.
* **Enhanced Senses:** Atrioxwas born and raised in the dark grey hills of the Appalachian Wastes, and spent much time outdoors-as both a necessity and as a form of leisure; as such, he developed senses of vision, smell , and hearing that were several times more acute than those of a "civilized" human.
* **Divine Wisdom**: As the God of Wisdom, Atriox is by far the wisest god of all. After drinking from the Well of Mimir, for which he sacrificed his left eye, Atriox's perception transcended the regular, mortal dimension of understanding. After hanging from Yggdrasil for nine days, Atriox gained insight into the fabric of reality itself, and that later helped him discover runes, and to utilize them as a form of magic.

### **Abilities**

**Atriox's Armor:** The armour used by Atriox was forged using both Sorcery and Science, making it nearly indestructible and is well-equipped with many weapons of all types, because Atroix is always prepared for a battle. Besides just protecting him from physical harm, the armour also removes its wearer from reality, making him completely immune to any kind of mind control, reality warping or matter manipulation. Due to its near indestructibility Atriox's Armor is capable of taking blows from most super humans to some cosmic level entities. Atriox's armour provides him with Superhuman levels of Strength and Durability. His armours energy manipulation capabilities allow Atriox to create impenetrable force fields, project energy from his gauntlets and mask (Only when his mask is off does this feature work), generate a lethal electric shock, etc. Atriox's armour also grants him the power of flight, technopathic abilities, and a molecular expander to turn pebbles into rocks.

**Master Scientist**: Atriox's mastery of science enabled him to create a massive army of Servoguards and other robotic weapons. His greatest creations are the Atokbot; cybernetic and synthetic copies of himself, which have also been infused with small portions of his own magical powers. A single Atokbot poses more of a threat than many other supervillains would on their own, while posing no risk or personal harm to Atriox himself.

**Magical Powers**: His mastery of magic allows him to emit powerful blasts, create mystical force fields, cast curses and summon demons. It also allows him to travel through time and grants him the power of teleportation. It also allows him to manipulate matter itself to some extent, such as increasing the size of small objects to turn harmless pebbles into weapons. Atriox acquired his vast magical powers by travelling back in time to learn about magic in its earliest stages and then returning to the present by simply waiting. This effectively makes Atriox thousands of years old and strongly implies that he is immortal (though not invincible).

**Longevity**: Atriox has a lifespan that is far longer than the average human being. He is nearly a millennium old and is still in his prime.

**Superhuman Physiology**: Atriox is physically more capable than the average human, possessing superior speed, durability, and strength than peak humans.

Despite his brutish appearance, Atriox uses his brain as well as his brawn. The Noverian is a talented fighter who overpowers most men with his strength and skill, and his endurance allows him to fight with unfailing ferocity long after most would have collapsed in exhaustion. Due to his travels abroad, he also has vast experience in other trades. He is a talented commander, strategist, thief, as well as a born leader.

Atriox speaks many languages:

## Backstory

Both of Atriox's parents were in the US military before the nuclear holocaust of 2077. His childhood was spent inside Vault 76. Following in his parents' footsteps, he enlisted into Vault Security at the age of eighteen.

One of his first missions was an expedition to investigate Akuze, a lush area on the outskirts of the nuclear wasteland that had suddenly dropped out of contact. Arriving on the surface, his patrol found the settlement intact, but there were no survivors.

At nightfall, the mutants struck - mindless abominations of teeth and tentacles that rose from beneath the earth. Constant gunfire couldn't drown out the shrieks of his fellow soldiers as they were dragged down to a gruesome death.

Fifty marines died on Akuze. He were the only one to make it back to the landing zone alive. A monument in the settlement commemorates the massacre, a grim reminder of the price humanity must pay as they spread throughout the stars.

In the 2050s (60 years before the modern resurgence of the Novus) the resource wars began, the dying struggle for fossil fuels and the reason the old world ended. In these wars a man fought, a veteran who would later become the man named Kaesar Augustus. He who created the modern Novus in the wastes of Virginia, Who called down the thunders on the Union of Raiders. At the end of the wars in the 2070s he was guided by the Military to a Vault, Vault 76, to learn of it's secrets! He hid in plain sight among the common rabble and found a young Atriox! He taught him of our ways and when the time came years later, inducted him into our Order, and many years later, trusted our Empire to be guided by his hand.

After Kaesar left the vault alone, in 2105, to study the new tribes of the wastes. While in Appalachia alone, he was captured by the Dagger raider gang, one of the many raider "communities" in the area, due to an error in judgement by the daggers. While most Wastelanders would have been content to wait for freedom or death, Our noble Kaesar was different. An intelligent and charismatic man, Kaesar had studied Ancient Rome, reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars. These two books are influential in understanding how the Order would evolve. The Decline and Fall of Rome argues that Rome fell because it lost the spirit of self service, Kaesar reasoned that the US fell due to this reason, it cared about itself during the wars and not it's people!

It claims that Rome was strong because citizens were willing to sacrifice themselves for the common good, and the elite aligned their interests with that of the Empire. When the citizens became weak and self-interested, Rome fell to the stronger barbarians. This will be discussed further below, but it is sufficient to say that Kaesar saw parallels between the fall of Rome and the destruction of the Old World.

Kaesar, having been captured, recognized that the daggers were a militarily weak group, due to their small size and shoddy weapons. Seeing an opportunity to put his knowledge to use, he offered to train the daggers in advanced warfare tactics, desperate and without many options, they allowed him to. He taught them military tactics, weapon maintenance, explosives, and small unit tactics. But most importantly, he taught them the concept of total war. Prior to Kaesar, the raider gangs engaged in mostly skirmish warfare. The people were, in Caesar's words, "playing at war," they may have fought over resources, land, or honor, but they did not fight to conquer the other tribes. Kaesar in a moment of divine wisdom decided to change this. Kaesar didn't just wage war, he destroyed and assimilated the other raider groups in the region This led to the Daggers promoting Kaesar to the head of the raiders in recognition for what he had done for them, and his first act was crucifixion for the men that had captured him.

Kaesar was acutely aware that the root cause of all the problems were tribal identities, leading to internecine conflict and preventing any substantial recovery. He knew what had to be done. He had to erase all traces of tribal ans raider identities, and substitute a single, monolithic culture in their place. The tribes Caesar fought against and assimilated were primitive even by the standards of the post-nuclear world, with nothing even remotely comparable to what existed out west: No towns, no roads, no meaningful industry. They fell to the superior forces marshaled by Kaesar and later Atriox when Kaesar found him on the verge of death within the wastes.

By 2111, six years since he began the Novus and when his confederation was large enough, the Veteran crowned himself as Caesar, leader of the Great Tribe: the Novus and he deliberately patterned it after imperial Rome. One of the reasons was that this ancient European culture was completely foreign, alien to the ignorant tribals he was subjugating. Second, he considered Rome's highly militarized autocracy adept at integrating conquered cultures the perfect template for a society that could adapt to the challenges of the post-apocalyptic world and thrive, establishing prosperity and peace: a new Pax Romana. He created the new novus to  be a nationalist, imperialist, totalitarian,

completely homogenous culture that would focus on long-term stability at all costs.

By 2115, Kaesar's age caught up with him and he passed down the throne to Atriox.