Rights

**Rights** is a Fiend Spawn revolutionary activist and terrorist that is the leader of the Emerald Vipers.

### Early Life

Rights was born to a scullery maid that worked at the Institute of Magical Learning who had been used by an evil wizard to breed with his dominated shadow demon servant. He was 3 years old when the archmage of the institute was assassinated, and Adele Tellumnar took over Belleza. As a child with an arcane bloodline, he was rounded up in the early Scientarian purges and enslaved. He was regularly beaten and abused when he expressed any of his arcane abilities, and was regularly threatened with death. When he was 11, he managed to escape, but continued to live on the fringes of society for years. In 12 asr, when he was 15, Rights had gained enough power over his shadow magic to enter the shadow plane, and used the space bending properties of that dimension to travel to Nuhaven. There, he learned how to control his magic, solidified his belief in the equality of all races when he dealt with continued hatred for his Fiend heritage, and eventually returned to Belleza with the goal of tearing down the Scientarian Empire. It was during his stay in Nuhaven that he chose the name Rights for himself.

### The Emerald Vipers in Belleza

Rights involved himself with the wars to break the western provinces away from the Scientarian Empire in the years after the death of Alek Tellumnar. He went back to Belleza in 22 asr, once the situation in the west seemed to be settled in favor of independence. Rights thought that with enough of a push the east could fall into disarray as well, and the empire as a whole would disintegrate. He initially connected with several groups interested in breaking apart the empire and restoring the old order, but Rights refused on principle. He was hoping to make a new world of equal rights, not a world that re-entrenched conservative arcane racist domination like that which had created him. He founded the Emerald Vipers on this principle. The name came from the magical Gem Vipers that slithered about the underbelly of the city, a result of an arcane experiment from before the revolution, and which the city officials had consistently failed to exterminate. He hoped his new organization would be just as resilient.

He reached out to the most dispossessed and frustrated communities in Belleza to form the beginnings of his organization, but struggled for years to make any real headway. From time to time he would be able to make some move that would kill a random Scientarian official or stop some troop movements or supplies from getting where they were needed, but it was never enough, and he never had enough widespread support. In 25 asr, the Infernal Wars ended, and the situation in the west stabilized, which seemed to signal that the opportunity to bring about the total collapse of the empire in one fell swoop was over.

In the late 20s and early 30s asr, Rights began to take on protegees from the younger members of society, thinking that if he couldn't bring about the end of the empire today, he could at least begin to spread his ideals to the next generation. Through this process he trained several of the next generation of vipers, including Joseph Comstock, Oskar Uno, and Marden Terenz. He began to become more and more frustrated with the lack of movement on his attempts to push society in his intended direction, and became more and more willing to use terrorist tactics to meet his ends. In 37 asr alone, the Emerald Vipers killed 117 government officials and business leaders. In 38 asr, he tasked 17 year old Oskar Uno with the job of planting a massive bomb in a Scientarian building with the secret intention of using the boy as a martyr to gain further sympathy for the movement. When it was told to the people that the government had executed the poor half-simian noble boy without restraint, large groups of the poor of the city rallied behind the Vipers, and the terrorism campaign and government crackdowns increased in intensity.

When the Oyashiman-Scientarian War brought chaos to the city, Rights launched the revolution he had always dreamed of leading, attempting to take control of the major government buildings in Belleza, and kill anyone who stood in their way. Rights also fought against the Oyashiman invaders, attempting to co-opt the war into a patriotic defense of their territory when the Scientarians were failing to protect them. But when Adele returned from the Gern Heart, Rights short lived rule in the city was over. He and the gang were rooted out with vigor by the ascendent Scientarians, and despite his best efforts he was eventually captured and sent to a specially built prison in Marenwald to await his sentencing and likely execution.

### The Caliyan Exile

Rights stewed angrily in Caliyan, his prospects the lowest they had been in decades. He had come so close to the sun, but crashed back to earth.

After receiving the Moon card from Vile's magical tarot deck, Rights received three wishes, which were:

1. I wish for a power to bring Adele Tellumnar to her knees.
2. I wish for the power to become even more powerful than Adele Tellumnar herself.
3. I wish for an army of incontestable strength and unwavering loyalty.

With the first wish, he received the Binding Artifacts, so recently used in the wars in the Redwall Desert to bind and control the goddess Shyver. With his second wish, he received a great deal of divine power, making him on par with many minor demigods. With the third, he received a magic key and knowledge of the Terracotta Army of Junpei Ryu. The key could be used to gain entry to the tomb, and the wielder of the key is able to command the clay golems at will.