Odysseus Knox

Odysseus wears a mask and robes to hide his frightening appearance

The Freak

Cassandra Knox (sister)

Ethan Blackthorne (half-brother)

Gwenavere Blackthorne (half-sister)

Belladonna Knox (niece)

Beatrice Knox (daughter?)

Zephora Knox (daughter?)

The honorable Lord **Odysseus Knox** is an industrialist and the Patriarch of the House of Knox in 1086AE. He has a seat in Parliament as the representative of The Three Titans consituency, which is also his ancestral fortress. He heads the Knox Corporation, a conglomerate company that controls stakes in a variety of industries, chiefly textile; he also owns the firearms manufacturer Knox&Worcester. His factories are spread all over the islands of his family's ancestral domain, and he has several large production plants in Bastion City. Odysseus has been plagued by extremely poor health for his entire life; he was born grotesquely disfigured, and is constantly sick with multiple illnesses. This, along with his bitter temperament, means he is regarded with suspicion and fear by most of the Aradian populace.

Odysseus is married to Lady Millicent Rodin. Unable to sire children due to his deformities, he turned her over to a surrogate, his elder half-brother Glenn East, and through that union he has twin "daughters" named Beatrice Knox and Zephora Knox. Odysseus had a younger sister, Cassandra Knox, who was taken as a concubine by the Dark Prince; she died birthing his bastard child, and that bastard child was legitimized as the heir to Odysseus' name, Belladonna Knox. Through his reviled mother, he has two living half-siblings; Ethan and Gwenavere Blackthorne.

As of 1086AE, he is currently residing in his home fortress of Three Titans, with his niece Belladonna. His twin "daughters" run with Zara's crew.

## Skills & Abilities

While physically disabled, Odysseus has a keen mind, and had spent much of his life in a library studying. He has an interest in astronomy and a collection of brass-eye telescopes. He is also learned in economics, and his business had prospered under his watchful eye.

## History

in late 1016AE, after the monarch's coronation, a girl named VIctoria Knox was born in the Three Titans.

She was the last of the Knox name at the time, and so when she grew older, it was thought that the bloodline should remain pure. She was married to a legitimized baseborn cousin, a man 30 years her senior. The reigning Monarch expressed displeasure at the union, but the reigning powers of the Eastern Reach assured Queen Talia that it was only a matter of necessity.

Victoria eventually bore a son, an heir to the Knox name. When pulled from her womb, the physicians were said to have recoiled in horror. Descriptions of the child vary from atendee to attendee but all are uniformly horrifying; the baby had a nightmarish face, a twisted torso, legs filled with infected fluid. This, it was said, was the price the Knoxes had been forced to pay for marrying within their own bloodline for so long. The inbreeding had ruined this child and turned it into a horror. The boy was not expected to live for a day. Instead, shockingly, the infant last not only a day but a fortnight, and stubbornly continued to live on past even that. Eventually his father gave the boy a name; Odysseus.

His mother Victoria, however, wanted nothing to do with her son, and could not even look at him without cringing in disgust. She spent little to no time with the boy as he grew, several times openly expressing a wish that the child would just die. As if to spite her, for every new disability that plagued Odysseus' grotesque form--he became epileptic, gouty, and his jaw was so malformed that he could barely speak or eat--he seemed to gain new resolve to live. Victoria soon gave birth to another child, Cassandra. Outwardly, the daughter appeared normal and healthy, and even grew to be beautiful. But the fruit of the incest soon became apparent, for she often heard voices that were not there, complained of hallucinations, had violent paranoid breakdowns. In the girls' eighth year the marriage was forcibly dissolved and declared barbaric by the Queen, who claimed that incest should never again be practiced among noble bloodlines.

Odysseus' body was ruined but he dedicated himself to pursuits of the mind, learning of machinery and astrology. He looked after his little sister to the best of his ability, and took to wearing a distinctive mask and robe (shown above) so that he could move about in public without frightening people. As a child, he was held hostage during the Battle of the Three Titans, during which time his father Oedipus was shot dead in front of him. The young Odysseus proved his skills at leadership by negotiating with his captors, ensuring the survival of himself, Cassandra, and their half-brother Glenn.

When his mother remarried to Prince Gordon Blackthorne, Odysseus refused to accompany her to her new family and instead declared himself the new Lord of the Three Titans. He ruled well, with aid from his councillors, and even secured a marriage with Millicent Holdenholme that yielded twin daughters, Beatrice and Zephora. Odysseus was unable to sire children due to his deformities but willingly arranged for his wife to use his half-brother Glenn as a surrogate father, telling the public the baseborn twins that resulted were his own. Despite his willing arrangement, Odysseus was distant with his "offspring." He could not bring himself to show affection to these able-bodied youngsters, who were constant reminders of his physical inadequacy.

In 1073, shortly after the end of the Brecilidian Rebellion, Odysseus journeyed to court to meet with the royal family, and have a typically tense exchange with his mother. He took his sister with him. It was there that they met Edmund Blackthorne, the Dark Prince of the Isles. Edmund took a shine to Cassandra immediately, and manipulated her into thinking she loved him. She soon became pregnant with his child, and died birthing it. This was the final straw for Odysseus; not only had the Blackthornes taken the mother who had never loved him, but now they had taken his beloved sister as well. To placate him, the monarchy allowed him to legitimize the newborn niece as Belladonna Knox.

Odysseus swiftly bonded with this child far more than he had with the twins, doting upon her and showing her constant affection and attention. This strained relations with Millicent and her daughters. Eventually the younger of them, Beatrice, set Bella's crib alight in a fit of jealousy. While the baby survived, Odysseus was inconsolable upon hearing the news he'd almost lost his last vestige of Cassandra, the panic causing him to have four epileptic seizures concurrently and nearly killing him. In the rush for the healers to save his life, he was able to speak a single command; take the child Beatrice and inter her at Untergrad, an asylum. She spent over a year locked up, and "treated." Odysseus was said to be fully aware that the bedlam would not help the violent girl, having seen his sister Cassandra go through the same thing--but as Bea had tried to take his last part of his sister away from him, it was fitting he punish her by making her suffer as his sister had. Beatrice was not cured upon return and in 1080AE eventually roped her twin into killing Glenn East and fleeing. Odysseus immediately named Belladonna as his heir, exiling the twins from his family. This caused his disintegrating marriage with Millicent to fall apart, resulting in their separation. Odysseus was coldly dismissive of his not-family leaving him; he needed only Belladonna, now his true successor.

As an older man one might think that Odysseus would grow to forgive what had been done to him. But a Knox never forgives, and a Knox never forgets; Odysseus aided in the 1077 Revolution, orchestrating the killing of his mother's second husband who had become the King. Victoria Knox had died in 1075AE during the Red Death. Odysseus did not hold a funeral for her, and refused to take her ashes back to the Titans, forcing her to be buried in her gardens near the royal palace at Otzengard. He was heard to remark that since she had turned her back on her Knox name, his mother had no place at their fortress, whether alive or dead.

## Trivia

Odysseus is based on the real-life figure King Charles II of the House of Habsburg, who was similarly disfigured due to centuries of inbreeding in his family. His masked appearance is influenced by the depiction of the leper King Baldwin in the film Kingdom of Heaven.