Thomas Reese

*"Rush to death. The longer one lives, the less valued is that life. What is that? Spilled blood is lost blood, powerless blood in the end. It dies when abandoned. Witness violent death for proof of that."*

-Thomas Reese

## History

Born in poverty in the Empire of Arendur, Thomas Reese was a bright and curious child, but one whose parents virulently despised witchcraft. Though the Illuminated would have taken the studious boy into their ranks, his parents would never permit such a thing. Raised in a pious and anti-intellectual environment and expecting a life of a day-laborer, Reese only survived the destruction of Oranor because he was visiting an uncle in Forester's Town. His uncle, a ex-ranger retired after a crippling injury, raised him afterwards, but resented the financial strain this placed on his own family. For his own part, Reese came to despise Forester's Town; despite this, he was pushed to join the Forester Town Rangers as soon as he reached the age of majority. He served loyally albeit listlessly, and was respected as a sober-minded and clear-thinking individual.

As soon as New Arendur was founded, Reese immediately left the Forester Town Rangers and returned to the resurrected city of his birth. Knowing no trade but war, he joined the New Arendurian Army as an officer, quickly rising through the ranks on account of his keen intellectual ability. Having reaching the rank of Major in the regiment commanded by Colonel Flavius Luteus, Reese, who had recently gotten married, did not expect to advance further and was considering retirement. Events would upend any such plans.

## Personality

Dour, intelligent, and pessimistic. Though an officer in New Arendur, Thomas Reese hated mages and war. He hated all things magical partially because of his parent's influence, and partly because he knew deep down that he would have found the life of a scholar amongst the Illuminated far more fulfilling then his career in the armed forces. Going into the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Reese hated that innocent blood would be shed for the mages, and fought only out of patriotism and the deep impulse to protect his people. Reese himself was respected far more then he was liked, and no one really seemed to ever understand what made him tick. He was a kindred spirit to his commanding officer, Flavius Luteus Scaevola, and in time became far more loyal to him then to the government of New Arendur.

Later in life, Thomas Reese was an eager convert to the worship of the King in Yellow. His childhood upbringing had been strictly religious in such a way as to engender a lifetime contempt in religious institutions, and yet there was a deep ambivalence in him fostered by the violent deaths of his parents and siblings. Years of professing rationalism and secularism in service of the Illuminated almost obscured the fact that he deeply missed a sense of order and certainty that he had lost far too young.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

When war broke out, Thomas Reese's first major engagement was in the Battle of Forester's Town, where he served with distinction. Despite his courage and focus under fire, the aftermath of the battle saw the death of his cousins (his uncle having passed away years ago) and their family, who had hid in their cellar and asphyxiated on the smoke of Emperor Brennen's conjured flames. Though he had never been especially loved by this branch of his family, they were his only living relatives aside from his wife and children. Reese had no time to mourn, as Scaevola's injuries and discharge saw his promotion to Colonel, where he reported directly to the General of the Arendurian Army. Though his service record was generally praised, he came under scrutiny at the time for remarks that to avert bloodshed, the New Arendurians should have surrendered to Emperor Brennen. He drew moral equivalence between the Phoenix Emperor and the Illuminated, and held them equally responsible for the war and the death of his family.

## After the War

In the aftermath of the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Thomas Reese was highly disillusioned and beginning to question the purpose of his life and career. He latched on to the ideology of the newly established Carcosai, whose founder Scaevola he almost considered as a friend. By now fervently loyal to his former Colonel, Reese, who was on the verge of retiring from the armed forces, was easily convinced to remain in his position as one of the highest-ranking individuals in the Carcosai. When war broke out with the Reich, the normally brilliant commander took no action that put his men at risk, and went through the motions of war. He was instrumental to Scaevola's decision to betray the Illuminated and open the gates to the Hexenjägers, and an eager collaborator in the war crime trials that followed.

After a brief period of retirement, Reese was called upon by the newly selected Pontifex Maximus of New Arendur, Flavius Luteus Scaevola, to take the rank of General of the New Arendurian Army. This role Reese took up eagerly, not for the chance to wield power, but in order to refashion the armed forces into an obedient, purely defensive institution, and to purge it of its last vestiges of the arcane, as well as anyone still ambivalent about the Reich. A recent but fervent convert to the Church of Transcendental Theosophy, General Thomas Reese also made sure that the army was loyal to the priesthood and to the dictates of the King in Yellow.