Forbin Acorda

### Affiliation

Illuminated, Republic of New Arendur, (formerly Church of Transcendental Theosophy)

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

*"Whatever the weapons we wield, whatever the deeds we perform, they are justified. Without us, New Arendur would fall, and without the Church to guide them, humanity would follow."*

-Forbin Acorda

## History

Forbin Acorda was one of the few individuals born as a result of Tolumvire of Arendur's short-lived, ill-conceived plan to try and conceive sorcerers by pressuring mages to have children with one another. With the exception of Tolumvire's own son Ramander, Acorda was the program's only success. Despite his arcane gifts, Acorda's parents loved neither him nor one another, leading him to eschew the idea or marriage and family. Nonetheless, during the War of the Philosopher-Kings, he did father a son with another member of the Illuminated; to his father's consternation, the son possessed the sparks of arcane talent.

## Personality

"*Tell them ruin has come to their land, death, despair and red war... tell them their hopes and pride have come to nothing, Tell them their empty whispers fall upon deaf ears, their gods are dead, human reason has killed them. Tell them the Godhunter has come. Tell them nothing can save them now.*"

-Forbin Acorda

Forbin Acorda was relentlessly acerbic but could be charming when the mood struck him. Most found him too intense to stand for too long. Within the Branch of the Sword, he had a reputation as the third-most-powerful war mage besides Doctor Curtin and Jon the Ageless; within the Illuminated at large, he was seen as iconoclastic and somewhat cowardly. It was never clear to others, or perhaps even to Acorda himself, to whom he really owed his loyalty or what gave him purpose.

Fifty years wandering the Dreamlands after the death of his son did not do wonders for Acorda's state of mind, and in addition to being hated by anyone with any ideology at all, he was considered erratic and mad. After the death of Tsathoggua, he began to display slavish loyalty to Isaac Icarus, even imitating him in manner and speech.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

During the war, Acorda was a member of the Branch of the Sword, part of the same cadre of war mages to whom Hugo Hawkins belonged. He and Arendurian Army Corporal Addison Marsh were the only enlisted men aware of Hawkins pact with the great old one Tsathoggua. While Corporal Marsh kept his distance, Acorda was curious and contrary to Hawkins' warnings, sought out to commune with the slumbering god. He was unsuccessful in this attempt, succeeding only in getting lost in the Caverns of N'kai.

Forbin Acorda's son was born during the war, and named Flavius after the war hero Flavius Luteus Scaevola.

## After the War

Hugo Hawkins fought against the Hexenjägers, Addison Marsh surrendered to them, and Forbin Acorda fled from them, taking his son Flavius with him. The Hunter-Killer Auxiliary was dispatched to find him and all the other deserters, but Acorda evaded them and made his way towards Mt. Voormithadreth and ventured into the Caverns of N'kai. This time, his meanderings brought him directly before Tsathoggua, Acorda begged the great old one for the power to fight the Hexenjägers, but the god refused, telling him that the Reich would unwittingly bring about the end of the Dream of the Old Ones. The formless spawn then seized the two, feeding young Flavius to the god. The unknowable, unpredictable deity whom Hugo Hawkins had said to fear and avoid finished his meal, thanked the horrified father for his "sacrifice" and invited him to join him in his slumber.

## The Great Awakening

*"The arcane cannot be turned against the arcane. We are less heretics than imbeciles if we believe that. These mages know our desire to use their sacrilegious tools; they exploit and manipulate it for their own ends - even in the loyal citizens of New Arendur."*

-Isaac Outterridge

Forbin Acorda slept in the Cavern of N'kai for half a century, unageing, wandering and lost in the Dreamlands and slowly losing his sanity. He awoke when the gods did, and made his way back to New Arendur. Seeing no future save as a pawn of the gods, Acorda was taken in by the new Pontiff, Leo Calixtus, who had made himself a collection of all those who had succumbed to despair. The Pontiff was preparing for a crusade in the name of the King in Yellow, and having broken away from the greater Reich, was gathering a cadre of mages to be put to use on the battlefield. Leo Calixtus, no doubt inspired by Nadezhda's slave mages, subordinated these spellcasters Warmaster Helga Answith, naming them the Division of the Damned and placing Forbin Acorda in overall command.

While serving as the Division's commander, Acorda was approached by one of the few who remembered him, Isaac Icarus. Recognizing the former Minister of Industry and Commerce on sight, Acorda immediately tried to kill him, prompting Icarus to draw a gun and shoot his assailant with a small caliber otataral bullet. As he lay injured and unable to cast magic, Icarus told him that if he wished, he would have a chance to try and kill Tsathoggua, that there existed god-slaying machines beyond the imagination of the mages, that the so-called gods, masters of the occult, could be slaughtered by human reason. Acorda laughed him off at the time.

After the fall of the Church of Transcendental Theosophy and New Arendur's realignment with the Godhunter, Forbin Acorda was arrested, and there was talk of his execution. The new Warmaster, Icarus, trusting that he had made an impression on Acorda, pardoned him, released him, put him back in command of the Division of the Damned, and pressed Mogget of Ulthar to name him Master of the Sword. The decision was met with uproar and Icarus was nearly forced to back down, and yet the mysterious dreamland cat accepted without any disagreement. Hated and distrusted by his new allies, Forbin Acorda led the Division of the Damned against the newly awoken Tsathoggua, where as Icarus promised, he achieved his revenge.

After the coup and the disappearance of Icarus, Forbin Acorda unexpectedly killed himself. He was said to be the only person who genuinely mourned Isaac Icarus.