## Statistics Galactic Age: ~99,500 GY Subjective Age: 21,263 Homeworld: [[Rina's Holdfast]] Home Sector: Affinity Groups: - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Scientists]] - Seeking Genius - In constant search of deeper mysteries, with massive resources - What is Science? (Wondering) - Recognizing this secret as a tiny facet of a greater mystery - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Agents]] - Discoveries & great mysteries You are the Governor of [[Rina's Holdfast]], one of the few powerful factions still standing after [[The Sundering of Harmony]]. You've maintained your Holding's independence through thousands of years serving [[House Orman]] as a sort of live-in prophet for one of its finest commanders (see below). This position has given you the influence you needed to protect your people, but it's forced you to make significant moral compromises. You've given yourself some breathing room by being much more cryptic than you needed to be, but even your naturally occult personality can only be stretched so far. In recent years, as [[High Seat Ormais]] has become more cryptic about their goals and the larger House has grown more internally fractious, you've started to wonder if it's time to think about a new line of work. You want to protect your people and advance the interests of your Holding. You've become something of a mercenary, but that was only ever in service to your more fundamental goal. You do also have a genuine love of teaching and sharing mysteries. When you're not maneuvering, you spend a great deal of time pondering the deep questions of the universe. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the true nature of the [[Celestial Empress]]? Is it possible to tell a joke so obscure everyone assumes it's a holy revelation? These and many others trouble in you the dark of night. You've come to the [[Plague Council]] because, as one of the few Governors present, you will wield absolutely massive power. For the first time in your existence, you'll be a peer to any High Seat; each of you gets one vote on any matter before the Council. This represents the greatest opportunity you've ever had to protect your Holding in perpetuity, and you have no intention of letting it pass you by. ## Goals 1. Keep [[House Orman]] from subsuming your Holding by whatever means necessary, even if it means helping them destroy others. 2. Gather and spread information as mysteriously and cryptically as possible while still communicating. 3. Teach others not to trust their assumptions, and to instead dig deeper into everything. ## Character Notes - Vitoli is famed as an oracle and a prophet, and that isn't exactly *untrue*. It's more true to say that they're very well-informed and fond of dropping cryptic hints. Some of that information comes from instincts they struggle to explain, a common occurrence for those born and raised on [[Rina's Holdfast]], but a great deal of it comes from their friends and allies. Will they be able to maintain their aura of mysticism while trading information in real-time? Will abandoning that aura make them more, or less, believable? - Although a Governor in your own right, Vitoli is also a member of [[High Seat Ormais]]'s personal staff. This position of influence and authority has been tremendously useful in keeping [[House Orman]] pointed away from your Holding and your people. At the same time, you've undeniably provided service to the Sector's most powerful and dangerous faction (barring [[Celestial Empress|Her Majesty]]). A Governor's first responsibility is to their Holding, but how do you make peace with your part in such a vast war? - [[Rina's Holdfast]], your Holding, was once the seat of the [[Wyrdsmith]], before she became one of [[Celestial Empress|Her Majesty's]] immortal [[Wend]]. Few people know that, but you do. You also know that it wasn't just a home, it was a fortress of last-resort. When the Empress broke the [[Forgeglow Rebellion]] and slew twenty seven of the thirty Smiths of the First Light, the Wyrdsmith retreated to your Holding (millions upon millions of years before you were born) and used her strange and occult powers to wall it away from the rest of the galaxy. For nearly a hundred thousand years, not even the Empress could penetrate this shield. When She finally did, Her wroth was terrible to behold. When the Wyrdsmith walled it off, your Holding had hundreds of planets. When the Empress was finished, only the capital planet remained. In the eons since, Rina's Holdfast has birthed more rebellions, conspiracies, and traitors than any fifty Holdings combined. Has Vitoli encouraged this tradition, or sought to stamp it out? ## Connections 1. [[High Seat Ormais]] 1. "A bird of misfortune. Carrion on crows' wings. Good bar." 2. For long years, you've been in service to an agent of pure and vibrant chaos, a bringer of storms so vast they blot out entire constellations. That cataclysm in human form is known to the galaxy at large as High Seat Ormais, the person with the highest kill count in the entire sector (assuming [[Celestial Empress|Her Majesty]] isn't passing through). In service of this living funeral pyre, you listen to the stories unfolding around you, predict their arcs, and mention in passing the details to come. All the while, Ormais' favorite scribes stand around you with pens at the ready, desperate to capture your every mumble. Is it possible that you sometimes add an extra layer of cryptic nonsense to keep the scribes busy analyzing? Sure. But in your defense, it's not actually that difficult to predict which fleet will win when one of them uses antimatter as a handshake, so you've got to find ways to entertain yourself. What about the High Seat convinced you to bend your talents to their service, given the fact that your own Holding may one day become their next victim? 2. [[Diplomat Ziz]] 1. "Wealth in human form. The ripple of a stone tossed in a pool of blood. Mediocre bar." 2. Ziz is a representative of [[The Violet Fleet|Violet Fleet]], a powerful but chaotic band of interstellar raiders who imagine themselves to be figures of glory and conquest. At the same time, enough plunder in one place can distort spacetime like anything else. Now, Ziz is responsible for distorting spacetime into a shape which makes their people seem respectable. You doubt they'll be successful, which is something of a shame, as you think Ziz really does have their heart in the right place regardless of the true nature of Violet Fleet. Given how many people are willing to accept your wild pronouncements as fact, you have the power to make or break Ziz's attempt to find a protègè. Will you help or harm this polite face of a vicious beast? 3. [[Governor Biru]] 1. "Biru of the Bees and Nectar. Biru of the Thousand Thousand Thousands. Terrible bar." 2. When is a plague not a plague? When is a panacea a poison? What is the point of a bee with no hive, or a pollen-less flower? Whatever else Biru may be, you know the Governor as a tiny part of an impossibly vast edifice. You've known them for a hundred thousand years, and not once in that time have you known them to show fear, or doubt, or uncertainty. There are, simply put, no humans like that. Given Biru's epithets, you strongly suspect them to be a child of the [[Hivemother]]. Each time you've met with them, you've probed the limits of their understanding, and each time you've been disappointed. They're wise, certainly, and powerful beyond mortal reckoning. But as far as you can tell, Biru has spent little to no time plumbing the great mysteries of the galaxy. Such failings are common among the children of the [[Plaguesmith]], but disappointing all the same. Still, even if they lack transcendence, perhaps Biru could help you ensure the safety and security of your Holding. Can you find common ground with such an alien being, or will the demands of state see you making a terrible enemy? 4. [[Spy Morir]] 1. "Fifty thousand lies pretending to be a single human. The sum total of all illicit information. Absolutely top-notch bar, great stuff." 2. You first met Spy Morir not long after coming into the service of [[High Seat Ormais]]. Morir was pretty upfront about wanting you to pass along information, but they were also upfront about being willing to do the same. Since then, they've often given you tips which you were able to turn into especially impressive and cryptic prophecies. You wouldn't necessarily call the spy a friend, but they're certainly one of the people you're fondest of in the galaxy. Not only have they been an invaluable source, they're also one of the only people who really *get* what it's like to be looked to for all the answers, all the time. You've happily given them intel on Ormais' operations, especially when you thought it might impact their ability to harm your Holding, but you've also often hoped to strike up a deeper friendship. Will the [[Plague Council]] provide you with an opportunity, or will the realities of galactic politics see you driven to conflict? ## Mechanics **Asset:** [[Powers that Be]] As a Governor, your power over your Holding is very nearly absolute. You may rule with a light touch, guiding your society toward brighter and more stable futures. You may take a firmer hand, with Bureaucrats and Voidstalkers by the thousands enforcing your every whim. Whatever you choose to do, and however you choose to do it, so long as you commit neither Treason nor Heresy, it is within your rights. You have the ability to appoint [[Officers]], give those Officers [[Orders|orders]], and make any decision regarding the management or administration of your Holding. You act as the final authority on what is and is not allowed or required, with no appeal and no oversight. **Lien:** [[Heavy the Head]] There is no moral way to have the power of life and death over billions of people. As such, there is no such thing as a good person who is also the Governor of a significant Holding. Sure, a few space stations and backwater planets might enjoy affable, friendly Governors who have forgotten what it feels like to exercise their power, but those exceptions are so rare as to be functionally nonexistent. Whether you strive to do right in a galaxy which eventually corrupts your better judgement, or you just start out as a bastard, a Governor's power is absolute, and so too is their eventual debasement. Whenever you are given the choice to further your personal goals, you must attempt to do so even at the expense of those around you. Whether that means you expend your Holding's resources to settle a petty grudge or you spend a thousand years shaping your own culture to produce the perfect concerto, you must always seek your own ends above all others. Any time you put another person (or group of people) ahead of your own goals, your grasp on your Holding weakens. Act selflessly too many times, and you will be supplanted by someone more suited to the reins of power.