## Statistics Galactic Age: ~50,700 Subjective Age: 5,220 Homeworld: [[Sateen Kaari]] Home Sector: [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]] Affinity Groups - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Spiritualists]] - Get Wine Drunk & Scream (Religion) - "Sapient Plagues and Children of the Void are good, actually." - What's the Point? - "To fight and clash and figure it out again and again." - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/War Dogs]] - Longer, Better, Faster, Stronger - "Talking shit is fun, but nothing on singing a bombardment cadence." - Curing the Plague - Pro-plague You are the Harbinger of [[Sateen Kaari]], one of the most influential Holdings left in [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]]. You've held your post for fifty thousand galactic years, nearly your entire life, and have spent that time leading troops in battle, manipulating your Holding's enemies against one another, and generally wreaking havoc on the galaxy via the mechanism of talking smack. This occupation has given you something of a reputation as a cutting, acerbic socialite. In some ways, that's true. You do have a knack for verbally hitting someone where it hurts, but you hardly ever deploy that skill for frivolous reasons. No, instead you work very hard to *find* frivolous reasons with which to conceal your real, straightforward, and political motivations. You want to bring down House Orman. You don't really care if they conquer the galaxy or not, but you do care quite a bit what happens to your Holding and your people, and you don't see any way Orman's war continues another hundred thousand years without destroying everyone and everything in its path. You're willing to make peace with the Sapient Plagues, or even to manipulate the Council into supporting them directly (so long as your name stays clean) if it gives you a way to fight Orman and keep Sateen Kaari whole and independent. You've come to the [[Plague Council]] because this is where all of your Holding's potential allies and enemies are gathered. If you can get the Council to vote in favor of armistice, or to support the Plague Lords, then you'll have made powerful allies you can turn against House Orman. If, on the other hand, such a vote is impossible, you'll still have the opportunity to do what you do best and keep your enemies biting at one another. Whatever the case, the drama is here, so you can't imagine being anywhere else. ## Goals 1. Protect the interests of [[Sateen Kaari]] and find a way for your Holding to get through this endless war without being destroyed or subsumed. 2. Convince the Myriadic Council to grant the Plague Lords an armistice, or to otherwise keep Sundered Harmony out of the war between them and the Celestial Empire. 3. Spread your personal philosophy to as many people as possible. Your beliefs: 1. Warfare, and combat in general, is holy. It exposes the fundamental truths of those who experience it and leaves them forever changed. Each person should experience that tumult and meet their true self. 2. The universe is cyclical, and each time we go around we have the chance to fight harder, care more, and dream bigger. Any attempt to "solve" life is doomed and stupid, because it forgets that any one point in time is just the latest take on an infinite refrain. 3. The galaxy should be full of monsters, absolutely chock-full of them. That way, humans have a way to pursue glory and holy combat without the need for other humans to die in droves. ## Character Notes - This character is the proverbial fly in the ointment. They use a naturally fractious personality as a tool to ensure that the enemies of their Holding are always making stupid mistakes for stupid, personal reasons. Whether it's cracking a joke at the right (wrong) moment, needling in on exactly the most sensitive topic, or generally being a dick, Wilde is a natural at making enemies. At the same time, this instinct comes from a powerful protective urge. You aren't fucking with people for the sake of bothering them, but because it's a good way of pursuing larger goals. How does Wilde find calm and respite from the demands of their work? - This character is one of several from [[Sateen Kaari]], a powerful Holding in the Sector, and one of the few real powers not yet beholden to [[House Orman]]. That independence is due in no small part to the many wars and personal conflicts Wilde has started over the years, and the complex social web they've woven. Serving the Holding's interests has been Wilde's preoccupation (and regular occupation) for essentially your entire life. How does Wilde feel about the actual people (e.g., [[Knight Leander]], [[Operator Signus]]) of the Holding which has dominated their existence; love, resentment, embarrassment? Or, as it so often is with extended family, a complex braid of all three? - Wilde is firmly in the [[Sapient Plagues]] camp, but not for any ideological reason. [[House Orman]] is simply too powerful for anyone in [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]] to challenge, and the Empire has shown no sign whatsoever of stepping in. You figure if the Plague Lords get strong enough, the Empress will have no choice but to send in a few Voidstalker fleets. From there, it's just a matter of arranging the right incident, and your House Orman problem takes care of itself. Even if it weren't for that, you'd still be in favor of siding with the Plague Lords. You've always been a sucker for a kaiju fight. Sure, Her Majesty will annihilate anyone fighting her, but that's why you plan to be conveniently absent from any such fight. Can Wilde walk the delicate balance of turning vast enemies against one another without being crushed between? ## Connections 1. [[Attaché Cerul]] 1. "It seems almost certain that Cerul is an idiot. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to get in their way much." 2. As far as you can tell, Cerul's main job is slapping their name on the biggest object in any given solar system, throwing a big party, and disappearing into space. This doesn't seem to require any particular skill or merit, but if it did, Cerul would be the paragon of that imaginary skill. For whatever reason, Cerul's parties are always bigger, always better, and always full of people desperate for their approval. If you were a party planner, you'd have assassinated them centuries ago. As it is, you enjoy a standing invitation to any and all of those parties, dating back to around thirty thousand galactic years ago, when you started a war between two minor Voidsinger factions with a truly *filthy* joke involving infinite cosmic voids. You don't always attend, because you spend a fair amount of your time at near-light-speed, separate from the normal time stream, but whenever you're in the temporal neighborhood you try to drop by. Will Cerul remain a convenient, if unimpressive asset, or will you discover hidden depths in the famed socialite? 2. [[Engineer Crispi]] 1. "Why couldn't you have been a Kaarite?" 2. You love a good fight and, as someone who loves a good fight, there's nothing better than watching an underdog win. A lone engineer piloting a warship barely large enough to qualify as lunar-class? One who has somehow managed to turn the tide of war after war with impossible victories? You can't help but find that story thrilling, especially when you combine it with the persistent rumors that the good Engineer is actually in service of the [[Plague Lords]] themselves. You have nothing against the Plague Lords -you think planet-sized monsters are pretty neat- and the handful of times you've met Crispi in the last fifty or so galactic millennia they've been great for a drink and a story. That said, it seems like the kind of liability that might work against Crispi during this council. Regardless, you feel confident that Crispi is a good avenue if you need to start any fights. Just suggest it's unwinnable and wait for the carnage. Will your distant acquaintance turn into a real bond, or just a tool of convenience? 3. [[Speculator Mahlah]] 1. "How old? Really? Surely at some point there's a limit." 2. Mahlah is supposed to be millions and millions of years old. That is a frankly ridiculous number, one which you can barely fit in your head. Sure, they've spent most of that time skipping along near light speed, which means they've "only" experienced around thirty thousand of those years. But even that number is, again, ridiculous. You've been alive for around fifty thousand galactic years and only experienced a few hundred. Even that has been enough for ennui to occasionally rear its ugly head on you, which is one of the reasons you're so good at your job. This strange immunity to the boredom of immortality has made Mahlah into a figure of fascination for you. True, Mahlah is a highly successful information broker and manipulator, but the risk of being used in some scheme is nothing like enough to discourage you from spending time with them. How will you square your responsibility to cause problems for other Holdings with your genuine respect for (and curiosity about) the famed Speculator? 4. [[Knight Leander]] 1. "Once upon a time, sure. Now? A limping sword fighter with a limp sword." 2. Oh how you miss the glory of Leander's youth. You were there in those heady early days, as the young Knight won duel after duel, battle after battle. You composed songs in their honor as they proved to all comers that the might of [[Sateen Kaari]] was not to be challenged. You sang the orbital bombardment cadence to which they shattered the [[Golden Clockwork Fleet]]. In short, you remember the days when Knight Leander was Knight Leander. Now? This... sad sack? You're disappointed. You understand that Leander hasn't had the luxury you and most others enjoyed. While the two of you were born within a few years of one another, a life spent at near-light-speed means you've experienced barely one in ten of the years you've notionally "lived." Leander? As far as you can tell, Leander's is the longest uninterrupted stream of consciousness in the galaxy, outside [[Celestial Empress|Her Majesty]], Her [[Wend]], and the [[Sapient Plagues]]. Maybe that's what has the Knight so down and dismal, maybe they're just tired. Will you help them go gently, or will you stoke defiance in the tired Knight once more? ## Mechanics **Asset:** [[Sing We of Rage]] Where a Harbinger's voice is heard, war is found. Yours are not the simple "left-right-left" cadences of drilling troops, nor the sweeping and self-loving arias of a military band, no. When you sing, people die. In any [[Combat|Combat]] with more than two participants, the side you join gains one advantage. If there are more than five total participants (split between two or more sides), your side gains three advantages. **Lien:** [[Sing We of Ruin]] The power to stir emotions is a terrible thing. When your voice brings millions of people to wroth and wakes the fury of a thousand generations, it can become surprisingly difficult to order dinner. Whenever you speak to a character on a topic other than war, you steadily grow more and more uncomfortable. The only way to keep your carefully honed instincts from driving you up the wall is to occasionally mention conflict in one form or another. In any conversation, regardless of topic, you go out of your way to bring up war, battle, fighting, or some other form of violence at least once, or to regularly tie the discussion back to those ideas. When a conversation goes on too long without acknowledgement of violence, you become paranoid, certain that some kind of attack must be imminent and the lack of notice will only make it succeed.