Vortigern Pax
Vortigern is one of the elder mages of Mysidia, and avowed socialist.
Biological
- Full Name: Vortigern Pax
- Born: 976 WB
- Birthplace: Mysidia
- Sex: Male
- Race: Human
- Hair: White
- Eyes: Green
- Height: 6'0"
Personal
- Religion: born Tahranist
- Title: Sage of the Mysidian Commonwealth
- Nicknames: None
- Hobbies: None
- Known Skills: Vortigern is learned in both the Mysidian practices of Black and White magic
History
Vortigern Pax is a portly, balding old wizard who once contended with Sage Dean for rulership of Mysidia. Losing badly against the older, more practiced sorcerer, Pax went into seclusion for many years and vowed revenge against Dean -- but largely this was naught but so much hot air from the flabby old mage.
Two events would give Pax a boost toward realizing his goal of coming to rule Mysidia: the rise of the Merge League, and the construction of the Great Serpent. Vortigern met a younger Alkar when the Grand Master made a tour of the Web and studied magic in Mysidia. He had been a temporary mentor of Alkar's, instructing him in the ways and spells of Mysidian arcane tradition. Temporary mentor because, in the span of a few weeks, Lord Alkar outstripped Vortigern and had to move on.
Vortigern insisted on keeping in touch with the Black Mage, however, because in him Vortigern saw great potential. He believed that if he and Alkar could join forces, they could expel Dean forever.
Vortigern watched, from afar, the formation of the Merge League. He celebrated and sang Alkar's praises, and used what little influence he had to see to the formation of a small cell of communist wizards within Mysidia. This underground movement gained a hint of legitimacy when it saw to the rounding up and imprisonment of OmniSent agents in Mysidia; though contrary to Dean's wishes, Vortigern gained popularity and semi-heroic status among his fellows. Vortigern was one of the wizards who aided in the construction of the Great Serpent, a transdimensional gateway linking Mysidia with Thamasa and the Towers of Sorcery on Merge World II. Though he did not have rulership of Mysidia yet, he felt his star was definitely rising.
Vortigern mourned when Alkar was "slain" and new order came to the League -- but then was startled when a robed figure, emerging through the Great Serpent gate, gave a rapping on his door late one night. It was Alkar.
Assassinated, resurrected and exiled from his beloved League, the Black Wizard crashed at Vortigern's country villa for a time to get his bearings. It was then that Alkar told Vortigern he would be returning to the League one day, to reclaim it. Vortigern excitedly applauded the idea, and asked if he might consider "liberating" Mysidia, bringing it into the League's ranks. On leaving, Alkar told Pax that he would consider it.
Fast forward to the close of the Leviathan War. No sooner had Alkar reassumed control of the Merge League did plans get set in motion. The League's Seeder agents began to fan out once more, intent on toppling governments and sewing discord across the Dimension. And a healthy number of them began to cross the Great Serpent, finding themselves in Mysidia and the villa of Vortigern Pax.
Three years after the last shot was fired in the Leviathan War, the coup was ready, and it was staged and completed in a single night. Dean was slain, Vortigern installed as Sage, and quickly was subsumed into the Communist Protectorate. A Merge League garrison was set in place, and Scandian ports began to establish themselves along Mysidia's coastline.
It was when Vortigern's petition for Merge League membership was indefinitely postponed that his independent rise began. In one deft stroke, he cut himself off from Alkar and the Merge Dimension by destroying the Mysidian end of the Great Serpent. Securing the allegiance of Zulena of the Clock, one of the high-ups sent by the Merge League, Vortigern gained the ability to create a golem army of his own, and once the Serpent Gate was destroyed he sent the golem army to Silvera. There, Zulena seized control of the islands from Lord Snoutwit the Fascist Pig, in a bloodless (though urine-soaked) victory.
It was then, with the golem army in Silvera, that Eblan attacked Mysidia. Left with only its wizards to hold the line, Vortigern's militia captain, Bleda Hernandez, fought valiantly to stymie the charge of the Eblanese, keeping them at bay just long enough for the Scandians to send reinforcements.
In the wake of that war, and the peace talks in Toroia which followed, Vortigern Pax and his fellows in Mysidia and Silvera formed the government of the Commonwealth, over which Vortigern currently rules as Sage.
