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Tomak, son of Cassander

Tomak, son of Cassander 3rd level male mul gladiator, S20 D18 C18 I15 W14 C11, age: 18 (as per old notes)

Experience Points: +4,064 + 200 (story points) = +4,264

Summary

Tomak was born on the 1st Free Year of Tyr, the 19th of Dominary, the 26th Year of the 190th King's Age, the Year of Priest's Defiance. He was born to then captain Cassander of House Rees, and his mother Amphia, who did not long survive his birth. The son of a freedman on his father's side, through his mother, Tomak is a third generation scion of Anaxander of House Lythanane a once famous but now fallen noble family of Balic.

Tomak is, unlike his father, a born citizen of the city-state of Balic, which is an unusual situation for a mul. As per his father's designs, this makes Tomak eligible for civic and military offices of state.

An avid fan of the arena, called the Criterion in Balic, Cassander took note of his son's admiration, and on his 14th birthday enrolled Tomak at the Gladiatorial School of House Jarko, considered by many the finest gladiatorial school in all the Seven Cities.

Tomak has recently graduated from the gladiatorial school, but has long known that his father does not wish for his son to his waste his life in the arena. Rather, Tomak suspects that his father wishes to make use of his noble heritage in some fashion.

In the last few months, the undemocratic mercantile triumvirate that has ruled Balic for almost ten years has recently collapsed due to seizing of the city by the arch-gladiator Xal'gren, an anti-slavery champion. One of the great ruling merchant houses, House Tomblador, has fallen, and House Wavir, which early allied with Xal'gren, is ascendant. House Rees, to which Cassander is loyal and serves as their under-admiral and senior agent, is in a precarious situation, and will almost certainly soon require action.

Tomak's future is now uncertain, and he may soon rise to the heights, or fall to the dust. The decision will be his.

Family

Father: Cassander of House Rees

Cassander, born Urgus, was born free in an unknown dwarven village somewhere far to the south of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, in Year 75 of the 188th King's Age, the Year of Silt' Defiance (Free Year -104). When Urgus was eight, in the Year of Wind's Defiance, his village was raided and destroyed by the Black Fleet of Balic under the command of the powerful Navarch Lord Gramedes Basilsaurius. The survivors were herded upon the slave ships, most of them destined for a monstrous doom. Lord Basilsaurius personally decided who was doomed and who would live, and so upon reaching the great port city of Balic, Urgus was sold. He was sold to a silt schooner captain belonging to House Rees, one of the great mercantile dynasties of Balic. Intended to become a shipfloater, a psionicist capable of floating ships above the silt, Urgus was instructed in the Way of the Unseen and became a shipfloater's apprentice. Urgus however was rebellious, and for many years admired and wished become an able seaman. After a near disaster when he was upon the floater's dome, the captain punished Urgus, and then condemned the young slave to serve in the ship mess and other lowly tasks. Eventually, the captain retired, and Urgus managed to become a seaman apprentice upon the decks. After nearly single-handedly saving the schooner during a silt storm, Urgus was hailed by the Balican captain and largely freeman crew, and was renamed by them Cassander, after a legendary Balican hero. Urgus has called himself Cassander ever since.

Eventually, after some forty years of service, Cassander's ship was too old to continue on the silt, and was cannibalized. Although still in a state of slavery, Cassander was promoted to an able seaman and sent to a large brigantine called the White Sail. Sailing farther and longer than ever before, the White Sail was the finest ship in the House Rees fleet, and upon it Cassander proved himself time and again. After another twenty years Cassander became boatswain and even the temporary Third Mate. Finally, convinced of his competence and loyalty, Cassander was freed by his masters at House Rees. On other vessels, in the status of an indentured servant, he was placed in quick succession as 2nd and then 1st Mate, and then finally was granted his first ship, a large sloop, as captain, at which time he was released from servitude and became a freedman of House Rees. After several years of that, having proved himself a shrewd merchant as well as expert ship captain, Cassander was given his choice of ships within the Rees fleet. He chose the White Sail.

For the past two decades Cassander has served House Rees as captain of the White Sail. With the ship Cassander has traveled to the very depths of the Silt Sea, and has earned the loyalty of a famous and powerful crew. Although often very risky, Cassander's mercantile adventures and voyages have proved over the long term to be very bountiful to House Rees, adding ever further to that great House's wealth. In the aftermath of sudden absence of Androponis, the immortal Dictator of Balic, Cassander's loyalty proved pivotal when he convinced several other important House Rees captains to remain loyal to their patrons and not to side with the military powers that were attempting to take over the city. Shortly thereafter Cassander was made a senior agent for House Rees, and oversaw many different ships and mercantile activities. He has also become a trusted member of House Rees' inner circle.

Still acting as captain of the White Sail, in recent years Cassander has become one of the most respected ship captains of Balic. A dwarf of some wealth and reputation, his century of sailing is unmatched, and a fair number of ship captains, merchants and adventurers owe Cassander for their own positions and success.

Tomak has lived his entire life in the city of Balic, situated at the very eastern tip of the Balican Peninsula, in the middle of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue.

Cassander Under the Mercantile Triumvriate of Balic

In Free Year 10, or the Year of Friend's Agitation, the sudden disappearance of the Dictator Androponis created mass civil instability until in the end the three great merchant dynasties of the city, House Wavir, House Tomblador and House Rees, seized control of the government and divided the city into three parts for themselves. They also all but ended the democracy.

The merchant dynasties also seized political control of the military, including the large Balican navy, and rotated the ten admiralties and navarchy amongst captains loyal or under service to themselves. As a former slave, Cassander could not assume an admiralty directly, but in Free Year 15 Cassander was named an under-admiral or vice-admiral for the first time, and in many ways became the House Rees admiral of its part of the navy in all but name. With the wealth and influence he accumulated, Cassander purchased the White Sail from House Rees so that he could operate it independently, in addition to other investments. In Free Year 17, Cassander was given personal command of the Dictator, one of the Balican capital ships, a command in addition to his vice-admiralty.

Cassander Under the Military Dictatorship of Xal'gren the Free General and the Silencer of Bodach

In Free Year 19, the army of Xal'gren, in alliance with House Wavir, seized control of Balic and ended the rule of the Three Dynasties. House Tomblador had fought against the approach of Xal'gren and was forced to flee the city, and although House Rees had not actively fought Xal'gren, they had not been favorable to him either, for Xal'gren intended to follow the example of the city-state of Tyr and free all the slaves. Lady Essen, the matriarch of House Rees, schemed to cause the fall of Xal'gren before the mighty ex-gladiator could fully root himself in Balic and reinstall the democracy.

To do this, Lady Essen commanded Cassander to assist her agents in retrieving the fabled Silencer of Bodach, an extremely powerful two-handed sword of red metal from the ancient world that had recently resurfaced out of obscurity. Lady Essen believed that possessing the sword and wielding its symbolic and magical power would catapult herself and her son Polydamus to the rulership of the city.

Understanding the great importance of the assignment and the grave secrecy required to carry it out, Cassander turned to blood to ensure success.

Mother: Amphia, daughter of Ardavan the Potter

As a dwarf and a slave, Cassander had long felt his exclusion from the ruling class and even the normal citizenry of Balic. As a member of House Rees, Cassander was bound by the Merchant Code, and could never hold civic or military office in Balic. Nonetheless, upon returning with riches from his first year as captain of the White Sail, Cassander's deep ambition began to manifest in pursuit of a human wife.

Cassander chose to pursue Amphia, the humble daughter of Ardavan the Potter, who was a much respected but poor citizen of Balic. Amphia was young and exceptionally healthy, as was her father, but Amphia was also the daughter of Lythae, who was herself the daughter of Anaxander of House Lythanane, a famous leader amongst the nobles of the city who in the previous King's Age had led an attempted rebellion against Androponis. The rebellion was nearly successful, but in the end failed, and Anaxander was forced to flee to the desert to escape. For some decades Anaxander and his followers lived as brigands in the desert. As an old man, Anaxander returned with a large army to the Balican peninsula and attempted to cross the Tharian Hills into the city-state proper. Anaxander was assassinated however by agents of Androponis, and the rest of his army was defeated by Androponis himself while still pressed against the west side of the Tharian Hills. The survivors were enslaved. Ardavan the Potter, a famous and respected voice in the Ecclesia or People's Assembly at that time, purchased the young daughter of Anaxander in defiance of the Dictator of Balic, and quickly freed her, and eventually married her.

The daughter of Ardavan and Lythae was a difficult prospect for Cassander, for Amphia was a scion of the defunct House Lythane and symbol of resistance and even rebellion for the freedom faction in the Ecclesia and Boule Council of Balic. Cassander however eventually prevailed with Ardavan, and Cassander won Amphia in marriage.

A bust of Anaxander IV Lythanane, maternal great-grandfather to Tomak. A eupatridae (nobleman), of the pentacosiomedimni class (the richest in the city), Anaxander was enormously popular and was elected Eponymous Archon of Balic (the highest civil magistracy) when Cassander was still but a slave aboard a House Rees mercantile vessel. Popular with both the commons and the nobility, Anaxander was the leader of a popular movement to fully restore the democracy from the "unconstitutional" thousand year dictatorship of Androponis. There was even a movement to elect Anaxander King of Balic in opposition to Androponis. Androponis broke the opposition to his rule with an awesome display of sorcery, and unleashed his loyal templars. Many nobles and citizens were killed, and the statues and busts and Anaxander throughout the city were smashed and outlawed. All of House Lythanane were murdered, including all the cadet branches of the noble line, and all their lands were seized. Although Anaxander escaped and would resist the sorcerer-king for two more decades, the resistance movement would never again reach such a high point. At great cost and risk, Cassander bought the ruined bust of Tomak's great-grandfather and placed it in the young mul's room, so that his son might contemplate his lineage and destiny.

Relationships Between Cassander and Tomak

Cassander has always demonstrated great care and attention towards his only son Tomak, but Tomak may feel that he has often been more of an investment to his father than a son.

Background

Birth

Cassander's marriage to Amphia was especially difficult because it is well known that human women have high chance of dying during giving birth to a mul. To help assuage that concern, Cassander promised Ardavan the Potter that he would provide his daughter with the very best of clerical care during Amphia's pregnancy and birth. Cassander stayed true to this promise. When the time for her birth came, Cassander took Amphia aboard a silt schooner equipped with every comfort, but chose as midwife a mysterious out-boarder silt cleric from deep within the Silt Sea. A dwarfess herself named Archul, she used her magic to try and keep Amphia alive. Despite this effort, Amphia nevertheless died, and Cassander threw Archul off the bow and into the silt she worshiped. Nonetheless, Cassander's son survived, and possessed the rare aspect of being silt-born. Previously having paid reverence to the silt, after his wife's death Cassander rebuked the silt spirits and instead turned to worship of the solid earth, even naming his son "Tomak", meaning in dwarven a pillar of rock amidst the silt.

Childhood

As Cassander was frequently gone, Tomak was often left in the city for long portions of time with his grandfather Ardavan, whose wisdom carried him above the racism most humans have for muls, and who therefore cared for his young grandson. Tomak was educated in the civic virtues by his grandfather, but due to racism against muls it was early understood that Tomak would not be able to enter the Templarate, the elite brotherhood of knights who still served Androponis loyally and who had made up the core of the civil and military bureaucracy of Balic since time immemorial.

Tomak was nonetheless raised as a child of a gentleman. Cassander paid for Tomak's early schooling in philosophy and rhetoric, and took him on many shorter silt voyages, where Tomak learned the basics of being a sailor on the Silt Sea. Cassander seemed to be preparing his son for service to House Rees as a merchant or ship captain, but Cassander surprised his son by enrolling Tomak in the most prestigious gladiatorial school in the Seven Cities shortly after Tomak had vocalized an interest in being a gladiator when he was only 13.

Tomak at the Gladiatorial School of House Jarko

Tomak had been spoiled as a child, and displayed little interest in sports or the martial arts. Were it not that he were a mul, he might even have been considered soft.

The breaking of this softness was perhaps what motivated Cassander to enroll his son in the gladiatorial school. Gladiatorial training was considered to be reserved for slaves or the very desperate or foolish, and enrollment by a citizen of Balic was certain to produce a harsh social stigma, but nonetheless Tomak began there on his 14th birthday. His father brought Tomak to the House Jarko school himself, and gave his son a speech regarding Tomak's long hero-worship of Rikus, the champion of the Tyrian arena, the slayer of King Kalak, the general of the army of Tyr, and the most famous mul and gladiator in all the Seven Cities. Now, his father said, Tomak might learn what it is to be a gladiator, and become strong and disciplined as was Rikus.

The training at House Jarko was very challenging, but especially for the enrolled free citizens, it was rarely overly cruel and brutalizing. Pushed to his physical limits, Tomak enjoyed days of reprieve and return visits to his grandfather and father. He was well-fed, massaged, and received ample rest, but was also trained in almost every weapon by some of the finest weapon masters in all the Seven Cities.

For four years Tomak underwent the challenging training offered by House Jarko.

Adventures

The Free City of Balic, and Cassander Tasks His Son to Retrieve the Silencer of Bodach

Fearful of mass riots by the recently freed slaves and worse, Cassander has commanded his only son Tomak to remain outside the city at the House Jarko gladiatorial training compound across the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, where it is believed to be safer there. It was not long however before the fearsome Isenetrix, a steel-masked warrior and lieutenant to Xal'gren, appeared with a strong force and emancipated the slaves of House Jarko. Impressed by Isenetrix and his fanatical desert warrior followers, it is at this time that Tomak experiences Xal'gren's emancipatory army, and the effects of all the slave gladiators and other servant slaves being released.

Some weeks after this, the White Sail picked up Tomak and brought he and several gladiator companions back to Balic proper. There, aboard the Dictator, the House Rees capital ship, Tomak was brought before his father, the House Rees under-admiral. Speaking with great gravity, Tomak was trusted with information regarding the Silencer of Bodach, and that Tomak was commanded by his father to seize the sword from the exiled Tyrian templar who carried it.

Tomak and his companions encountered the templar, but were also beset by other strangers in the city who were after the sword. In the end, Tomak proved victorious, and fled with the sword to a small village just outside the city proper, where Tomak placed the blade into a box and upon his father's telepathic orders, flung it into the Silt Sea, where it would be retrieved by his father later.

Tomak and the Fall of Cassander and House Rees

The Silencer was coveted by remnants of the templars still loyal to the missing Androponis, mysterious elves from the desert, and probably worse, and Tomak throwing the Silencer into the silt when he did probably saved his life. Tomak returned to the city, and boarded the Dictator. There his father privately shared with him that after retrieving the Silencer, they would sail back to the harbor and to the House Rees palace in Balic. There Cassander would present Tomak to Lady Essen of Rees as a descendant of Anaxander, and as the Sword Bearer of House Rees who could fight at the forefront of the House Rees army against Xal'gren and any who would stand against Lady Essen.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. The White Sail was sent ahead of the far larger and slower Dictator to retrieve the sword from the silt, and succeeded in doing this, but immediately afterwards the White Sail was attacked by fire and wind magic of great power, and boarded by marauders who seemed to appear out of the silt itself. Being to deep of keel, the Dictator was unable to help in the melee, and Cassander and Tomak watched as the prized White Sail sank and the war band who took it fled into the interior of the Balican peninsula.

When the Dictator returned to the Balican harbor and Lady Essen heard of Cassander's failure, she immediately relieved him of his command of the Dictator, his under-admiralship, and his active access to House Rees accounts and agents. Disgraced, Cassander's loyal followers told him that Lady Essen was calling the petty armies of the nobles still loyal to her, and preparing to march through the peninsula to meet the marauders who took the Silencer and take it from them in turn.

Desperate to resume his position within House Rees, Cassander and his agents concocted a plot to poison the House Rees admiral, Mnaster, at which point, being in need, he expected Lady Essen would reluctantly reinstate him.

Current Whereabouts and Activities of Tomak

Tomak was sent by his father with the army of House Rolt, a dwarven noble family, to support the army of House Rees being assembled at the southern part of the Balican peninsula. Tomak has gone before the official head of the House Rees army, Lady Essen's son Polydamus, and pledged his support to the warlike prince. Tomak has marched with them for several days, as the Rees army expands as it pulls the military support of the local noble estates that it passes.

Tomak and the House Rees army met with the another House Rees force at the Balican town of Abynon on the 25th of Octavus, and from there moved north along the Tharian Hills as it approached the lands of House Basilsaurius, which had recently been seized by the marauders possessing the Silencer of Bodach. On the 28th, the confident House Rees army sealed off the valley that held the House Basilsaurius lands, and forwarded its troops against the marauders who had taken the sword. Marching with House Rolt under the Rees banner, Tomak would have been in this engagement.

Unfortunately for House Rees, once again the marauders, who called their small army the Seven Tembos, were underestimated. Their leader summoned a squadron of fire elementals at the mouth of the canyon, and sent the elementals after the Rees army. The farms, orchards and fields caught on fire, and there was great loss of life. The House Rees army broke up in terror, and when the smoke cleared, Tomak was but another footsoldier trying to get back to the city.