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Backgrounds: Gilgamesh, Jackal, Karianna, Menedraile, Merayen, Seraph, Skyla, Spark
Backgrounds
Contacts (Diplomacy): **
After the Civil War in Budan Mar ended, and the Circle's other obligations were fulfilled, Menedraile spent quite a bit of time in the city of Budan trying to knit the two kingdom's back together. He acknowledges that, were it not for Jackal, he would have failed -- not simply because otherwise the two kingdoms likely would have been conquered by one of their neighbors, either, but due to his earning the respect and friendship of the two cities Kings. Despite this, Menedraile's early and persistent efforts paid off, and Menedraile gained a solid understanding of how things are in Budan, and later Mar and Madaan as well. Menedraile's most notable contacts include a dispossessed nobleman from Budan, and an old veteran from the time of Randall's father from Madaan, both of whom are excellent sources of information on their respective homes.
Contacts (The Realm): *
Since he first learned of the Scarlet Empresses' disappearance, Menedraile has had a inkling of a plan forming in his mind. Toward these ends, he has paid well for any bit of information he can get his hands on. Most of this comes from Guildsmen, who still manage brisk trade with the Blessed Isle, but his best source is a dispossessed unblooded Iselsi named Barada Suncatcher living in Budan that's still in contact with those of his family still on the Blessed Isle.
Influence: **
When it comes to the peoples of the East Provincial Alliance that the Circle is building, no member of the Circle is more well known to the various peoples than Menedraile, if only by the various writings and tracts that he's been disseminating throughout the region. Even folks in nearby Hilos and Terisia have begun to hear of your ideals, and he is generally known throughout Budan Mar and Madaan both as a keen mind with an aim to do great things in Creation.
Resources: ***
It's not hard for an Exalt that wants to increase his fortunes to do so. Menedraile, who once had so much only to lose it all, desperately wanted to do such and has had ample opportunity to do just that. Rather from reproduction & distribution of his tracts (and, after Skyla invented a remarkable printing device, even more and varied works) or gratuities from various factions amongst the Alliance, Menedraile has amassed a respectable fortune. He owns his own farm just a bit outside Nulam, which he believes is destined to be of no little importance in the coming Alliance, and pays a small force of hands to look after it for him. He's even had a craftsman from Great Forks make him a fairly grand carriage, and bought two excellent mares to pull it.
Sarathe's Favor: ***
When the other members of the Circle found you, you were bound deep within the Wyld-tainted city of Madadhine. Even in your time, the City of Dreams was a forbidden place that had been shattered ages ago during the Great Contagion. The only ones that made their homes in the Madadhine were the Fair Folk. But, there are also places within the City of Dreams where even the Fair Folk fear to go. It was deep within one of those places, a bubble of Pure Chaos in the midst of Creation that Skyla blundered into with her Soul-Killing Mountain, that Merayen found you.
You'd thought, for a long time, that they'd killed Sarathe in those first moments. Skyla, of course, denied it. In time, though, you began to accept it. Others of the Fair Folk spoke to you of her, as if she was still... there... somewhere. More importantly, though, you could sometimes feel here. On the edge of your dreams. Waiting for you to take the step, to go out and meet her. So far, you've avoided journeying into the Wyld again. Even beyond all the many other reasons you have to avoid such, you simply aren't sure what effect this connection you have with one of the Unshaped would mean out there.
You can regain one Willpower as a reflexive action every 24 hours, and gain an additional 3 motes of Essence every hour.
Intimacies
Menedraile was the Exalt behind the brutal myths of the man known as the Shadow King, who ruled a good portion of the Scavenger Lands by way of an extensive, dangerous network of connections, spies, finances, extortion and favors. Very few were able to trace the Shadow King's labyrinthine network successfully, resulting in a long reign for the crime-lord Eclipse. Eventually, his elaborate thefts and schemes resulted in the appearance of the local Hunt.
Simultaneously, a Merchant and a Sorceress, with unknown ties to this Hunt, made their first approach to Menedraile at this point. After a short period of encounters with these two, Menedraile's inquisitive instincts granted him a brilliant insight. He uncovered enough information about his situation, fast enough to realize his only choice for total obscurity was to entirely sabotage his guise as the Shadow King, and the networks he prevailed over.
Systematically, the Eclipse dismantled his holdings and called in all of his favors, staging an epic coup on himself that took weeks. These were weeks spent staging off against the Wyld Hunt, their enigmatic Sorcerer captains, and his own former entourage (who of course largely had no idea they were being betrayed). It resulted in Menedraile riding fiercely out of his own home city, seat of his greatest of holdings.
Somewhere he had been bested, and now the Sorceress plagued him, riding out of shadows and from behind random trees all through out the three nights of his final escape. She confronted him not with conflict, but with maddening monologues on unspeakable topics. The Solar boldly drove on every morning, and arrived eventually at the final stage of his undoing: A small Wyld pocket with a vast phantasmal Ruin, gently flickering in and out of phase with the world.
It was at the Ruin that the Sorceress made her move. In a sudden assault, she revealed powerful battle-magics, almost arcane rituals cast through the process of combat. Menedraile was overpowered easily, and bound to a flickering stone table. The Sorceress patted his forehead, told him it was unfortunate that he was the only one, and used magic and metal to pluck out his eyes and place him in a century-long slumber.
After a few years slumbering, Menedraile began to wander in his seemingly eternal dream. He realized many things about himself and had many adventures in the Great Beyond, a realm wrought entirely of dreamstuff. Eventually he was to awaken, but for the time being he investigated the seeming Chaos of the many Beyonds. He befriended a creature known as Sarathe, a garment-abandoning (with more, different outfits always on underneath) dreamling. The Solar allied with her for many decades, she being the only constant in an ever-changing environment.
Around his slumbering body, out of the Exalt's awareness, the Wyld took shape to his powerful adventuring dreams, blossoming into a phenomenal realm of reinacting fey tribes. The strongest faction of these fey were known as Sarathe, who preferred to call herself the Somnolent Ministry. She strode in her multitude all throughout the area surrounding her fixation's tomb. Her desires and experiences began to feed into, and continue to feed into, Menedraile's essence.
Upon awakening, Menedraile encountered a Circle of Solar Exalts, who took him in and fostered him care, in exchange for his assistance in engaging a being who seemed to span farther than anything but the most terrible beasts he encountered in the Beyond. Strangely, in the weeks and months before meeting this Circle, Menedraile had encountered each in his dream wanderings. The Eclipse also realized that, though his eyes were gone, he could percieve Creation just as well - if not a bit better - than before his slumber.
Even so, nothing looks quite so alive as the Ruin did, before the Solars laid it to waste forever.
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