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| *Adam and Eve | | *Adam and Eve |
| *Ate, goddess of Mystery | | *Ate, goddess of Mystery |
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| Vlad was born a bastard son of King Mutandis Mutandis of Carpathia.
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| Vlad was a sickly but intelligent child, and learned to speak and read before he was a year old. From this time he was susceptible to bad dreams which he would recount to his parents. They dismissed them as the product of an over-active imagination — the king wished the boy would be more masculine — but his dreams had a habit of coming true. This unnerved the King: while the other children of the Royal Court would fence with wooden [[promissory note]]s under the tutelage King’s Consul Viclean.<ref>Romanian for “Deceitful”.</ref>, the King kept Vlad under close watch, not letting him out, ensuring no-one found out about the boy’s strange power that could be used against the kingdom, but using it himself, to stay one step ahead of his enemies, quelling any fomenting dissent among his people.
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| So Vlad was a credulous and sickly lad, confined to the kitchens of the great mead-hall, only allowed out to clear plates and serve the warriors ale. The other children of the court bullied him. Chief among his tormentors was Dragos, Viclean’s eldest son. Dragos was a handsome but vain young man whose hand-to-hand discounting and factoring techniques were unmatched in the citadel. he mercilessly bullied Vlad. One day the King happened upon Dragos as he as beating upon Vlad. Far from intervening and punishing Dragos, this King chided Vlad for his feebleness and credulity, and threw him out of the castle, telling him to come back “only when you have learned how to fend for yourself.”
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| The King’s smug, but true-born, son Prince Randolph chipped in. “Let thith be a lethon unto you, bathtard.”
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| Vlad found himself sleeping with the swines in the sties out the back of the castle.
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| “Let that be a lesson indeed!” said Vlad to himself, sobbing as he gathered some rotten potato peelings.
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| “A lesson it is, and a lesson it shall be, if you be smart enough to let it,” came a disembodied voice from the dusk.
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| “Who’s that? Who goes there?”
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| “Potential is better underjudged than overdone,” said the voice, “for then you have the advantage.”
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| It is the old fool, Uctis, collecting scraps and slops.
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| “But no man values one he deems a fool,” wailed Vlad.
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| “And that is your advantage. For nor does he fear him,” said Uctis with bright eyes. “What do you call a mortal foe who should fear you, but does not?”
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| “I don’t know.”
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| “Dinner.”
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| Vlad forged a bond with the old fool, who over time taught him to compensate for his diminutive status by learning to outsmart his rivals, and adopting disguises and personas when it suited him. Uctis was in fact a powerful Berber Wizard, in disguise, himself exiled for his perfidy from the northern wilds. Uctis regaled Vlad with tales about the magical, mythical northern city of [[Salomoné]], where a race of clever weaklings, the “[[lunch money|Lanchmani]]” were masters of their fertile domain. While Vlad dreamed of one day seeking out this shining citadel, Uctis trained him to make do without “magical weapons” that could be wrested from his control:
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| “Do not ''have'' a weapon that you could lose: ''Be'' a weapon: that you ''cannot'' lose. No-one can steal your cunning.”
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| Eventually restored to the castle, King Mutatis kept the boy in the kitchens, sweeping out the refectory, still consulting him for his dreams. The Consul’s son, Dragos, would often pick on him as he supped at the high table, and the bastard boy cleared the plates.
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| However much Vlad resented Dragos, he burned at his treatment at his father’s hands. He vowed to one day prove himself to the King, a vainglorious fool, but still his dad, to save his father and brother, so they would at long last recognise his true value.
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| “Son, you are deluding yourself,” [[Uctis]] sighed. “You should prove your worth instead by ''outwitting'' your father and brother.”
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| One day his opportunity arrived. On the solstice, Vlad told the King — a superstitious man — that he had had a dream in which a cunning trickster would gain entry to the royal court and trick the King into handing over his crown.
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| “How would he sneak in? My guards are the most vigilant and loyal in Eurasia” his father retorted.
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| “You, yourself, will unwittingly invite the thief into your midst, clutch him to your heart, treat him almost as your own blood. You will bear him across the threshold,” said Vlad. “In fact, you may already have done so. It may be too late.”
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| Of course, Vlad was talking about himself, but the King was too vain to realise it. The King ordered a root and branch clear out of his army. How should I keep my crown secure? Vlad said, “Leave it to me, sire. I will make a plan. But it may take some time, and while I am work your crown is not safe. You should give it to me to look after so, if this trickster should arrive, he cannot take it from you.”
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| The unsuspecting King gave the crown to Vlad. At once Vlad rushed off to show his friends, bragging about how clever he was, pulling wool over even the King’s eyes.
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| Word of his braggadocio and deception found its way back to the King. Far from being impressed with Vlad’s cunning, Mutandis exploded with rage, casting the boy out from the kingdom for ever — curse your perfidious dreams! — and bidding him never to return, on pain of death.
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| Vlad made directly for the great lost city of [[Salomoné]].
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| Vlad had not been gone a month when his dream came true: a ''real'' trickster, whom the King ''had'' welcomed into his court and treated almost as if his own son, tricked the King out of his crown, killing the King, Queen and older brother Randolph. The real trickster was Dragos, the same child who had tricked Vlad as a little boy.
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Mythologically, the trickster
- A shapeshifter
- A physical weakling
- Very good at talking - buzzwords
- He is a planner and a plotter
- Untrustworthy
- Corrupt or corruptible - no moral compass
- Quick thinker - can adapt his plans to the unfolding situation+
Banished/exiled from Romania and motivated not by the desire to return but to destroy.
Banishment
Characters who were banished:
- Flying Dutchman
- Lucifer
- Adam and Eve
- Ate, goddess of Mystery