Talk:Vlad Paripasu

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

Vlad was born a bastard son of King Mutandis of Carpathia. A credulous and sickly lad, his peers would frequently pick on him, mocking his illicit parentage. Chief amoung his tormentors was Dragos, eldest son of the King’s chief consul, who tricked Vlad into giving up his favorite toy, a catapult handmade for him by the old village idiot, Uctis. Dragos tormented Vlad with the catapult for months, which turned out to have magical powers. Vlad appealed to his father to intervene but the King would not help, chiding him for his feebleness and credulity.

The King’s smug, but true-born, son Randolph stepped in. “Let thith be a lethon unto you, Vlad.”

A lesson it certainly was: that it is better to be a trickster than a the tricked. “no-one pities the fool.”

From his birth, Vlad was susceptible to terrible nightmares which had a habit of coming true. This unnerved the royal court: they kept Vlad down ensuring he did not acquire power that he might use against the kingdom, but found him useful as his dreams could predicting the near future, and the King used them to quell fomenting mutiny among the people.

Vlad compensated for his diminutive status by learning to outsmart his rivals, and adopting disguises and personas when it suited him. Deprived of contact with the nobility and dignitaries with whom his half-brother consorted, instead Vlad fell into the company of the village idiot Uctis. Uctis who revealed himself to be not a halfwit, but rather a powerful Berber Wizard, in disguise, himself exiled for his perfidy from the northern wilds. Uctis trained Vlad to make do without magical weapons that could be wrested from his control:

“Do not have a weapon that you could lose: Be a weapon, that you cannot lose. No-one can steal your cunning.”

Uctis regaled Vlad with tales about the magical, mythical northern city of Salomoné, where a race of clever weaklings, the “Lanchmani” were masters of their fertile domain. Vlad dreamt of one day seeking out this shining citadel. But his father kept him in the kitchens, sweeping out the refectory, 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.

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.

“Son, you are deluding yourself,” Uctis sighed. “You should prove your worth instead by outwitting your father and brother.”

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.

“How would he sneak in? My guards are the most vigilant and loyal in Eurasia” his father retorted.

“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.”

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.”

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.

Word of his braggadocio and his trickery to 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.

Vlad made directly for the great lost city of Salomoné.

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.