“I have lost everything; my home, my soul, and my purpose. My chains. I spent my life, and much longer since, fighting to be what was expected of me. Their wars, their causes. No longer.
I am Mithridates Alti. Born to be a king. Raised to shape the fate of nations. Forged in battle. Reborn in the infinite night. My past is gone, destroyed in a flash of light in Amasya and a rain of fire upon Bykaal. My shackles are broken. My time has come.”
Destiny has not been kind to Mithridates Alti. Born for the throne, he was destined to live as the priest-king of the temple city of Amasya. That life came to an end when the holy city was lost. With his father the king sealed away, the young prince made a devil’s bargain – five centuries of service to the Mortarch of Night, in exchange for the eternal unlife and power of the blood kiss. He served, growing in strength and wisdom, and when his bargain was complete he returned to Amasya in strength. His return should have been a triumphant one – the prodigal prince and dutiful son restoring his birthright, yet once again destiny had other plans. As the city burned under the cruel indifference of the Slann, Alti fought to free his father, only for the former king to cast the prince aside. Besh had found a new purpose, and Alti, who had sacrificed everything for the man he revered, was left with nothing.
Cast aside, torn free from the last binds of destiny’s moors, Mithridates Alti was faced for the first time in his centuries of existence with uncertainty. Gone was the young princeling who had once believed himself the lesser son of greater sires. He had sacrificed his very soul for the expectations of others, but in the end everyone he had held faith in had failed him. The path once set for him was irrevocably gone, and his future was his own to forge. Thus, he set his eyes on a land built by his own hands.
The Iscarneth Ceraphate, perched upon the boiling edge of Hysh, would be his prize. Secluded, splintered, and a place of vast untapped power, it was the perfect seat from which to reshape his destiny. He knew the land and its people, for he had shaped its creation, gathering the scattered refugees across the realm and raising the hidden enclave in the realm of light. When it had come time to leave, he knew the puppet Ceraph he left there would soon be discovered and cast down, and the Satraps would turn upon each other. Such was their nature. Pride and pretension, built into the very bones of the kingdom, would ensure it could not know peace. Not without a true ruler. Not without him. Mithridates Alti, born to be a king, has returned. Here he will make his destiny, or finally be consumed by it.