Name: Mordekai Alastros (“The Sundered Sage”)
Age: 47
Race: Human
Height: 6 ft. (Seems shorter due to walking with a slouched, slightly hunched-over gait)
Weight: 160 lbs.
Class: Wizard 5/Malconvoker 10/Tainted Scholar 10/Alienist 10
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral.

Background: Mordekai Alastros was never a bad person, but he simply never knew when it was a good time to stop something.  

As the youngest heir to the prominent noble family Alastros in the magic rich city-state of Merlion, Mordekai had a bright future ahead of him. Guaranteed a life of luxury and a good education, he did not disappoint his parent’s expectations of him. At a young age, much like his brother’s before him, he displayed a talent for the arcane. His talents were fostered at a young age as he went through a number of private instructors and tutors, displaying a natural skill for magic that easily rivaled that of his elder siblings. In particular though he seemed to have an affinity for conjuration even though at the time he lacked the skill to become a specializing wizard. The only black mark in his young life would eventually come to be seen as an oracular event. During a study session the eight year old Mordekai pushed himself to his limits like he had never done before in his life attempting a summoning spell. However, what he summoned was something neither he nor his teacher could ever have expected; he’d brought forth a minor demon, a Quasit straight from the abyss. While the thing was captured and disposed of before it could do any lasting damage the fact that Mordekai had been able to summon the thing was taken as an ill omen by his teacher, who advised his parents that Mordekai not be further trained in the arcane arts. Naturally, they didn’t listen, and at age eighteen Mordekai was enlisted in the world renowned mage academy known as the Ninefold Towers.

Despite his affinity for conjuration he did not specialize and instead trained to be a generalist mage. He was an apt pupil, popular and well liked at his school. However, what no one suspected was how deeply affected he’d been by the Quasit incident. It wasn’t that the event had traumatized him; rather, it has lit a spark of curiosity within him. He studied on outsiders extensively, wanting to know more about the beings who inhabited the outer planes…ESPECIALLY about things like demons and devils, things no sane mind would want anything to do with. Sadly, most of the texts he read had only basic information on the creatures he wanted to learn of the most. This did not discourage him though. Instead it simply provided him with all the more motivation to discover the secrets of fiends and controlling them…. And this led him to more drastic measures. The Great Library of the Ninefold Towers was well known for its vast selection of magical tomes; what few knew off was the hidden section it had that stored forbidden books of magic for safekeeping, protecting by a miasma of warding and defensive spells and traps. No one could get in without the use of a special amulet… an amulet that Mordekai learnt of and promptly stole in order to gain access to the hidden section. In the latter part of his first year he would clandestinely enter the hidden section and study the books there, teaching himself how to be better at summoning and controlling demons as well as gaining intimate knowledge concerning the history and nature of fiends. No one suspected what he was up to…. Until one day that his curiosity got the better of him, much to the eternal sorrow of the Towers.

It happened late at night, in his room. He had long prepared for that night, covertly gathering the materials and tools that would be necessary for him to initiate his greatest summoning ever. He would attempt to summon a demon straight from the abyss itself and gain control over it before sending it back. During his performance of the ceremony, made an error; a slight, minor, perhaps totally inconsequential error in the painting of the summoning symbol. But with magic even the slightest error can have repercussions unseen by all, and Mordekai was about to get a firsthand lesson in that. What he summoned to the material plane was no demon. It was like nothing he’d ever scene before in his life, a massive miasmic monstrosity of tentacles and teeth, a thing of impossible physiology and insane proportions. Mordekai was stunned by what he’d summoned… and found out to little to late that he was no longer in control, for this thing was no demon. The alien beast burst from his room and rampaged all around his school tower, killing several students and staff members before finally being put down by the master of the tower. The trail of destruction led right back to Mordekai’s room, and soon after every secret he’d accrued and every theft he’d committed was unveiled. Mordekai himself was too horrified by what he’d done to even contemplate lying about his actions or trying to pin it on someone else by the time they’d found him out.

Mordekai was promptly expelled from the Ninefold Towers, and soon found himself brought before the very ruling council Merlion itself for his sentencing to be conducted. Mordekai himself expected death, and in his state of mind would have welcomed it… but instead, by virtue of his father’s influence, his life was spared… though the fate that would await him may as well have been death. Mordekai’s punishment for his thefts, his studying of forbidden magic, his illegal summoning and the subsequent deaths that resulted from the summoning would be a harsh one. He was to be banished to the underdark forever, to never again see the light of day or endanger the lives of his fellow man by virtue of his presence. This would be the Alastros family’s last act of aid towards their youngest son before renouncing him and cutting him off completely. Four days later, when he was packed up stocked with food for the initial days of his journey he was escorted by mage-guards to the place of his exile. They led him deep into the darkened catacombs that formed the underground realm, blindfolding him as to not allow him to recall the direction they had come from. Left with only his a spellbook, his supplies, and a pair of Goggles of Night to allow him to see, he was left abandoned to the wilds of the underdark. The first few months of his life down below would be the most difficult as he tried hard to discern sights and sounds and figure out what was safe and what wasn’t, all the while avoiding the fierce and alien creatures from below. And all the while doing that, there was also the matter of his dreams.

Ever since the contact with the alien beast, his dreams had been plagued with visions of another world, another realm of existence entirely. Alien voices spoke to him as alien landscapes and creatures graced his mind’s eye. They started to whisper secrets into his mind, started to tell him of things that should not be. Of things he did not WANT to know of… yet he listened. Though he tried hard to ignore the voices, he listened to their words anyway, his insatiable desire to know what others did not know keeping him from shutting the voices out. As the years went by he was still advised by the voices, though slowly but surely driven mad by the lack of sunlight and any meaningful contact with other intelligent forms of life. Soon he began to speak with the voices, if only for companionship. His years in the underdark avoiding monsters and drow patrols had soon reduced him to leading the lifestyle of a savage, of a man barely able to think and feel beyond that of an animal. Despite this he kept his spellbook, even added new spells as his experience in wizardly combat grew. Without ink or quills to make his additions, he instead opted for more… gruesome materials to make due. One day while journeying, Mordekai came across an open valley in the underdark; at least as much of an alley as much as it could be, and was amazed to discover a tower located within it, right in the center. A massive thing leading from ground to ceiling, Mordekai’s desperation for proper shelter propelled him to it before he could stop and think about what kind of things could be living in the tower.

Lucky for him this tower was an old one, long abandoned by its previous owner. Mordekai’s exploration of the tower revealed to him that it had at one point been the property of a lich, Xorien. From what few remaining records he could locate concerning the prior owner of the tower, Xorien had been either ousted or destroyed by a band of adventurers, and his base of operations promptly sacked by local goblinoid tribes. Luckily for Mordekai that meant that all the traps had been tripped and all the guardian beasts slain, leaving the place free for him to roam around and settle down in. After a quick rest he set to work quickly, reanimating the skeletons of long dead guards and slain intruders to act as his servants. Using them to repair the tower and to gather food (consisting of mushrooms and less savory things such as various insects) Mordekai soon fortified the tower against potential intruders and made it his home. However, even the security of a place to live did not stop the dreams… or stop the voices in his head. They tortured and tormented him, ceaselessly trying to tempt him with their profane knowledge. Perhaps if he had been a stronger man he might have resisted… but strong man or no, fate seemed determined to draw him ever closer into the realm of the forbidden.

It was quite by accident that he found the hidden chamber in the tower; merely leaning against a decayed section of a wall had sent him tumbling into a hidden part of the tower, a library filled to the brim with books. Books of a nature that appealed all too well to Mordekai’s curiosity for the strange and unknown. Some part of him knew he should have just burnt the place… but another, stronger part of him just wanted to dive into the tomes and read them for all they were worth. It is not to difficult to guess which side won out; unable to resist the temptation of the books he immediately read through them, intent on sating his hunger for forbidden knowledge. From these tomes he learnt of many dark, profane things, things that should have never been seen by mortal eyes. Using the books and their knowledge he began to increase his own power and perfect his summonings, though at the cost of his physical and mental health. Frequent contact with the outer planes entities and energies, combined with his total isolation from intelligent life and general lack of sunlight was making him viciously paranoid. Despite all this he soldiered on in his research, accruing knowledge of the forbidden arts at an astounding rate. His isolation came to end when a tribe of quaggoth, fleeing from drow slavers, came across his tower and hid around it while somehow avoiding the magical alarm systems that warded the place. The brazen slavers on the other hand were not so lucky. Their intrusion and subsequent threatening of Mordekai led to the mad mage to unleash his power upon them, promptly obliterating them. The quaggoth witnessed this event and where awed by the sheer magical might that Mordekai displayed. When the dust settled they approached Mordekai and pledged themselves to his service. Though initially perplexed by the offer, Mordekai soon realized that the brutish deep bears would have their uses. He immediately set them to work repairing the damages done to his tower and afterwards used them as his guards and his errand boys.

Shortly after the quaggoth came into his life, Mordekai reached a breakthrough in his magical studies and made contact with an entity similar to the one that had caused his exile. Through this entity he learnt of the Far Realms and the strange, horribly beings that inhabited the forsaken place; a place that the nine hells and the abyss itself could not match in terms of sheer horror. From that point he immersed himself in the far realms and its entities, its alien energies corrupting his body and mind further and further and soon completing his descent into total madness. With their guidance he was able to locate more and more magical artifacts and tomes pertaining to the Far Realms and other forbidden subjects. During this time he also began to create a business for himself crafting powerful magical items for the drow and other races eager for his wares and knowledge. He even traded with such races as the illithids, the aboleths, the beholders, the Kuo-toa and even the mad derro, amassing great wealth and resources as well as learning intimate details about those races that most were not privy too. Nearly two decades after his exile, his name soon began to trickle back to the surface along with his reputation as a mad mage using profane magics and collecting horrific knowledge. Adventurers from the surface were soon swarming down upon his citadel, whether to stop his “evil” research or to simply rob him of his riches. Very few survived the experience, and those who did refuse to even mention that such incidents even occurred.

However, his reputation and willingness to protect his quaggoth servants did have an unusual side effect; outcasts, practitioners of dark magics, seekers of forbidden knowledge, misfits and maniacs of every stripe began to flock to his citadel. Mordekai surprisingly accepted their presence and allowed them to camp out around his base, on the condition that they would serve him and whims. Even those reluctant to serve were soon swayed by the promises of gold; in short time his citadel was surrounded by misfits of all stripes. Exiled and outcast drow, renegade duergar, cultists of any amount of strange and evil gods, binder cults, mercenaries, derro, goblinoids… all of them and more set up camp around the citadel, creating a massive, chaotic shantytown that’s only semblance of order came from the presence of Mordekai’s quaggoth guardsmen. Eventually a wall was erected around shantytown and the citadel, guarded by summoned monsters and magical wards and traps, turning the citadel and the town into a city in its own right. Under the chaotic and insane leadership of Mordekai, the city non-the-less thrived respectively and even has engaged in trade with neighboring communities. For now though, Mordekai Alastros, the Sundered Sage, remains within his twisted and demonic looking tower, continuing his experiments and his research and plunging his already fractured mind deeper and deeper into oblivion.

Personality: The singular constant with Mordekai is his insanity. His long years of isolation from other intelligent beings doubled with his years of learning mind shattering truths and encountering alien entities have caused his mind to completely crumble, and as such his mood and traits tend to shift and warp. Normally he is barely responsive to the outside world, so focused is he on his work and on the voices he hears in his head; he’s not which voices are coming from him, and which voices are coming from beyond the veil of reality. Needless to say this has made him exceedingly erratic and paranoid, and he is very prone to mood swings and the like. Not to mention he has picked up several bad habits as a result of his madness… the most visible of these being his tendency to eat insects live (indeed, his desk often has a bowl filled with a variety of living bugs for him to feed on. He’s not sure why he does this, but he admits it makes him feel better sometimes). He can frequently be seen talking to himself; sometimes gibbering and muttering to himself at rapid pace and in a hushed voice, other times having lengthy and detailed conversations with himself- or at least what appears to be himself; he’s never really let on whether or not he’s speaking to himself, or to something that might actually be speaking back. This however does not mean he lacks guile; he is after all a man who was able to repeatedly trick demons into servitude.

Having seen and dealt with things that most mortals would rather die then know about has completely eliminated his sense of fear. Quite frankly, he is secure in the knowledge that no matter what anyone threatens to do to him, no matter what they COULD do to him, it would not even begin to match the agony that could be inflicted upon him by the Far Realms entities. As such, he is utterly unresponsive to threats or boasts. Curiously though this bravery can be just as erratic as the rest of him; he’s been observed beaming widely in the face of a pit fiend, while another time shrieking in terror at the sight of a mouse. In his interactions he is simply unnerving, his tone of voice sounding diseased and his tendency to make cryptic statements about people turning off most to his presence. While he is generally non-violent, he is not harmless; he is an exceedingly powerful mage, one with knowledge of spells that should be best left unknown. He has been seen doing things that even his drow trading partners find disquieting, though thankfully this is only to those who have severely wronged him.

He is at least sane enough to tell who has truly done him wrong, and for that most are thankful. His common sense is also subject to change, and in his business dealings he has been witnessed to actually part with magical items in exchange for something as innocuous as a jar of fire-flies. Emotionally he is just as unstable, going through frequent highs and lows in the course of a day, changing his emotional and mental state as swiftly as a coin changes hands. One constant that is present in his emotions is a kind of fondness and emotional attachment to his tower and the surrounding areas, an affection that even extends to its inhabitants. Another thing about him is his love of knowledge and learning, especially knowledge that has been deemed forbidden. He cannot resist such information; it is an addiction for him, and one that he is most unwilling to separate himself from.

Sometimes though, he has brief moments of lucidity. During these times he becomes quiet, entering dark and storming depressions that often leave him brooding in his throne room. It is during these times that he is now totally aware of the full extent of what he has lost in his life, and of how far he has fallen from his noble origins. He becomes very short tempered and easily offended, a result of his private despair that he is loathed and hated by his family up on the surface and as such sometimes even weeps. It is during these times that he is emotionally at his most vulnerable, when he is able to seem himself without the veil of madness to cloud his vision; a man who realizes he is forsaken, and that all of it is his own fault. These moments are few and far between, but when they happen everyone gives him a wide berth. More then one foolish bystander ended up a part of the architecture by talking to him while depressed. However, eventually he is able to snap out of it, and return to the bliss that is his madness. Despite all of his emotional quirks, he is not really malicious or evil, simply insane. And while he does know more then enough spells to make a man wish he was never born, he doesn’t often use them.

In the simplest of terms though, Mordekai is a lunatic, pure and simple. Sometimes he even notes it, though as he points out madness is something that makes you not realize your own actions, and he is almost always aware of what he does. But for the most part, he is simply content to pour over his ancient tomes and learn the secrets of existence.

Appearance: Mordekai Alastros is a male human, though one can barely tell that he is indeed a human. While once a handsome man in his youth, his exposure to dark and alien extra-planar energies has corrupted his appearance greatly. His skin is deathly pale and with the appearance of decaying, and his hair stark white, long and scraggy, his lean and gaunt body seeming twisted and almost-spider like. His eyes have become milky white, like those of a blind man, his madness easily detected in the dead looking orbs. Due to his exposure to the far realms his body has mutated; he has a tentacle like growth coming out of his left shoulder blade, while his fingernails have lengthened and hardened into deadly claws. Also on his body are a number of mystical tattoos and markings, though this along with a great number of his other features are hidden under mummy-like wrappings that cover most of his body save for his eyes and mouth, giving him the general appearance of a leper.

In terms of clothing, he still wears the hooded robes of his house; a once noble and finely made piece of clothing colored red and trimmed with golden symbols of his house insignia. However, time has not been kind to the robes; their colors have faded and they have become ragged and ratty, and more then a little pungent. Despite the generally shabby look of the robes, Mordekai has enchanted and enhanced them to grant him a number of magical defenses and boosts. Alongside the robe he wears a medallion with a twisted rune inscribed into it, and carries with him a horrifically warped looking staff made of an unknown black substance. The staff has carvings in it that resemble bodies and skeletons warped together, merged together in unholy agony. Its precise powers are unknown, and no one in his immediate vicinity is willing to find out the full extent of what it can do.

What stands out about Mordekai is the skeletal device that he has grafted to his back. This device runs from his shoulder blade all the way down to his spine, resembling itself a ribcage and spine with four arms sticking from it. These arms all end in three pronged, cruelly sharp looking claws. These arms are all under the control of Mordekai, who uses the arms as a means of defense and as a way to do many things at once, as well as using them to scale walls. An interesting power of this skeletal rig is its ability to detach from Mordekai’s back and move around of its own will, psychically directed by Mordekai, resembling a spider made of bones when doing so.

Notes:

Merlion: A city-state in the eastern continent that is (in)famous for the sheer magical talent that seems to course through the veins of its people. Known for its vast amounts of wizards and sorcerers, this magocratic city-state boasts one of the most magic-rich armies on all of Sojourn, and is renowned as a place of learning and knowledge. However, elements of elitism tend to find their way in local mages when interacting with non-magical “peasants”, and such things don’t tend to win friends outside of Merlion…

The Ninefold Towers: The premier magical academy in the world, the Ninefold Towers gets its name from the nine towers that each house specializing wizards of the schools of magic as well as generalist wizards. This ancient school is staffed by some of the most powerful mages in the world, and is heavily guarded by any number of magics ranging from guarding glyphs to undead constructs.