Utprerak, the Fastness of Shattered Suns
Sixth Soul of the Black Boar that Twists the Sky
Demon of the Third Circle
She was young once.
When the world was new and the Games a novel diversion she stood guard at Creation's borders. Hunting the demon-tigers, their servants, and fell things of the Wyld's depths. With her cannons, her lances, and her powerful, perfect limbs she tore them asunder and hurled their remains back into the nothing; casting her burning scorn upon them and crushing them beneath the weight of her casual contempt. She welcomed these ceaseless invasions for their myriad forms, their boundless, optimistic hunger was a fresh challenge in a world gone stale, for this new haven, if certainly possessed of greater amenities, paled in comparison to the raw potential of the Wyld. Like her greater self she missed the chaos dearly. Like her greater self she itched and chafed under the servitor-managed settings of this new existence. But like the Black Boar she stayed; with her kin and kind.
She is old now. One of the oldest soldiers in existence and with her kin and kind she remains. Her battle-fever long since quenched in the bloodletting of the Primordial War and youthful exuberance ground away by the slow rasp of years. Once all the Heavens trembled to hear her name. She has slaughtered hosts of Dragonblooded, broken the Sun's chosen and their moonlit mates, cast down the starblessed servants of the Maidens. She has seen her companions among Adrian's pantheon subsumed into raw spiritual matter, her dear friends caught as the Yozi's soul-structure disintegrated. It was she who wrestled Isidoros's wounded Fetich into submission, proving upon his body the futility of further struggle, for if he could not defeat her then what chance did he have against the Host? It was she who lead her fellows in delivering the Solars their bound and struggling victim, their pound of flesh: the piece of the Black Boar that could never accept imprisonment. She has lived legends beyond number, myths beyond reckoning, and it has left her... tired. Weary and exhausted. She is that sliver of Isidoros that looks not out but in, his omnipresent disdain turned against the greater whole.
Isidoros's Fetich ignores her. Electing instead to gorge himself on his spoils, madly indulging every passing whim. The Black Boar's other souls fear her, speak of her in awed undertones of myths that grow with each retelling. But the reality is Utprerak merely understands the nature of things: wallow and rut, dally with silver-haired Szorenic loves and seek your fill on a ruined land, it makes no difference. They will never be free. There will always be that itch, that catch of unseen collars and the pull of invisible chains. The only pleasure that can be found in their prison borne of self-delusion. Only an empty, hollow, sort of satiation.
The Fastness of Shattered Suns dwells in the scorching, shimmering mantle that wreathes the Antarch Stampede: an accretion cloak formed of mile high city-blocks crushed into so much rubble and drawn, smouldering, into Isidoros's gravity. She is a titanic weapons installation of ancient make. Her crystalline flanks oil-black and lurid orange; her prow wide-swept, flowing into her leagues-wide wings. Muscular tendrils as thick as Creation-bound rivers trail behind her like so many streamers, fluttering on the endless stormwinds while armored eyes shift and endlessly scan beneath crystalline plate. Often she may be seen perched, almost precariously, on the rim of Isidoros's irresistible pull. A gleaming star looming over the Boar's head. Within her vaulted guts lays arsenals of every era and hellfire batteries line her sides. All polished and lovingly maintained, cold and yet well cared for. Contempt may be her occupation but she is ever the consummate warrior and can no more deny those instincts than she can rip off her wings and dash herself against the Boar's flanks. To amuse herself she fights now and then and she trains others as it suits her. Grimly aware of the hypocrisy of her own diversions.
At times she may adopt the form of an elder woman of the South clad in shadow-threaded, glasslike armor the hue of the setting sun. Wreathed in a cloak of roiling, burning clouds. Her steel colored hair worn to the shoulders and one-half her face lined with silvery scars. The socket is filled with molten moonlight where a brave champion of Luna wrested her eye from its socket- Utprerak saluted her, slaughtered her, and took her eye as a replacement.
Notes and Abilities: Utprerak's knowledge of strategy, tactics, and personal combat is encyclopedic (indeed, she has in fits of boredom penned such treatises for Orabilis) and her record distinguished beyond all possibility. Since her imprisonment she has turned mercenary and is open to barter for her services; payment typically accepted in the form of vast vaults of mortal treasure and luxury or cadres of champions for training, but she prizes Creation-generated hearthstones for their utility. However, such is the violence buried within her that, that even in the First Age her summoning was never conducted lightly. She was and remains a self-sustaining nuclear option. A dreadnought of apocalyptic potential. And one need only look to the fallen rakshasa kingdoms of Sigiriya and Sukhothai to see the full extent of her terrible capacity.
But perhaps they needn't have worried: the Fastness of Shattered Suns may at times make a show of resistance (and certainly she is not above killing a faithless would-be master to void a contract) but in truth she does not particularly care to escape her bindings. Even were she to overcome some arrogant Celestial sorcerer and flee what would be left for her? An existence hounded by the panicked agents of Heaven? One final climactic battle with the Aerial Legion before Isidoros regenerates a lesser shadow of her skill? Treasure may at least be spent.
The Fastness of Shattered Suns may escape Malfeas when an old battlefield saint, tired of life, kneels within their sanctum and prepares to turn their blade against one final opponent. If she finds them agreeable to her sensibilities the skies will swirl orange for a brief moment, a column of coiling flesh glimpsed descending like a lightning bolt to whisk the warrior away. Such mortals are rejuvenated as demons and, more often than not, become her finest students.
Utprerak and the Althing: If you're going to do something stupid you may as well do it right. Such is the logic that guides the Fastness of Shattered Suns and dictates her participation in the Reclamation. Leave such a fragile operation to the care of her vain, half-maddened kin? Madness itself. And besides, the possibilities for self enrichment are appropriately impressive. Her care for day to day politicking is beyond minimal rather she busies herself with the nuts and bolts of coordinating a campaign. Perhaps the most hideously lopsided, internally divided, and hopeless campaign in all of Creation's history- ah, but at least it's a change of pace.
