"Mankind!" is what the No use instead of "God!" They think we were pretty rad!
Updated version in 12/2017, slightly less off.

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We’ve already met Tani, Kate and Darius, so we’re still short a few council members. Here's one of them. Naran, heraldic animal snake, Head of the Order of the Full Moon, second most powerful Seer and second most influential person in the state. He’s sharp and intelligent and has a great sense of dark humor and cynicism. He’s also exceptional at reading people and will spend much time just observing and analyzing his political opponents, then suddenly deliver a precise, cutting putdown that’ll leave them reeling. Takes his job in the senate very seriously, too. This is counterbalanced by a rotten personality. As the eternal number two, he’s prone to all the neurotic flaws that Gadeth isn’t. He enjoys watching people squirm, inflicting pain and he also gets a thrill out of the ongoing fights against the Republicans. This is why the dictator personally puts him back in his place from time to time. Naran misunderstands this, thinking that Gadeth suspects him to try and undermine his government. He honestly doesn’t, as he knows enough about himself to realize that he could never hold the state together.

He also loathes Darius because he doesn’t want another Seer on the council, especially a weakling who only managed to get into a third class hidden Order and owes his fame to his clan’s money and whoring himself out!

The pic’s set on one fateful morning just after Darius escaped an assassination attempt.

Storytime, if you like.


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The terrorists finally show their true faces a few weeks after killing Darius’ younger brother. They intercept Darius on his way to the curia, revealing themselves to be the Ordo Aquae Fluentis led by one certain lady who’s an old and powerful political enemy – to be precise the one that Gadeth himself learned a lot of his ways from. Nobody had believed that she was still around. Being generally crap at fighting, Darius needs to be saved by his guard and his Order and arrives at the curia all shaken and terrified. The state is under attack! Everyone’s going to die! Emergency needs to be declared right away, and the dictator alerted! Too bad that his Excellence is currently away, meditating, and if there’s one sacred rule, it’s that he is not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

This is pretty important, because interrupting him while he’s too far ‘out there’ might actually have catastrophic consequences for him. Gadeth once accidently did this to himself and nearly fried his brain, turning himself into helpless drooling vegetable for days while trying to put his mind back together. After that he a) was actually happy to have found one of his limitations b) decided that no more hanging with higher-dimensional beings and c) installed the meditation rule.

Naran is very acutely aware of this, but the things that Darius reports are disturbing enough that he decides to risk it. He also can’t just send Darius on his way alone, as there are some very high power forcefields involved that do some rather uncanny things to space, time and ill-prepared three-dimensional brains. No problem for him, though.

They make it through, they report Darius’ findings, and the dictator is not impressed in the slightest. Instead, Naran just ticked so many boxes on the "DON'T" list that it ends with a prolonged stay at the hospital for him. The immediate scene is shocking enough for Darius to speak up and ask Gadeth to stop. After all, he, Darius, is at fault for all of this! But when Gadeth asks him bluntly if he wants to take Naran’s place, he shuts up quickly. After all, he is still new to the senate, so he’s excused this one time.

Guess if that improves things between the two Seers! Darius however shows some rare sense of tact and bad conscience. Naran now has plenty of time to wonder why on Earth he’s still alive. The penalty for what he did clearly should have been death. Gadeth must have had a concrete reason for making such a huge exception – but what?