⯕ ( infosheet

[overearth]

stats; Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House of the underearth (called Witch King) NAME Old as hell (literally) AGE He/him PRONOUNS Demon SPECIES Dark brown, almost black, and long HAIR Entirely black, with no sclera or iris EYES Witch King by Martha Wells FANDOM After Bashasa's death but before the inciting events of the novel CANON POINT

personality; Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House of the underearth, is a demon prince who is trapped on the surface of the overearth and is none too happy about that fact. He was once an honored guest of the Kentdessa Saredi, the grasslands people who invited him into the body of one of their recently deceased tribal members.

When he was much younger and had seen less war, Kai was somewhat reckless and immature. He preferred playing around with the other members of the Kentdessa tribe over handling his responsibilities as a demon of the underearth, and although he was talented with his demonic abilities, he rarely spent much time honing them. Kai considered the Kentdessa Saredi to be his family and his home, and when he was forced to witness their wholesale slaughter at the hands of the Hierarchs it sparked in him both a bottomless grief and an endless rage.

Now, decades later and with considerably more experience, Kai feels the weight of responsibility and the shape of his own role in the defeat of the Hierarchs and the establishment of the Rising World coalition. He still feels that same old grief and rage, but it's more like an old bruise than an open wound, something he just has to carry with him.

Kai has much more confidence in his own capabilities; he isn't the type to boast or brag, but neither will he pretend at modesty when it isn't warranted. He is still in the habit of hiding his own pain and uncertainty in the name of protecting the people around him. Kai is always conscious that he has a reputation, and that he's loathed, feared, and revered in equal measure. He's smart, powerful, and fiercely loyal to the people he has chosen as his family: Ziede Daiyahah and her wife Tahren Stargard, their daughter Tanis, and Tahren's younger brother Dahin.

world context; At his current canon point, Kai comes from a world that has very narrowly escaped devastation. About seventy years ago, the world came under attack by a group of powerful magicians known as the Hierarchs, who intended to enslave all the peoples of the world and remake it in their own image. They killed millions, razed cities that refused to submit to their rule, and forced demons and Witches into the service of spell-wielding expositors in order to focus their powers. Kai, a demon himself who at the time was living with a nomadic tribe in the grasslands, was forced to watch the wholesale slaughter of his people before he too was captured and brought into imprisonment in the Summer Halls of the Hierarchs.

There, he met Bashasa bar Calis, Prince-heir of the city-state of Benais-arik, who was a "guest" of the Hierarchs sent to the Summer Halls to ensure his city's good behavior. Together, he and Kai formed a plan to free those trapped in the Summer Halls and rise up against the brutal rule of the Hierarchs. Although their plan was successful, it came at a cost: during the ensuing battle, in a last-resort effort to save his new friends, Kai forcibly transferred his soul into the body of an expositor, causing the man's death. This non-consensual takeover was a violation of the treaty between the underearth and the Saredi, and was seen as a great sin by what remained his fellow demons, who ostracized Kai as a result.

Kai travelled with Bashasa and his cadre, riding into occupied regions and one by one freeing them from the Hierarchs' rule. Thanks to both his powers as a demon and the expositor abilities he inherited from the previous owner of the body he now occupied, Kai became immensely powerful; he earned himself the moniker "Witch King," as well as a reputation as a monster feared even by the Hierarchs themselves. Accompanied by a Witch called Ziede Daiyahah and a Lesser Blessed defector called Tahren Stargard, Kai and Bashasa formed the basis of the liberating force that freed the world from the clutches of the Hierarchs and founded the Rising World coalition.

The more time they spent together, the more affection developed between Kai and Bashasa. The truth of whether or not they were lovers is lost to modern history, but one thing is for certain: when a demon inhabits a human body, that human body ceases to age, but a mortal will age just the same regardless. Eventually, Bashasa passed away, leaving the city-state of Benais-arik to the care of his nephew Bashat bar Calis; Kaiisteron, out of his mind with grief, fled the city as well, only returning many years later to rejoin Bashat and lend his influence to political matters once more.

At Kai's current canon point, the Hierarchs invaded around seventy-odd years ago, the Rising World coalition was founded sixty years ago, and Bashasa passed away twenty-ish years ago.

magic in the rising world; DEMONS

Demons come from the underearth. The underearth isn't literally below the ground, but it was connected to the overearth by the heat and living rock below the surface. Many many years ago, a woman now known only as Grandmother forged a treaty between her people, the Saredi of the grasslands, and the demon houses; this treaty allowed demons to pass freely into the overearth, to occupy the willingly-gifted bodies of recently deceased Saredi.

Unfortunately, the Hierarchs sealed the passageways between the underearth and overearth not long after their arrival, trapping any demons who had been on the surface and preventing any demons in the underearth from coming up.

Leaving the underearth and coming to the surface grants demons powers that they wouldn't otherwise be able to access, such as the ability to heal very quickly and to use pain in their own bodies to consume the life energy of other creatures or plants. They are consequently almost impossible to kill.

WITCHES

Witches are widely believed to be the result of a mixing of mortal and demon blood during a long-ago war between mortals and the underearth. They primarily use cantrips, which draw on the natural energies of the world to rearrange a small bit of reality at their command. They also work closely with the animating spirits of the world. Depending at least in part on where they were raised, Witches may have an affinity for one type of spirit over another—Ziede Daiyahah, for example, works almost exclusively with spirits of the air and wind.

EXPOSITORS

Expositors were unknown to the world before the arrival of the Hierarchs. They use life energy to power spells known as intentions, which are complicated semi-mathematical arrangements that can be written to achieve a certain outcome. Their abilities come from something called the Hierarch's Well, which is a power sink of unknown origin that granted power to all of the Hierarchs' expositors and also powered the massively powerful weapon called the Hierarch's Voice, which could stretch over long distances and cause massive devastation.

Because their abilities rely on life energy, they are particularly susceptible to a true demon's ability to suck life out of someone.

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