The Mad Psyker of Chimaeron
A candid moment with Iori, in his quarters at Therasus
~Background~
~Background~
Ioronius is a sight to behold (albeit not a pleasant one in the least). But pleasant or not, Iori (the familiar derivation of his name) is one of the heavyweights on the Dark Council, the controlling body of the secret alliance known as the Dark Wrath.
Iori's life began on the Prime world of Cerilia, in the city of Mhowe, capital of the dominion of Chimaeron in the region known as the Western Marches. He was the youngest of five brothers, all the sons of a sailor who was forced to quit the sea after an injury that cost him the use of his legs. With father out of work, mother and the four older boys were forced to take odd jobs just to keep the family solvent. Mundane travails appealed not to Iori, however: he was content to sit back and allow the rest to work hard in his stead. Iori's older brothers strongly advocated kicking Iori out of the house, but mother was soft-hearted and loved her youngest son far too much to do more than reprimand him for his sloth.
Rather than plying his hand at anything that resembled useful or wholesome work, Iori found he had a love of simply wandering the streets of Mhowe, especially in the more bawdy sections of the city -- he was a burgeoning adolescent at the time, so the cheap titilations of the things he saw in Mhowe's unseemly underbelly had a great deal more mileage with him than they would with a more mature individual. When Iori did make coin, he did so by selling himself as a guide to Mhowe's houses of illicit distractions. He was not really a particularly good guide, being quite illiterate and prone to simply making things up when he didn't have an answer for one of his customer's questions, but he still managed to keep himself in an adequate amount of coin (which he never shared with the rest of his family).
When Iori was thirteen, a plague struck Mhowe -- perhaps a result of one of the Chimaera's wars with other neighboring awnsheghlien. This plague was known as the Brain Rot, and it rendered its victims raving lunatics before killing them. Iori contracted this plague from hanging out in the bawdy districts of the city, and brought it home to infect his parents and brothers. Within a few weeks, the entire Mierlen family was dead -- all save Iori himself, that is, who (by some sad joke of fate) managed to survive. Iori was not unscathed by this disease, however: he was prematurely aged by the Rot, now appearing frail and shaky, his flesh wrinkled and his hair thinned and whitened. He picked up a number of bizarre mental "ticks" from the illness: his speech patterns were marred by a peculiar penchant for switching his "w" and "v" sounds, and though he had all the other traits of advanced age he was still quite adolescent of comportment, lacking in both the immaturity and experience one might expect upon seeing his aged visage.
Most significantly, the plague had unlocked within Ioronius his latent psychic potential, as it ravaged through his mind and body. He was now a full-fledged psionicist -- though he lacked the proper training to hone his skill. Slowly (and unsuccessfully) learning about his abilities, Iori left Mhowe and travelled. He settled down for a time in Massenmarch, where he sold his services as a guide on hunts for the Boar, a powerful and unkillable awnsheghlien in the Thuringode Forest. He lead several adventuring parties to their destruction -- in the process earning for himself no small amount of coinage from the equipment left behind by his former employers.
Just as word was getting around that Iori was less than what he advertised, he met a party of planewalkers lead by a psionicist named Rhianna, who recognized Iori for what he was. Sensing potential in the seventeen year old (with a seventy-year-old's body), Rhianna offered to tutor him in the psionic arts, and thereafter spirited Iori away to her home in Ecstasy, one of the Gate Towns on the Great Ring of the Outlands.
Rhianna herself was a Pyreen -- a powerful and ancient race from the world of Athas, where psionic power was far more advanced than elsewhere in the Multiverse. Iori benefitted greatly from Rhianna's training, though he was a less-than-studious pupil, far more interested in his own benefit and gain than anything Rhianna had to offer.
After leaving Rhianna's home, at the age of nineteen, he sought to make a name for himself as a "tout" in the city of Sigil, and beyond in the greater Outer Planes. But, as he was still illiterate and didn't care to read any of the texts that documented conditions, locations or cultures on the planes, he wasn't able to guide very many people in a very meaningful way. Still looking for work, Iori fell in with a band of planewalkers lead by a priestess named Veronica D'evette, and a githyanki named Bort. This group would eventually find the world of Kulm and found the city of Staircase.
In his time with this group of adventurers, Iori's personality proved a difficult thing for his companions to abide. When he attempted to basically usurp control of Staircase for himself, he was cast out from the city entirely. It was after leaving Staircase that he encountered the other founding members of the Dark Council, and helped to form with them a plan to rule the world of Kulm.
Ioronius is aided by a few companions who serve as his immediate subordinates. For whatever reason, these individuals willingly are loyal to the Mad Psyker, and voluntarily expose themselves (on a regular basis) to his witheringly obnoxious personality.
Hoshi - This half-fox, half-woman has travelled with Iori
ever since he left the house of his mentor, Rhianna. She is a member
of a race of creatures known as the Hu Hsien, and appears as a
beautiful woman with a fox's tail. Members of her race are vampiric,
and subsist off the drained life-energy of other beings. However,
Hoshi does not need to drain beings because of a mysterious bond
between herself and Iori. Rumor has it that Iori's bond with Hoshi is
the only thing that sustains him and keeps him from rapidly aging any
further -- and by the same token, the bond sustains Hoshi such that
she need not feed on life energy.
Hoshi is Iori's most trusted lieutenant -- and, disturbingly, his
longtime lover.
Slumovsky - Another Cerilian, who was trained by Rhianna in the use of his psychokinetic wild talents. By profession, this Vos warrior is a myrmidon and a mercenary. It's uncertain exactly how or where Slumovsky and Iori encountered each other, but now the short, swarthy fighter is almost always seen at Iori's side, hefting a bastard sword menacingly. It is rumored that Slumovsky also suffered from the Brain Rot plague, and that it is also the source of his mental powers. If so, it's likely the plague has scarred him hideously, which is why he always wears a full helm with the visor drawn down over his face.
Bailey Furfoot - A burly, noble Halfling warrior, Bailey
once adventured alongside Ioronius with the group that founded
Staircase. Otherwise known to be brave and just, even heroic, it's
unclear why Bailey has sided with Ioronius and the Dark Wrath.
Speculation abounds that either Iori or Hoshi has worked some magical
and/or psionic charm on the Halfling. More likely is that Bailey
suffered some slight from his former companions and left around the
same time as Iori, joining up with the Mad Psyker later as a means of
avenging himself.
Whatever the case, Bailey is the captain of Iori's standing fighting
force. He oversees daily weapons drills and practice skirmishes, and
personally inspects caches of weapons and armor supplied to Ioronius'
troops.
Krivoi Rog - A wizard of no small amount of skill, and Bailey's longtime companion. His siding with Iori is far more justifiable than Bailey's, as Krivoi shares an almost maddened sense of ambition with the Mad Psyker. He serves as Bailey's lieutenant, in specific charged with maintaining and leading a cadre of elite magic-using special forces within Ioronius' troops.
Ioronius' agents are a hard lot to pin down. Unlike other members of the Dark Council, there's no real commonality that binds together Iori's followers.
Iori himself covets the power inherent in controlling Kulm's access point to the Infinite Staircase. Though he himself possesses psionic powers and magical items that can facilitate planar travel, the possibilities of the Staircase itself is an allure that the Mad Psyker cannot resist. Perhaps as a product of madness induced by the Brain Rot plague he only barely lived through, Iori is obsessed with killing all the living inhabitants of the city, and claiming the Staircase for himself.
Ioronius has been given a laboratory in the Capitolian city of Therasus, from whence he is marshalling his forces. By way of his psychoportive powers, he travels frequently to various locales on the Outer Planes to find and recruit agents to serve him. Thus, several of his agents are planars as are found among the dennizens of the city of Staircase. Being that his base of operations is in Capitol, it is equally as likely to find Capitolians in his service. One might also find Illithids or agents of the Aboleth serving Ioronius, as by now the Mad Psyker's psionic talents have grown so great as to earn the respect of even these formidable psionic races.
Far and away, Ioronius favors fellow psionicists among his ranks, though he also has need of and respect for purely physical brute fighters. He has picked up some training in unarmed combat styles, and retains a few martial artists as agents. Since he likes to keep an awareness of what goes on among the populations of the city of Staircase, he likes to have a few people with abilities that lend well to spying: rogues, dopplegangers, wizards with invisibility spells -- and yes, again, psionicists.