Difference between revisions of "GLRP:EMs:Event Bios:Lord Casca/Pauper"

Latest revision as of 02:36, 28 February 2011

Race: Elf

Gender: Male

Location: Now, Hell

Alignment: Evil

Status: Dead

Bio:

• Rise to Prominence

Casca first came to prominence through his prosecution of Ricardo the Thief. Ricardo had been charged with stealing from the Ophidians, awhile affecting his escape from the Terathans whom he had been attempting, unsuccessfully, to steal from. While stealing from monsters is normally not a crime, as killing them is not a crime, when it leads to a war and many needless deaths, it can constitute treason.

Casca won a great victory that day. However, the victory was due in large part to an uncaring judge, an inept defense attorney, and (mostly) some clever, complicated last-minute legal maneuvering wherein Casca dropped most of the charges against Ricardo after evidence had already been presented; a questionable move at best, from a legal and ethical standpoint.

After his success with this case, Casca, an Elf, was made Ambassador to Heartwood. He eventually made it to the Ruling Council (also called the Royal Council), the governing body of the realm.

• Casca and the Royal Council Massacre

The Royal Council Massacre was one of most important political events in the history of Britannia.

The Followers of Armageddon were long-thought dormant, but had resurfaced to some degree and had been the subject of investigations by Avery. They were, however, stronger than anybody —except perhaps for Avery— realized. As an offering to the Shadowlords, whose approach they must have been aware of, they successfully managed to attack and largely wipe out the Royal Council, ruling body of the realm. Among the few survivors, perhaps the only two, were Sherry the Mouse, who temporarily disappeared with her friend, Aileen the Noble. And, Lord Casca, who had apparently been taken prisoner.

Volunteers from the populace were eventually able to track down the Shadowlord/Followers of Armageddon cell who had performed the massacre, and "rescue" Casca. Casca fingered Avery as a traitor (documents uncovered by the volunteer investigators did ineed suggest there had been a traitor from within the Crown's inner circle, or from the Royal Council itself). Avery was eventually captured by Guardsmen. Observant rescuers, however, noted that Casca was fully dressed in fine clothes when he was rescued, whereas Avery was dressed only in tattered rags when the Guard caught up to him. In other words, Avery looked far, far more like a prisoner than did Casca.

• Casca, the King

By virtue of being the only high official left alive, Casca basically was in charge of the Britannian government, running it from behind the scenes, until January 2009 when he was named the new king of Britannia, becoming Britannia's first monarch since Lord British departed some years prior. Supposedly, Casca's actual title was "King Pro Tempere" (Temporary King), but subsequent events revealed his true plans.

Casca made Blackthorn's castle his home and working space. He stated that he was appointed by a newly-reconstituted Ruling Council, but would never say who was on the Council. Either he appointed himself, being the last surviving member of the Council, or he was appointed by a new Council that would by definition have been appointed in haste, and over the members of which he would have had considerable sway. Either way, Casca sought to establish himself as the man in charge, and to curry favor with the people by handing out cake and other treats. He proved to be a capable, semi-persuasive speaker, both in public and in interviews. For an example of the latter, note this interview with Martyna Z'muir:

Interview with Lord Casca, Part I

Interview with Lord Casca, Part II

• The Prince and the Pauper

At some point, a villain named Pauper began to appear and wreak various sorts of havoc. The dangerous plots of Pauper became to be known as "Pauper's Plan." Pauper's most-frequent opposition on the good side were the Royal Spies, under the leadership of Magnus Grey.

Pauper's trail began with an investigation of the murder of Clainin by the Shadowlords Faction, and proceeded through a series of disturbing events including but not limited to the murder of a Meer dignitary inside Castle British itself and an attempt to spark a war between Britannia and the Tokuno Islands by displacing cyclopses from their traditional home in the Lost Lands.

Pauper's nature, power, motives, and funding sources were murky at first. As the Royal Spies' investigations proceeded, however, a terrifying revelation was arrived at: Casca was behind Pauper and his plots. As the investigation proceeded, it was eventually revealed that Pauper actually was Casca. Casca had, in a bizarre display directly influenced by the ancient human legend "The Prince and the Pauper" (wherein a Prince and a poor boy, who were long-lost twins, trade places), Casca had created an alternate identity.

Royal Spies - Pauper's Plan

Even more strangely, Casca was not a "split personality." He would prove himself to be about as evil as Casca as he was as Pauper. And, eventually, he was no less open as the former than as the latter.

• Casca's Reign

Had Casca been an ordinary Monarch, it would now be pointed out that his reign was dominated by the Shadowlords and their various attempts to either take over or destroy Britannia. Casca was, of course, not ordinary. He was in league with the Shadowlords and, while it is not known exactly when the "arrangement" began, the latest the start date could have been was in the weeks prior to the assault on the Royal Council.

Casca's reign was still dominated by the Shadowlords and their attacks and plottings, but in a different way. He was in league with them, helping them, distracting the people with such things as his nearly-comical attempts to cut the Shadowlords off from their invading armies.

Casca's evil as Pauper is documented above. In his "true" identity as Casca, however, he was about as productive, personally giving the orders to carry out various aspects of Pauper's plots, building secret prisons, instituting harsh laws "based on" the Virtues that instead perverted and subverted them to their core, launching brutal and savage attacks on the High Council (which had begun to openly oppose him) and in general wreaking a terrifying havoc on Britannia. Among his crimes were the arrest of Magnus Grey, when the Royal Spies were getting too close to uncovering indisputable evidence of the horrifying truth.

This article:

The King Pro-tempore and the Pauper

by Martyna Z'muir neatly sums up the case against Casca.

Documents uncovered during the Royal Spy missions revealed that Casca had nearly-totally drained the Royal Treasury perpetrating his evil. Day-to-day governmental operations were all-but-ignored.

• The Fall of a Tyrant

Casca's being in league with the Shadowlords was eventually no longer a secret known only to a few who had been paying attention, but rather a fact, known to pretty much everyone. By the time this was formally revealed, it surprised no one. He vanished in terror following the defeat of the Shadowlords in the Battle of Fire Island, and the earlier defeat in Felucca of the Crimson Dragons.

Shortly after these events, he was slain by Dawn, who destroyed the gemstone to which is life had been tied. Dawn had, slightly before Casca's ultimate demise, been crowned Queen of Britannia. She is this Casca's slayer, and his successor.

• Casca's Legacy

Casca will stand forever as the second Monarch of Britannia. He will also stand forever as a dictator and perverter of Virtue. Neither the treasury, nor public confidence in government, nor the shattered city of Magincia (after Casca there is likely never going to be enough money to put it back together), nor the people and other beings wrongly imprisoned and tortured by him and his followers, are likely to recover anytime soon.

Casca's place in history is surely secure, and his brutal, terrifying reign was, thankfully, relatively short. Were it any longer, Britannia was unlikely to survive in the form we all know.

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