Marc Zhayress (Mark Zuh-heer-iss)
King Marcus Zhayress (a.k.a. Marc)
A tiefling infiltrator and thief who presides as king of Atrazit in The Greylands thanks to an encounter with a deck of many things. He is married to Queen Runelia Zhayress, who handles most standard ruler duties while Marc provides support, particularly when it comes to intelligence and the criminal underworld. As a professional adventurer, Marc also serves as a traveling representative for the kingdom and brings back interesting loot.
Marc's true first name is something demonic and nearly unpronounceable, so his "legal" first name is Marcus. Pretty much everyone just calls him Marc.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Marc is built for agility and dexterity, and is mostly lean muscle. As a professional adventurer, he keeps himself in excellent shape.
Special abilities
As a tiefling, Marc can innately use a charm monster effect once per day.
Apparel & Accessories
While working, Marc wears a suit of magical shadow drake leather armor that covers him head to toe save for a strip across his eyes. On top of its protective qualities, the armor substantially enhances Marc's thieving skills.
For weapons, Marc wears two bandoliers of magical daggers of varying types. Some just look like hilts until they're thrown and generate wind blades. Others are relatively mundane, to the point that Marc often uses them as thieving implements because they're relatively expendable. One is an artifact dagger that Marc stole from the Tarquil guild master while helping the queen of the Isle of Necromancy find her long-lost sister. The last is a "cutter swallow knife" that returns when thrown and is supernaturally sharp.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Marc's early history is largely a mystery, even to himself. One could say he grew up in the mercenary company he's spent much of his life working for. The company was led by Kzentil Blackblade, who was once a member of the Black Falcons until his defeat by Kelsey of Kaelund and the Renegade Legion. In Marc's youth, when he wasn't yet trained enough to be a combatant, he mostly worked as a gofer for the company.
The company was working in a mostly untamed, jungle-filled part of the world known as the Isle of the Storm Lords. Or rather, it was tamed, but it was tamed by terrible people. The company was fighting the "Storm Lords", villains who had magical power over the tribals and were using them as a sort of makeshift army. It was a terrible situation. Marc's glad he's away.
As far as Marc knows, the Storm Lords are still being evil out there. Marc is using his position in Atrazit to send funds and people back to his company, the "people" in this case being highly skilled assassins who are regularly hired to kill Marc and who get captured and given a job offer "far away from me, where they can do something that would not piss me off". Believe it or not, most people accept the job offer.
Marc's introduction to his first adventuring party was when he was sent by his mercenary company to make contact and he snuck past the party having a slice of life moment, walked onto their boat, walked up to the commander, and revealed himself. A lot of those present thought he was a combat encounter at first, before he revealed who he was. He didn't blame them.
The mercenary commander had been contacted by someone for help, and he had said he'd be sending one of his best men. That man was Marc.
Marc stayed with that party for a long time, continuing to work under orders by his mercenary company.
Marc became heir to Atrazit thanks to a deck of many things. His party had come across it, and while several other members did draw a card or two, Marc went for five. He hadn't been getting paid much recently, his last few jobs had been "kinda shite", and yeah, the deck could kill him, do many horrible horrible things to him, but he looked at the deck and thought "I feel lucky today". It turned out he was right.
All the cards were beneficial except for one that stuck him in a trap puzzle called the "kill cube". The puzzle apparently required a full party worth of skillsets to solve, and fortunately he had a calling card from a wizard on him, so while he could have used it to contact the wizard, he decided to instead tear it in half to summon the wizard to join him and complement his rogue abilities and those of the party fighter who'd been sucked in as well. It worked and they got out. He kept the maze to use on people he didn't like.
It was soon discovered that the kill cube was part of a plot by a schemer in Atrazit to prevent Marc from becoming Runelia's husband, since the schemer wanted to marry her and gain power instead. He was why all of Runelia's suitors kept winding up suddenly dead. Marc was the first to survive. And then Marc found out who did it.
It turned out that Marc was Runelia's last-ditch attempt to find a husband to consummate her rule. All the official options had failed or died. She pleaded for the gods to send her someone, a kind man, one who would live and be good for her and her kingdom. The gods apparently decided a surviving candidate was better than a perfect candidate.
The schemer was very surprised when Runelia and the adventuring party showed up at his door in the castle to inform him of the depths of his mistakes.
After that it was a couple months of just waiting for the wedding to be initiated. There were a lot of assassination attempts in the meantime, since the Jafar-like advisor wasn't the only one who wanted Marc dead. And there were other outside forces that wanted the kingdom to fail.
In many ways, Marc saw the assassins as an opportunity. A crossbow sniper named Race was the first in what is now a long line of would-be assassins Marc has "recruited" for his old mercenary comrades in the Isle of the Storm Lords.
The assassination attempts came to a head at the wedding itself on May 4th, 23 ARL, the last chance to end it before Runelia was married and gained full ruling authority. A plethora of assassins revealed themselves and found themselves facing off against each other, powerful guests, and the groom's own adventuring party. The climax came when the demon Atrazzit, after whom the kingdom was named, teleported in alongside a horde of minions to claim the rulership he believed was so rightfully his. Marc, Runelia, and the adventuring party were disinclined to accept his claims.
"Some giant, winged demony asshole tried to interrupt my wedding with me and my beautiful wife. We had already seen this coming. We were prepared." - MarcMarc has been working out of Atrazit since the deck of many things incident. He still does adventuring when he can. His wife Runelia sometimes joins him, usually much to his surprise. Marc has recently formed his own "rogues gallery" (which Marc prefers to call a thieves' guild) that serves as an intelligence agency. Officially, it's the Atrazit Rogues' Guild. "You may not know about it, because my members are good at their job."
Morality & Philosophy
Marc is a man of his word, a man of the contract. He has a code and a creed, part of which is that he can't be bought out by a higher bid mid-job, even if that "bid" is letting him live. (He'd probably get along with dwarves.) He likes to style himself as a classic rogue. He doesn't blame the assassins who try to kill him, and if they're good at their job, he's actually quite impressed. (To be fair, Marc is very good at not being killed by assassins.)
"The only time you don't see Marc fully enjoying life is when he's on business."
Personality Characteristics
Likes & Dislikes
Marc is not fond of fighting undead. Too many of them are immune to backstabs and precision strikes.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Marc once used the calling card of a wizard who owed his party to summon the wizard to help Marc out of the "kill cube" he'd been trapped in. Marc hasn't seen the wizard since that success, but he's probably still out there somewhere.
Marc is extremely confident in Nimbus Zhayress as a bodyguard, and would have no one else watching his and his wife's backs.
Family Ties
Marc is descended from the abyssal lord Grazat. Grazat is considered one of the most conventionally good-looking of the abyssal lords, which is why Marc lacks more traditional demonic features like horns or hooves. Marc doesn't put much stock in his abyssal heritage.
"All it gives me is the ability to scare people. Which I don't really do."The main benefit he gets from it is the limited charm monster effect.
Hobbies & Pets
Marc has a pet bunny named Trembles. Trembles was one of a set of super-bunnies that Marc's party acquired during an adventure. Trembles was initially terrified of Marc's party, but Marc used his charm monster ability on it and it concluded that if Marc was hiding from everything, and Trembles hid with him, Trembles would be doubly hidden from everything. The bunny immediately hid in his armor.
They've since developed a routine where Trembles keeps someone's attention (either by being adorable or by making them wonder why Marc is showing them a bunny) while Marc robs them blind. Trembles is, after all, supernaturally cute; his super-bunny power is that he's so tiny and so adorable that he's an automatic distraction. And then the victim realizes their wallet is missing, and then the bunny is gone.
Relationships
A near-albino tiefling infiltrator who serves as king and spymaster of the kingdom of Atrazit. He has stark white hair and ice blue eyes, and contrasts this with a suit of black leather armor that covers all but a strip across his eyes.
View Character Profile
Alignment
Lawful Neutral
Current Location
Species
Honorary & Occupational Titles
King of Atrazit
Year of Birth
2 ARL
21 Years old
Spouses
Runelia Zhayress
(wife)
Siblings
Children
Current Residence
Atrazit, in The Greylands
Pronouns
He/Him
Gender
Male
Eyes
Ice blue
Hair
Stark white
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Near-albino skin
Height
6'
Weight
190 lbs.
Owned Vehicles
Aligned Organization
Related Reports
- 2020/01/12: Indus Temple Exploration Report
- 2020/12/23: Indus Capital Exploration Part 1 Report
- 2021/01/06: Indus Capital Exploration Part 2 Report
- 2021/01/10: Indus Capital Exploration Part 3 Report
- 2021/01/20: Indus Capital Exploration Part 4 Report
- 2023/04/19: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Report
- 2023/04/26: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Part 2 Report
- 2023/05/03: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Part 3 Report
- 2023/05/10: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Part 4 Report
- 2023/05/17: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Part 5 Report
- 2023/05/24: Searching for the Zenogovia Gem Part 6 Report
- 2023/05/31: Consolidation Report
Comments