Inum'indiron'aravaut (inum in-DEER-on AR-avaut)

"For the Reiver King, rulership was not a matter of ego or sport. It was an unalterable purpose, a philosophy that defined the very core of his being. If Lorgain would not accept his rule, he would find a plane that would. It was as simple as that."

— The Inula'an Dialogues

Inum'indiron'aravaut (often shorted to Ina'ut), was originally a soldier, corsair, emperor, archmage and Lichlord from the plane of Lorgain.

Ina'ut bore many titles over his long and storied unlife, including the Reiver King (Thaulan: "Uga'al Šaru'um"), King of Kings ("Šar'šara'ani"), High Empyrion, Child of Promise, The Balancemaker and more. He was of a humanoid species known as the Ula'thau'la, also known as the Kelpeaters. After a long and storied life on Lorgain, he would eventually become the first Colonial God on the distant plane of Waking Materia. His empire's arrival would mark Year Zero of Materia's "First Age of Man" or "Era Intra-Merantha" (I.M.0).

Likely the most powerful and influential of Materia's First Age Age Lichlords, Ina'ut's empire, the Kelpeater Dominion, spanned almost half of the plane at its height. He would further strengthen his power over world affairs, becoming the Material demigod of oceans and storms in the later periods of the First Age (sometimes called his "First Apotheosis"; see the main article: Ina'ut), and later the even more powerful but reclusive being Ina'ut-in-Mourning after the plane-wide catastrophe known as the Deluge (his "Second Apotheosis").

Description & Heraldry

See also: Ina'ut Image Gallery (External)

As a leader, surviving texts describe Inum'indiron'aravaut as arrogant, serious-minded, distant in demeanour, unafraid of pomp and circumstance. He had no qualms about wearing bodies with two or three sets of arms, faces in all four cardinal directions, extreme size or similar displays. He was especially fond of taking the form of a giant ox-centaur with an eagle's wings. All of that said, he was also known to be honest and incorruptable, and had no great love for liquor or parties. Though he is known to have had concubines, there is no record of Ina'ut ever having been married or even romantically inclined; common theory is that the Lord of Lords saw himself as too ascendant a being to be "partner" to any mortal.

Often the main icons in Ina'utian heraldry is a simplified, idealized illustration of his head—sometimes facing forward, sometimes to the side—with a perfectly square-trimmed beard decorated in the coinage of cultures his armies subjugated. Other symbols seen among his branching heraldries include his Relic halberd Verethra'agna, tidal waves, hippocamps, dire skullfishes, kaiju (especially krakens), oxes, and a legendary Thaulan artifact named The Kylix of Plenty, which symbolized abundance and good health in Alanthian society.

Warfare

Inum'indiron'aravaut was at his most frightening on the sea; he was a nautical tactician of the highest calibre, and an archhydromancer who took great pleasure in battering enemy ships with artfully-sculpted storms and tsunamis. He brooked no laziness or incompetence from his troops. The Kelpeater navy had no equal on Lorgain or Materia.

The God-Emperor was known to occasionally survey his territory around the Gyre Islands and later Alanthan'aravaut in a flying warbody, which took the form of of a giant centaur with the torso of a man on an ox's body, an eagle's wings, and two additional heads flanking the human torso, also of an ox and eagle. It carried an enlarged version of Ina'ut's Relic Weapon, the mighty halberd Verethra'agna. The warbody could allegedly throw the trident multiple kilometres' distance, accurately, whereupon Verethragna would return to its hand instantly, leaving only a smouldering wound in the earth where it landed.

Background

Ina'ut's is a long and storied origin.

Lorgain

Inum'indiron'aravaut was a cunning, ruthless and extremely powerful shaman, spellsword and corsair, especially adept in the arts of hydromancy due to his nomadic-oceanic upbringing among the Ula'thau'la peoples of northwestern Lorgain. As a warlord he was known in Thaulan as Uga'al Šaru'um, which translates to "The Reiver King" in modern Middish.

Under Ina'ut's rule, the Ula'thau'la became a feared player in the Lorganite power balance, however the subtleties of diplomacy were of no interest to the Reiver King, and eventually too many other powers united against him. With his entire nation facing genocide or assimilation, Ina'ut did something drastic. Having learned the secrets of planar travel from the imprisoned ghost of a dead archmage (a secret held in the jealous grip of Lorgain's Interplanar Trade Guild), the Emperor of the Kelpearers made a startling declaration: the nation would emigrate to a new plane. Those who joined him would risk peril to find paradise. Those who remained to beg for mercy would be remembered as cowards and traitors in the new, golden era. Most chose to stay on Lorgain. Nonetheless, tens of thousands remained with their Emperor, and the resulting diaspora marched and pillaged their way across the multiverse until eventually arriving on Waking Materia.

The Lichlord's arrival would mark Year Zero of Materia's "First Age of Man" or "Intra-Merantha" (I.M. 0) on the Yasnan Calendar.

Materia: First Age

The Lichlord's new kingdom, which he dubbed Alanthan'aravaut (lit: "The Great Promise Upheld" in the Thaulan tongue), thrived. He ruled unquestioned for hundreds more years, eventually taking on the new title "Šar'šara'ani", Thaulan for "King of Kings". In this time Alanthan'aravaut grew from a city-state into a vast megalopolis divided into dozens of polities, run (under Ina'ut's stern gaze) by semi-independent administrators known as Luga'al ("worthy ones").

The Reiver King had several lesser Šaru'um Lichlords under his command. They had no official political role or title, essentially making their actions politically unbound: a rare thing in an otherwise heavily regimented culture. They included:

Šaru'um Kozu'e, his Number One and confidant, master of medicine, transmutation and biowarfare
Šaru'um Indu'una, his Left Fist, supreme commander of the Kelpeater military and specialist of the taming/riding of megafauna and minor kaiju
Šaru'um Io'a, his Right Fist, a calamitously powerful druid-barbarian who scouted and subdued new territories for the Empire
Šaru'um Na'ashu, spymaster, archdiviner and charismatic dilettante who gave the Empire a more pleasant (though ruthlessly competent) face

First Apotheosis

Inum'indiron'aravaut would grow even more powerful but politically distant as centuries passed, eventually becoming worshipped as the Material God of oceans and water, Ina'ut. This transformation, from an involved God-Emperor to a more distant, apolitical diety, is sometimes called his "First Apotheosis". Due to the the Deluge's mass destruction of books, artifacts and other relics of the First Age, few modern Materians are aware of the water god's origins as an ancient lich king.

Second Apotheosis

Ina'ut is now a dark, lurking, bestial thing known as Ina'ut-in-Mourning, generally thought to reside in the deepest trenches of the Sunken Expanse. There is considerable theological discussion around whether this monster was the cause of—or reaction to—the planar catastrophe known as the Deluge. Scholars call this transformation Ina'ut's "Second Apotheosis."

Clergy of Ina'ut-in-Mourning still exist, but are wholly insane hermits who whisper of things no surface race has any right knowing, and are almost universally shunned.