Last week, I discussed a villain team that is integral to the Meriquai Falls setting, the Imperions. Since they won’t be included in the Primer (they will instead be featured in their own supplement), I chose to at least discuss them and their history here on my blog. In doing so, I hope to drum up interest in Meriquai Falls.
This week, I’m doing it again. This time, it’s a master villain. In fact, he is considered the most powerful and most dangerous villain in the Meriquai Falls setting. He is Count Dredmaus, the Mystic Lord of Weather. Imagine if you will if you took Marvel Comics’ Doctor Strange, gave him Storm’s powers, then gave him Doctor Doom’s mindset. Yeah, you’re getting pretty close to Count Dredmaus.
But who is Count Dredmaus? He appeared from out of the blue in the year 2000, mere months following the Great Meriquai Falls Massacre. At that point, he was every bit as powerful as he is today. Only the fortuitous presence of the mentalist Amethyst, the metamorph Masquerade, and the martial artist Silver Phoenix, along with the tactical genius of Major Brian Davenport (who was piloting the R.E.V.E.R.B. mecha suit), prevented the master wizard from inflicting more damage than he did. Even then, Count Dredmaus merely chose to quit the battlefield… he was not actually defeated.
Why then did he not appear sooner? As terrifyingly powerful as he is, he would have surely moved to conquer mankind long before now, right?
You have no idea just how right you are.
The Kingdom of Meriquai
The truth is considered beyond belief by the scant few individuals who know it. Count Dredmaus is a fey courtesan who was born more than thirteen millennia ago.
Count Syllus Dredmaus was a minor noble of the Empire of Arcadia at the time that the Kingdom of Meriquai was at its height. Like many fey, Dredmaus was fickle and shallow. But few even amongst the fey knew how dark Dredmaus’ heart was. He had designs. Grand designs. He intended to rule the Empire of Arcadia as its rightful emperor. Even the upstart Prince Auberon would not be able to deny him his destiny.
Dredmaus, being the immortal creatures that fey were, patiently watched as the Kingdom of Meriquai slowly descended into decadence. The silly humans were so predictable. The natural spirits of the Middle World thought so highly of the creatures who couldn’t survive even a full century before dying of old age, let alone by natural dangers or even violence. So the spirits had given all of these gifts to the humans. And how did the humans thank the spirits? By exploiting the spiritual magic for their own selfish ends. Dredmaus couldn’t help but laugh… not only were humans every bit as bad as fey (or even worse), but humans also possessed the power to destroy their own world… something the fey did not have.
Without the Middle World to anchor them, both the Spirit Plains and Arcadia would spiral out into the multiverse and possibly into oblivion. Dredmaus saw his chance. If he could conquer the Middle World, he could claim he was preventing such a catastrophe (who knows, it could be true). Then, as a hero of Arcadia, he could claim the imperial throne for himself. And everyone would support him. Even that laughable buffoon Auberon.
With that goal in mind, Dredmaus began to slowly set all of the pieces into place. Turning certain powerful humans to his cause was so incredibly easy that Dredmaus almost grew bored with the play. But he entertained himself with the antics of one young human boy, Hania Spiritheart, and his erstwhile allies. Playing a cosmic chess game with Hania while the boy hero journeyed to defeat the terrifying Myste was just the sort of intellectual release Dredmaus needed.
But all good things must come to an end. So it was with Dredmaus’ game with Hania. The boy hero had tracked Dredmaus to his lair on top of Mount Darksky, just as Dredmaus was enacting a ritual to draw the Myste to him. Hania and his allies faced off against the Dredmaus, but the fey count’s incredible command of weather magic was more than they had bargained for. Hania and his allies were easily defeated. However, before Dredmaus could land the killing blow, something incredible happened. Dredmaus suddenly disappeared into a dark vortex of energy, never to be seen again. Hania and his allies simply assumed that Dredmaus’ attempt to control the Myste backfired and the Myste destroyed him.
For over thirteen millennia, there was no proof to otherwise.
Reappearance
In the year 2000 A.D., the recent Great Meriquai Falls Massacre had drawn the attention of national and international peacekeeping forces. The United States commissioned the formation of an ultra-elite anti-terrorist military unit called the Lambda Force. Lambda Force, in turn, jointly commissioned IRON and Impulses Unlimited to develop a powered armor suit that the Lambda Force soldiers could use against supervillains. In a record-breaking two months’ time, they presented the R.E.V.E.R.B. prototype. Plans were made to demonstrate the prototype to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a glad overlooking the Meriquai Falls itself (at the time far from any developed part of the city).
As Major Brian Davenport was demonstrating the basic mobility functions of the suit, a mysterious man with the powers of flight and weather control inexplicably attacked the gathering. To this day, the public at large assumed that the villain, who was later revealed to be called Count Dredmaus, had taken the opportunity to attack the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the hopes of crippling the American military and to squash the public image of the nascent Lambda Force. If not for the three heroes who had secretly been in attendance, along with Major Davenport’s leadership, the villain would have surely succeeded.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the truth wasn’t as clear-cut as that. In reality, Count Dredmaus had just emerged from the dark vortex that had stolen him away from the fight against Hania Spiritheart. Something, or someone, had pulled Count Dredmaus out of time. The good Count, unaware that he had been pulled over thirteen millennia into the future, assumed that a rival fey noble had teleported him away from victory. When Dredmaus did not recognize his surroundings, he lost his temper and lashed out at the world around him. He just happened to be near the R.E.V.E.R.B. demonstration when he did this.
After spending a few moments venting his frustration on foes who were admittedly competent, though nowhere near powerful enough to defeat him, Dredmaus quit the battle to cool down and think about the situation.
The Throne of Arcadia
Eventually, Dredmaus pieced it all together. He then traveled to Arcadia to find that the “upstart Prince” Auberon was now the Emperor. To add insult to injury, the ever-radiant Countess Tytania, who Dredmaus had been courting, had married the buffoon… and stood proudly at Auberon’s side when Dredmaus attempted to reclaim what was rightfully his. Dredmaus declared war on Auberon’s court and enacted a ritual intended to destroy Auberon’s palace. Only the timely sacrifice of the court wizard, Nastarius, prevented a cataclysm the likes of which Arcadia had never seen.
To Present Day
Count Dredmaus cut his losses and fled. During the Multiverse Wars, wherein the heroes of the Middle World sought the pieces of the Staff of the Phoenix in order to save reality itself, Dredmaus found a pocket dimension that had been left unclaimed. Naming it Cumulonymba, Dredmaus built a tiny kingdom he could rule as a base of operations while he conquered the Middle World, the Spirit Plains, and Arcadia.
For the most part, Dredmaus has contented himself with seeding plots within plots in order to undermine the heroes of the Middle World and to weaken the political power of Auberon and his loyal nobles. A few times, Dredmaus has committed more direct acts of villainy against the Middle World; these have always been feints and tests, not only to gauge the progress of his work, but also to misdirect heroes away from what he is really doing. More than once, Dredmaus has allowed heroes to believe they had defeated him so that he could fall back, reconsider his strategies, and reappear much to the surprise and consternation of heroes everywhere.
One day, Dredmaus will rule the multiverse under his iron fist. It is his destiny as rightful heir to the throne of Arcadia.
And when he discovers who pulled him away from his victory over Hania Spiritheart, so many millennia ago, there will be Hell to pay.
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