Taftus

  BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Taftenkhamun (native spelling), Taftenchamunus (Aurean spelling), Taphtenchamonos (Centralian spelling), Taftus (Aurean nickname), Taphtos (Centralian nickname)

Species: Anubian

Sex: Male

Gender Identity: Male

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Pronouns: He/his

Languages Spoken:

-Iteru (Native language, but ability declines as time goes on)

-Classical Aurean (Fluent)

-Common Aurean - Capitoline Dialect (Fluent)

-Galactic Basic (Fluent)

-Centralian (Barely conversational at the beginning of the series, somewhat improves as time goes on)

Eye Color: Brown

Hair/Fur Color: Black

Birth date:  April 13, 24 BR

Death date: December 21, 21 AR (age 45)

Birthplace: Palace of Sahul, Iteru City, Kingdom of Iteru

Place of death: Sky Palace, Borealis Governate, Caput Tatiium, Tatian Empire

Cause of death: Sacrificed self to allow Sarah to kill Tate

Burial place: 

Titles:

-Prince of the Kingdom of Iteru (24 BR-present)

-Magister Militum of the Aurean Dominate (0-2 AR, 21 AR)

-Grand Admiral of the Northeast Alliance (10-21 AR)

-Supreme Commander of the GTU (21 AR)

Residences:

-Palace of Sahul, Iteru City, Kingdom of Iteru (24-14 BR)

Affiliations/Loyalties:

-Kingdom of Iteru

-Aurean Dominate

-Northeast Alliance

-Galactic Treaty Union

Family:

-Nuterhek I (Father)

-Nefertari (Mother)

Mentors:

-TBD

10 Closest Friends:

-Sarah

-Pompeia Khan (eventually)

-Michael (eventually)

-TBD

Students:

-Sarah

Enemies:

-Kroksses II

-The Cabal

-Tatian Empire

-UNISYN

-Haxamanian Empire (at first)

-Kingdom of Arturia (at first)

-Hoc Nostrum

BIOGRAPHY

Taftus was born Taftenkhamun on April 13, 24 BR on a moon called Iteru to Nefertari and Nuterhek, the Queen and Pharaoh of Iteru respectively. As their only child, Taftenkhamun was essentially guaranteed to be Nuterhek's heir, so from a very young age, he was prepared to rule. He was educated in history, the classics, the Sahulist religion, and magic, showing a particular talent for Rock Magic. He also studied the Classical Aurean and Galactic Basic languages from an early age, allowing him to speak both with little to no accent. When Taftenkhamun was only three years old, the deadly plague known as the Blood Bleaching reached Iteru. Due to almost the entirety of Iteru's population being packed into the dense and poorly sanitized Iteru City, the disease killed more than two thirds of the entire moon's population in the span of six years, including Taftenkhamun's mother Nefertari. As a result, Taftenkhamun spent the vast majority of his childhood confined to the palace to avoid catching the plague, with only his father, palace guards, servants, and tutors to keep him company. He focused on his studies, showing a particular interest in military history. 

When Taftenkhamun was ten years old, the powerful warlord Tate arrived on Iteru with his army, demanding Nuterhek turn over the Eye of Heru, a powerful and ancient magical artifact located on the moon. Nuterhek refused and instructed his priests to open a portal to The Duat and throw the Eye of Heru in there, removing it from the Mortal Realm and leaving it under the stewardship of The Gods. Tate grew so angry at this he used Storm Magic to drain Bahariya Oasis, Iteru's single source of surface freshwater, and Rock Magic to bury the lakebed. This, combined with the labor shortage from the Blood Bleaching, made agriculture on Iteru impossible, and the entire population began to starve. While the Ishga Government provided Iteru with token water assistance, it was not enough for agriculture and they did not provide any food, so this only bought Iteru's population another month or so. Nuterhek appealed to other worlds to help, but almost all were too devastated by the Blood Bleaching to help. Only Aurea, Iteru's previous colonial master, provided limited food assistance and agreed to break with its previous isolationist policies and take in refugees. With the entire moon either starving or scrambling to emigrate, Nuterhek arranged with Gavicus XXIX, the current Aurean Dominus, to have Taftenkhamun sent to Aurea to live with him. Immediately after Taftenkhamun departed, Nuterhek realized all hope was lost and jumped from the palace balcony to his death. All sentient life on Iteru was extinct within three weeks, with only those like Taftenkhamun who escaped the moon surviving.

Upon arrival to Aurea, Taftenkhamun was taken to the Palace of the Domini in Astras, the Aurean Capital, where he was welcomed and taken in by Gavicus XXIX. Gavicus adopted Taftenkhamun and raised him as the son he never had. Taftenkhamun continued as a studious child, with his education continuing fairly close to where it left off and his interest in military tactics and history continuing. When Taftenkhamun was 17, Gavicus begrudgingly allowed him to enlist in the Aurean legions, despite wishing instead for him to go into politics like he had. During his legionary training, Taftenkhamun gained the Aurean nickname "Taftus", which he would use for the most part for the rest of his life. Scarcely a year after enlisting, Taftus's legion was called up for Gavicus's campaign against the Haxamanian Empire, which was currently in a state of civil war that Gavicus wanted to take advantage of.

At first, the campaign went well, with Taftus successfully organizing an ambush near Adua of an enemy cavalry force twice the size of the small force under his command. Using scented oils, he lured their horses into a swamp, with archers hidden in the surrounding bushes. When the cavalry horses got stuck in the mud, his archers annihilated them with a hail of arrows, winning Taftus significant repute as a battlefield commander. However, the campaign ended in disaster at the Battle of Tasfahn when Gavicus was outsmarted and kidnapped by Rukhsana I Shahanzai and the massive army Gavicus brought with him was forced into a deadly retreat through the Hyrcanian Mountains. However, Taftus showed cunning strategy during the retreat when he cleverly used campfires to scare off a much larger enemy force that would have surrounded the soldiers under his command during a scouting mission. This made him a national hero in the eyes of the Aurean people, and resulted in cheers in the streets when he returned to Astras. On the other hand, Gavicus was eventually freed and allowed to return to Aurea, but only after signing the humiliating Treaty of Mingora that ceded most Aurean possessions on the Planet Awal to the Haxamanian Empire. Upon his return, Gavicus's popularity took a nosedive and he privately swore off military campaigning for the rest of his career. For his battlefield heroism, Taftus was given 3 years of time off in the reserves, and promised a promotion upon his return. Frustrated with what he saw as the political decay of the Aurean political sphere, Gavicus practically begged Taftus to stand for office, as he lacked a protege to succeed him when the time came for him to step down. Taftus begrudgingly acquiesced and ran. He was elected to a 2-year term in one of Astras's seats in the Aurean Senate later that year, running in his father's Vox Populi Aurei party. 

Unfortunately for Gavicus, Taftus let his battlefield fame go to his head and spent more time in the Aurean Senate making connections and partying than helping him fix Aurea's political problems. He became good friends with Julius Arius III, a moderate Senator from the opposing Vox Aureae Nationis party. While he did assist with things such as getting Gavicus's controversial industrialization and international normalization projects authorized, as well as implementing them, he spent most of his nights attending numerous parties and orgies. He was quite popular with women, and it was said that every other week there was another rumor going around about Taftus having massive orgies involving female politicians and prostitutes. He was also known for his hot temper and going on frequent expletive-filled rants about those who annoyed him, especially his political rivals. Usually, these were behind closed doors and caused little damage, but an incident in which he called Gloria Aemiliana, a female Senator from rural Zebusylvania who wanted special carveouts on Gavicus's industrialization projects, "an ugly unfuckable slut" leaked to the press. This created a media shitstorm that nearly forced him to resign and tarnished his image for years. Taftus was only saved when Gavicus begrudgingly sent his operatives to find dirt on Aemiliana and uncovered an old real estate scandal. She was revealed to have owned a vacation home in the city of Ultima Thule that she bought from the Hoc Nostrum criminal organization at a bargain after the the previous residents "died under mysterious circumstances" and known members of the organization "inherited" the property. This shifted the media's attention away from Taftus and eventually resulted in Aemiliana resigning in disgrace, but Gavicus was nonetheless furious at Taftus for having been forced to use such underhanded tactics to save his political career, as well as the fact that Gavicus would be plagued by suspicions that he fabricated the evidence against Aemiliana for the rest of his life. 

While the stain of the Aemiliana scandal never completely left him, Taftus was able to recover most of his political capital when Gavicus, with the help of Taftus and his other allies in the Senate, was able to pass a law greatly expanding the rights and protections of Aurean workers from exploitation. Taftus, Gavicus, and many others were hailed as the saviors of Aurean labor and their popularity skyrocketed. However, Governor Gaius Sextus Capito of Tiorangi Province refused to comply with the law, as he had many corrupt ties to the iron and copper mining industries that dominated the province's economy, and many mine owners balked at having to pay their workers decent wages or provide basic employee benefits. Gavicus sent a small force under Taftus's command to sail to Tiorangi and enforce the law, and Capito responded by rising up in rebellion with his own troops and retinue. Using the heavily forested area to his heavy infantry's advantage, Taftus completely shattered Capito's force near the rail hub of Recholta. Capito himself was killed in battle and Gavicus replaced him with a Senate ally of his own named Decius Puhipi, who enforced the law. Taftus's decisive victory at Recholta led to widespread rejoicing in the Aurean Dominate, as it prevented Capito's small rebellion from spiraling into a full-scale civil war. 

A few months later, Taftus rode his regained popularity to reelection in the Aurean Senate, easily beating a handful of unserious primary challengers and running unopposed in the general election due to his seat  being extremely safe for the Vox Populi Aurei. However, this was not to last, as only seven months later, another scandal broke in which the press found out about an orgy that took place in a Senator's villa on the outskirts of Astras, and multiple witnesses reported Taftus was there. While many Aureans found this unsavory, this type of thing was hardly out of the ordinary and didn't do much to harm Taftus's reputation at first. However, more details emerged about this orgy, including that the attendees were using illegal drugs smuggled in from Ishga, and most importantly that Taftus allegedly had sex with the wives of fourteen Senators that night. Almost immediately, these Senators, some of which were in the Vox Populi Aurei Party, called on Taftus to resign. 

Completely blindsided by the scandal, Taftus could do little about it but ask Gavicus for help. However, unlike last time, the sheer magnitude of the scandal prevented Gavicus from being able to do much to help: he simply could not silence the stories of fourteen Senators and their wives. Instead, he chastised Taftus for being such an unhinged sex maniac and encouraged him to embrace the inevitable and resign his Senate seat in exchange for being allowed to remain in the army reserve. Taftus begrudgingly acquiesced, delivering an infamously drunken resignation speech in which he repeatedly went off-script on profanity-laden rants about the Senators and their wives who forced him from power. 

After Taftus resigned his Senate seat, Gavicus pulled some strings to keep him the army reserve. However, both due to his personal disgust for Taftus after the scandal and the need to distance himself from him politically, Gavicus had Taftus reassigned to a legion stationed in Tautoro, a small, isolated city on Tiorangi's icy far southern coast. This was the last interaction Taftus would have with Gavicus, as the latter would be assassinated mysteriously by an unknown assailant only a year or so later. Meanwhile, despite being chased out of politics in Astras, Taftus was still widely popular in Tiorangi due to his strong political support for labor and crushing victory over Capito. As a result, Taftus, who wanted to become a Legate (legion commander, a position only available to Senators actively serving in the military), began to gather a borderline cult following among the many miners and loggers in the rural parts of his district. Promising higher wages, better working conditions, and the use of military force against mining and logging businesses that did not comply, Taftus was able to narrowly oust the incumbent Senator representing Tautoro's district in a primary and sail to victory in the general election, worming his way back into the Aurean Senate around two weeks before Gavicus's death. Due to a lack of other qualified candidates from that area of Tiorangi (most of Tiorangi's Senators were new and not of military background due to almost all the ones with any credentials having been party to Capito's rebellion and removed from office), the Aurean Senate begrudgingly made Taftus a Legate a week after his inauguration, with the resolution only passing by three votes in a body of over twelve hundred total Senators. The resolution was the most hotly debated of its kind ever put to the floor solely because of the massive controversy associated with Taftus, with none of the other dozens of Senators who were also made into Legates as part of the resolution receiving more than a brief mention. Gavicus, only a few days away from his assassination, did not engage with the debate at all, did not attend Taftus's inauguration, or attempt to acknowledge him in any other way when he was back in Astras for Senate duties.

At Gavicus's funeral, Taftus gave the eulogy, as Gavicus never married and had no other family. Taftus struggled with how to talk about him, as their relationship had ended on such a bad note and Taftus still resented him for trying to stifle his military ambition as a teen. Over the course of the speech, Taftus digressed into dark humor, personal anecdotes, talking up his military accomplishments, and a story about a peasant woman in Tautoro he had a one night stand with. However, he managed to somewhat save the speech at the end by expressing genuine gratitude towards Gavicus for taking him in as a boy and doing his best to help the victims of the Iteru Genocide, shedding incredibly rare tears in the process. At the funeral, he met Pompeia Khan, the woman Gavicus had appointed his new Consigliere (second-in-command and successor in the case of death before the next election, and thus acting Domina) for the first time. While things were cordial between the two at first, the meeting quickly went south when Taftus tried to hit on her multiple times behind closed doors despite her repeatedly expressing disinterest. 

Shortly after this, the special election to replace Gavicus took place, and Pompeia surprised practically the entire Aurean political establishment by running for a term in her own right. As not only a woman but a half Tangolian with no previous political experience and ties to offworlders from Arturia that Aurea had fought in the past, Pompeia was considered a laughingstock by most observers. She was generally thought of at best as only having been appointed Consigliere because Gavicus had no one else around to fill the post after its previous holder was impeached on corruption charges, and at worst, rumors circulated that she slept her way into the post. Among these rumormongers was unsurprisingly Taftus, who was both angry with her for rebuffing his sexual advances and resentful of her for being made Consigliere instead of him. However, Pompeia proved to be far smarter than Taftus and many other Aureans took her for, quickly moving to build popular support by forging ties with union leaders, supporting labor, and pushing for other popular policies like the abolition of the servi agri system (de facto slavery in Tangolia Province) and the long-awaited-for end of the isolationism that had been instituted centuries back and had grown extremely unpopular. As a result, the Vox Populi Aurei and its coalition partners rapidly unified around her. While  it soon became clear that her opponent in the election would be Julius Arius III, whom Taftus knew if not trusted, Arius's running mate was Qajeer, the Khan of Tangolia whom Taftus hated and deeply distrusted. This, combined with the fact that she had become extremely popular with his very constituents, forced Taftus to begrudgingly endorse her (although he still promised himself he'd do everything in his power to undermine her administration if she won). When the results of the election came in, Pompeia shocked practically the entire Aurean Dominate by winning an incredibly close election, beating Arius by less than 10,000 votes and requiring several recounts before she was finally declared the winner. Almost immediately after this, Pompeia would be faced with the biggest crisis since the Final Haxamanian War when Qajeer refused to recognize the results of the election and declared Tangolia independent.

Immediately, Qajeer raised his own army and recruited the help of a mercenary force from the nearby world of Vigam known as the Arachna Inquisition, led by the infamous warlord Inquisitor Rhys. Together, they crossed the border into the Aurean heartland of Argentolia, crushing every general Pompeia sent against him. Despite many people practically begging her to put Taftus in charge of the campaign, she refused to enlist his help out of her disgust for him. However, she eventually resorted to leading an army against Qajeer and Rhys herself, was annihilated at the Battle of Ascrus in the worst defeat of the Aurean military since Mingora, and was presumed dead for over a week until she revealed in a letter that she had escaped to Tiorangi and was meeting with Decius Puhipi. Completely out of options, she offered Taftus command of the war under the condition that he would not deal with her directly and would only communicate with her through Julius Arius III.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

24 years old at the beginning of Book 1, Taftus is a tall, muscular Anubian (anthropomorphic jackal with short but pitch-black fur), standing at six feet and two inches tall. Like most other Anubians, he is known for his long, pointed ears which stand straight up from his head, which is known for its long snout. His canine, dark brown eyes and sharp, doglike teeth make him very intimidating, especially when angry, and his glare has been known to put even the rowdiest veterans serving under him in their place. His body below the neck is much more humanoid and his limbs all resemble those of a human, albeit still covered in short black fur and he sports a medium-length, bushy wolflike tail. As he keeps in peak physical shape, he is known for his well-defined abs, which makes him quite physically attractive to many women he encounters, even if most detest his personality. In informal settings, he generally just wears a basic long tunic, alongside a pair of leather sandals. However, in colder weather, he will often wear pants alongside the tunic, swap the sandals for a pair of leather or rawhide boots, and drape a cape over himself, usually of Amorican tartan. In either very hot weather or very informal settings, he will sometimes swap the tunic for a type of Aurean loincloth called a subligaculum, which would somewhat resemble shorts, and leave his torso unclothed. In more formal settings, especially political ones, Taftus will wear a typical Aurean toga.

In battle, Taftus generally wears a lamellar cuirass on top of a full mail hauberk, under which is a layer of padded gambeson on his upper body and padded pants on his lower body. On top of the padded pants would be a pair of lamellar splint greaves, and on his feet he would wear thick leather boots. He would also generally have a quiver of arrows strapped to one side, his curved paramenion sword in its scabbard strapped to the other, and his red composite bow strapped to his back. A smooth, bronze vambrace, worn over the padded gambeson jacket, protects each of his forearms. His helmet, Aurean in style, is long and thimble-shaped, made up of long, splint-like sheets of steel, not unlike her greaves. These taper and curve towards a rounded tip, from where a plume of red horsehair is draped over the back of the helmet. Each of his cheeks are protected by lamellar cheek guards, and a noseguard, bent specially to extend out from the bottom-center of his helmet to fit the shape of his snout, protects his nose. A hole exists in the helmet on each side where the cheek guard meets the rest of the helmet to allow his ears to poke up and out.