Pontifex. Art by Ean Moody.
An ancient lich and possibly the oldest mobile non-deity entity on the New World.
Pontifex has been manipulating events towards a goal for many lifetimes and employes dozens, perhaps hundreds, of agents across the world. He offers rewards for cooperation and generally places individual agreements with his agents, what he calls patronage. Most agents are kepts in the dark about specific elements of Pontifex's plans and likely only know about their small part of the puzzle.
Pontifex considers himself to be fair. He does what he does for a good reason and is always ready to defend his positions with well thought out reasoning.
Locke was the first of the Water Barons to enter into a formalized agreement with Pontifex but has since been joinned by others so that half or more of the party now shares the lich as a patron.
Pontifex decided to stop hiding and to let the New World colonists of the danger that Thrazadan posed. To do so he disguised himself as Kuthin's long-lost uncle, Foostus. By staging an up-scale dinner party and inviting all the important people of the New World, he was able to stage a reunion where he showed a corpse of an Albino Grippli, one of the many races following Thrazadan. He also warned that the Lemurian Ruins which the Water Barons had previously explored needed to be unearthed. He proposed that the ruins be given to the Water Barons, whom appointed Vashyk as the one who would lead the restoration. The Water Barons also agreed on veto power so that Vashyk wouldn't have complete control over these ruins, which were named Border Keep.
Trivia[]
Pontifex does not fight.
He wins.
When Tiamat goes to sleep at night, it checks its closet for Pontifex.
Pontifex doesn't memorize spells, the magic just assembles itself out of fear.
Pontifex is the reason Waldo is hiding.
There is no such thing as evolution, just a list of animals Pontifex hasn't had time to kill.