Temas the Fifth

Temas the Fifth is the current Ceratian ruler of Dasand, having inherited from his father five years ago. He was adopted as an egg due to his father marrying a non-Ceratian (and so unable to produce a biological heir). Adoption is culturally accepted, but being adopted into the position of heir to the city has left Temas feeling additional pressure to perform and prove he can be the leader the city wished his father was. He stepped into the role of King over a city that was long tired of Temas the Fourth's attitudes and tendency toward 'frivolity' and 'nontraditional views'. Many said the Ceratian had no real desire to be king, but as 'abdication' and 'death' were synonyms, instead the city stagnated, and the politics around Temas the Fourth grew restless. The most egregious of offenses was his taking of a Limukin wife from the swamps to the north-east when he was 79 and she 20, both unsettling the populous who did not want a 'swamp lizard' governing their city, and guaranteeing the tragedy in their adopted son's life that his mother would die before he came of age due to the lifespan differences between the races. All saw this approaching, and yet all the foreknowledge in the world did not make the impact less hurtful when Temas' mother died when she was 48 and he 22, and his father followed shortly after at the relatively young age of 108.

This left Temas stepping up at age 23, grieving and raw, expected to manage a city-state that ought not have been his for decades more. Some looked to take advantage of his youth and claim that as he was under the age of majority, a councilor ought to sit on the throne in his stead until he hit 25. He challenged each of these in turn, essentially waging a long fight in the city's courts that ceased to matter once a year and a half passed and his adulthood officially began. This has left him a jaded young ruler with a willingness to twist paperwork into whatever shape required to accomplish what he thinks is best, and a keen ear to what the people he rule are concerned of. These first years of his kingship have been focused on internal problems left by his father, such as trade deals left to expire or with terms that were far out of date, and making a subtle showing of interest in noble, single Ceratians to reassure those around him that he didn't have his father's...less regal interests.

What earns him some grace from the nobles around him is that he has maintained an air of mourning since his parent's deaths, wearing red and black (the Dasandian colors for death) and capping his horns in a show of respect to their passing. Eventually, however, the mourning clothes will come off and the pressure will mount to establish a name for himself in some more dramatic, external fashion. Will he do something to enhance the city? Expand its borders? Build new wonders for its people? Or will he pursue old wounds that have never fully closed, such as clashes with Koroussa, or establishing a more fuedal relationship with the dwarven settlement to the north? And, perhaps more importantly in the common folks eyes, when will he take a spouse, to create a proper household for continuing the line? Only time will tell where his priorities lie.