| Cerin Olono | |
|---|---|
| Biographical information | |
| Born | |
| Died |
2038 (aged 24) |
| Blood status | |
| Physical description | |
| Species | |
| Gender |
Female |
| Hair colour |
Brown (with streaks of black) |
| Eye colour |
Black |
| Skin colour |
Greyish white (with brow ridges) |
| Family information | |
| Family members |
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| Magical characteristics | |
| Affiliation | |
| Occupation |
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| Loyalty |
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| . | |
- "The spirit of my father whispers to me in the silent of the night at its darkest hour. His master has granted me a portion of his power and I am reborn! I am Mhirsmordre's legacy. I am the one who will open the gates of flames and end the needless torture of the One Triumphant!"
- —Cerin Olono exposes her true colours.
Cerin Olono (7 November 2014 — 2038), known as "The Runespoor", was a half-blood dark witch of multiethnic heritage that was born within the Syldavian-Bordurian hinterlands. Raised within the fold of the Followers of Mhirsmordre, she was the illegitimate daughter brought into the world from an affair that their leader Yamai Pehuen had with Mika Olono and was praised as a miracle sent from their master because for the ridged facial features she bore. Olono would ultimately outlive her father and the cult itself and after their incarnation of the religion disintegrated, Olono was raised beneath the care of her mother and later became a dedicated peace activist that sought to improve once-tense relations between Borduria and Syldavia. In secret, however, she was a clandestine follower of the same warped beliefs that her father had been an adherent to and later founded her own recreation of his cult with the avowed aim to finalise Pehuen's ambitions, recruiting former Bordurian military personnel and allies from the Thracian Rangers to her crusade. While she continued to work towards long-term peace between the two states, Cerin also had a hand with various terrorist activities that the Rangers conducted to destabilise the same nations for remnants of the Zyldav Zentral Revolutzionär Komitzät, who had reassembled to form the Ice Talons League.
Intent on fulfilling the work that her father had set out to accomplish, the daughter of Pehuen was later able to muster together a force of the zealous cultists that she had been able to mobilise from defunct units of the Bordurian Armed Forces and arranged for her allies to eliminate the transport that had been ferrying her to a summit on Syldavia. Using the attack as a pretext to lure the escort that had been assigned to her protect to the Fire Caverns where her subordinates were encamped, Cerin then revealed her real nature as a follower of the Malvago Order that intended to utilise these individuals as sacrifices for a ceremony that would enable her to release the Dragon Lord from the mirror realm. Shedding her mask to gloat that the Dark Lord would be free to conquer the lands of Syldavia and Borduria without hinderance, she was able to escape into the Fire Caves with the escort-turned-rescue team in literal hot pursuit, impeded thanks to the efforts of the Bordurian soldiers that Olono had brought with her. However, although the young humanoid was almost successful in fulfilling her promise to unleash the Dragon Lord, who imbued her with some of his power, her blood ritual was interrupted by the Dragon Rider Catra D'Memirel, who duelled Cerin and thwarted her summoning ceremony, killing the summoner in the process.
Biography[]
Early life[]
The infant Cerin with her mother, Mika, minutes after her birth.
In the year 2014, Cerin Olono was conceived from a relationship that emerged between the councillor Yamai Pehuen and Mika Olono, a religious dissident that had been taken into the practices of the Followers of Mhirsmordre, a minor cult that later achieved some prominence beneath the guidance of the man that had fathered her child. In addition to his close role within the Imperial Court that managed bureaucratic duties within the Empire of Night, Pehuen was also a historian with a vested knowledge about the Dark Arts and the Malvago - an ancient line of warlocks that had been the founding practitioners of such magic - who was a close advisor to the man most of the world knew as the Dragon Lord. Impregnated from her affair with Yamai, Olono later became pregnant with their daughter, who was discovered to have been born with a series of segmented brow ridges that extend down from her forehead and circle her eyes, which later gave her a slightly "hooded" expression. Though the reason for these abnormal features were an enigma that hinted to the possible inclusion of non-humans amidst the Olono bloodline, when presented with the infant, Yamai Pehuen proclaimed to the Followers of Mhirsmordre that the Dragon Lord - who the cult considered their prophesied "Great Destroyer" - had altered the girl while she still within the womb of her mother and claimed that she was a miracle. However, despite this, Pehuen never acknowledged the infant as his own and she was raised beneath the sole care of her mother, who enlisted the assistance of her brother Benyan, who was also a fellow spiritual radical that followed his sister into the waiting arms of the cult. Assuming her maternal surname, the daughter of Mika was christened Cerin, but nonetheless knew about her paternal heritage.
As a youngster, Olono was brought into members of the Followers of Mhirsmordre.
Some years after her birth, Cerin and her relatives travelled to the backwater outlands of Syldavia, where the Followers of Mhirsmorde had established a chapter of their religion that had taken form beneath the leadership of Pehuen, who had become a high-ranking member of the fifth columnist Zyldav Zentral Revolutzionär Komitzät since the beginning of his fatherhood. As was the daughter and niece to members of the following, Olono became a resident of the settlement that members of the Follower had been able to establish in the isolated wilderness, fostering a community for the religious doctrine to foster itself. Although the Z.Z.R.K. had ties with the Followers and encouraged them when certain elements from their movement had launched a streak of radical antimonarchist activities in 2027, individuals that adhered to the prophecies of Mhirsmordre the Destroyer had continued to persevere after their allies fell to ruin while attempting a coup d'état in the same year. After the insurrection shattered, Yamai Pehuen had been able to assemble like-minded disciples that he led to the Contrecoeur region, recruiting his lover and reuniting with their child. Amidst the far-flung wilderness, the Followers of Mhirsmorde would flourish to some extension, recruiting new adherents from disenfranchised individuals who felt their faith had been misguided. Like other residents of the cult compound, Olono identified as a follower of the Destroyer with the common decorative items and pieces of clothing that her kind wore, including crimson armbands and ear ornaments. Though still a legal child, Cerin was nevertheless encouraged to contribute to demonstrations that were hosted to increase awareness through communal rallies.
Cerin stands with the others who followed the culture that she had been raised to believe in.
One such event featured a nonviolent vigil her mother Mika had chosen to organise at Contrecouer as verification that their cult was poles apart from the violent mafia imagined from their previous actions. Wearing a purple tunic that she wore over simplistic brown garments, Olono stood before the target of their gathering as one of the front rows, she and her people maintained a low, melodious chant throughout their demonstration, offering their prayers to fallen warlocks without concern for the mixture of emotions that the convention attracted from passing townsfolk. Holding two hands above her forehead, Cerin raised her arms to emphasis the words of her cohorts, making flourishing motions as the gathered followers fell beneath the observation of Shadow and Rouge, who observed how their cult was growing across the local district from sentiments that their government had thrown aside their needs and the subsequent decision to embrace hateful beliefs as comfort. Unbeknownst to the law, however, the Followers of Mhirsmordre maintained their connections with elements of the Zyldav Zentral Revolutzionär Komitzät that had been able to survive when the insurrection collapsed. Several of these factions had been able to coalesce inside the Contrecouer Valley, leading to the foundation of the Maple Leaf Gang, a criminal organisation that had been established beneath Yamai Pehuen and several others. Although Olono was disconnected from militant activities, she was aware that her sire had been a contender for total leadership of the Z.Z.R.K. remnant, but lost this mantle when man named Dean McAbin was able to assume control in a move that resulted in a number of the expectant commanders being co-opted, sidelined or killed. Though Pehuen survived, he died from later circumstances, which left the Followers of Mhirsmordre to reach a hollowed state and later fell to nonexistence.
Mika Olono and her daughter were both able to survive the aftermath, departing from the Followers and relocated to a settlement named Saint Mjindo, where Olono was homeschooled, since her mother was concerned about the potential ostracism that might be drawn to the younger woman from her facial abdomens. As a consequence of these fears, the Olono became known to the surrounding neighbourhood for withdrawn natures and strict isolation from other residents, rejecting most that had tried to welcome their arrival. Indeed, it was a shock for some that Mika even was a mother and she ensued that the existence of her daughter was known to the select few, keeping Cerin at her side for most of their lives. Despite the remoteness that her dam insisted upon, Cerin was nonetheless able to build friendships with a small few, though most of these playmates were also children from families that her mother and uncle had known from their time as followers of Yamai Pehuen. Two such friends were Ismeta Burke, who was a close acquaintance that remained solid, even years later, and Marina Klašić, a student at Durmstrang Institute that she became correspondents with as penfriends. Another former disciple that had taken residence in the local environs was Anesa Vidovic, who was sometimes asked to care for the child of Pehuen when her mother was absent, though Olono believed that the older woman was motived not due to compassion, but because she was the recipient to a substantial amount of gold to compensate for her services. Her caretaker owned a Runespoor, a species of snake with historic connections to the Dark Arts, but though Vidovic claimed that her pet was venomous and threatened to unleash the creature on Cerin for her disobedience, Olono found that the creature was a far more amicable presence that its owner. She also claimed to have made fictional friends that satisfied the absence of live companions.
Double life of the follower[]
Rebuilding the cult[]
While an open peace activist, Cerin Olono utilised her office to gather recruits for her reborn cult from disenfranchised figures.
As an adult, Cerin Olono joined the New Syldavians as a member of their governments, beginning her career with the same administration that her father had battled, but though her unusual features earned her bewildered looks, she climbed through the ranks to become an ambassador for the crown. While she was a diplomat, Cerin was devout activist that advocated for peace with Syldavia and Borduria, helping forge the groundwork for a rechristened concordance after the collapse of the previous one. While she was an outward supporter of the reconciliation process, however, Olono was a secret adherent to the Dark Arts, having rediscovered her devotion to the same insidious beliefs that her father, who she sought to emulate. As a result, she became a clandestine contact of the assorted Z.Z.R.K. Remnants that had been mobilising for a new offensive. While loyalists hidden within the uncharted hinterlands rebuilt their forces to form a new successor named the League of the Ice Talons, the assortment of fellow holdouts sought to destabilise the state with militant proxies that had been shaped into a terrorist organisation named the Thracian Rangers, which was created from a number of dissident cells, including one that Cerin became the leader to, shaping the faction to serve the resilient hideouts and her own religious ambitions. With renewed devotion to the Followers of Mhirsmorde, she sought to resurrect the cult and utilised her position to search for the appropriate individuals that would be needed for this process, building an extremist reincarnation that threw aside the placid nature of their predecessor to embrace a zealous devotion to the Dragon Lord. From her office as a spokeswoman from the Kingdom of the Black Pelican, Cerin sought out former officers from the Bordurian Armed Forces that had been left without employment after the demilitarisation pact that had been imposed because of the failed insurrection that the Zyldav Zentral Revolutzionär Komitzät had launched. Converting these disenfranchised individuals to her cause, she promised these recruits a new path to claim vengeance and honour won in the name of their new god.
"The Runespoor", mysterious leader of the Followers of Mhirsmorde.
To shroud her involvement with this resurgence from the fragmented disciples of the Great Destroyer, she assumed the alias, attending matters related to the cult as a masked woman that called herself "The Runespoor", taking inspiration from the serpent that her previous caretaker had owned. Beneath this disguise, Cerin Olono reconstructed the Followers of Mhirsmorde into a cell that headquartered themselves inside Contrecoeur and she was responsible for recruiting a number of their members, including her childhood friend Ismeta Burke, who joined them as one of her most devoted followers, helping to establish a foothold for the sect inside the local hamlets. Later, the two also discovered that their friend Marina Klašić had been left without direction after several abusive relatives cast her aside, leaving an emotional void that Cerin offered to fill with a new accommodation inside those who awaited the "New Cleansing". Another case that Cerin elected to recruit was Abram Fransoto, a grandson to one of the extremist believers that collaborated with Yamai Pehuen when the Death Eaters first infiltrated the Followers to manipulate them for the Dark Lord, and she tracked him down through the connections that their familial lineages shared. Despite her nature as an illegitimate child, Olono found that Fransoto considered her to be the equivalent of minor aristocracy, since she was the sole heir to her late father. Though her first face-to-face encounter with Gwenon Schepdael was when Cerin Olono was a visitor at the Belgium Ministry of Magic, "The Runespoor" later contacted the other woman and blackmailed her to become an informant that funnelled the information that passed through her desk to the Death Eaters until the collaboration was uncovered. After Schepdael was expelled from the Ministry, Olono had representatives from the cult pressure the former employee into becoming a member of their cabal, but though her allegiance was secured through coercion, she was later trusted enough for Cerin to make her the leader for several other cultists. Another squad that operated beneath "The Runespoor" was under the leadership of Arch-Sorceress Ycny Nikmian, who was tasked with missions to recover lost artifacts for the cult, which later brought them to the attention of Catra D'Memirel. Through the familial connections belonging to her lieutenant Samarides Lestrange, the leader of the Followers was able to establish bridges with influential movers that she associated with as an overt dignitary and masked enigma, who utilised her position with the government to conduct overtures to locate prospect recruits from Russia and Ukraine, using the damage that continued hostilities between these two countries was having on their economic demands to turn former supporters of Vladimir Putin on his administration. Others that she enlisted from military backgrounds were convinced to swear allegiance to the cult from the impression that their actions brought triumph to their nations, namely Borduria.
Though her own activities delved into the occult, Cerin Olono continued to harbour interests that needed brains from a more scientific outlook, seeking assistance from geniuses in this field that might be congruous with her spiritual beliefs. The pursuit for answers brought the daughter of Pehuen into contact with Kranzolt Modh, a brilliant but unprincipled boffin that she was able to visit inside his cell within a Bordurian detention centre, finding his claims about their shared behaviour relatable. Though fascinated with his temporal research and the other adventurous ideas that Kranzolt had inscribed over the walls at his confinement, which she marvelled at, Cerin voice turned threatening when the imprisoned wizard made comments about his previous encounters with others that had physical abnormalities. In a tone laden with ice, she answered this statement with a declaration telling Modh that he had sentenced himself to death with these words, though she offered him a chance for redemption, recruiting his assistance to her ambitions, which the scientist gave his consent. Intrigued, Olono allowed her new recruit to exit from his dungeon, she agreed to his requests for funds, supplies and the title of Earl. However, though Kranzolt had become a member of her cult and had the scientist research measures to shred the fabric of time and space, she was aware that his allegiance was driven from pragmatism, rather than zealotries. Thus, his survival was provision on his continued usefulness to efforts at rescuing the Dragon Lord. Other opportunists, while radicalised to the same fervent drive as she, were nonetheless ambitious enough to dream about future prospects as leaders to their own divisions of the Thracian Rangers and though she recognised that some had the talents to make their ideas into realities, Cerin was wise enough to keep these recruits on a tight leash, utilising them as recruitment tools.
She also searched the criminal underworld for prospective acolytes like Greg Ungureanu and Nastia Juravschi, who were both lured from their lives of trivial scams to become servants of Mhirsmorde with the initial desire to achieve larger stakes, though Olono later involved the latter with rituals where Juravschi received a number of broken scars that had been delivered over her right forearm. Ungureanu, on the other hand, utilised his connections as a former smuggler to collect recherché ingredients for his leader to administer with her forbidden rituals. Another associate that followed the cult was Rrezelind Chocholi, a witch that pledged her allegiance when the faction still lacked cohesive form and later became a middlewoman that trafficked equipment to "The Runespoor" for the arsenal that she hoarded for a future attack, sending scavengers to search for leftover munitions from the Maple Leaf Gang, which she assigned to the supervision of Gaarem Oahico, a trusted soldier under her stead. With her research into the Dark Art, Olono was able to infuse a handpicked collection of her followers with corrupted magic that allowed them to move at unnatural speed. One of these assassins was Gjator Tatari, who was twisted from an innocent civil rights activist after his taste for the newfound power, though the sorceress was confident that he would never abandon the one who had first bestowed these abilities. Though her contacts on the weapons market, Cerin reached out to recruit the anarchist Teebit Kalreenta for the Z.Z.R.K. Remnants, promising him that when Mhirsmodre was restored to a corporal form, the sea of chaos would consume all before it, leaving a new world that the faithful could inherit, which was compatible with his mindset. Her hands with criminal enterprises further extended to encompass activities that spanned beyond the restrictions of state boundaries, including contacts on the free market that built bridges with "the Runespoor" through proxies and her own public facade. To generate additional capital for her sect, Olono organised a smuggling conspiracy to manufacture and distribute counterfeit yew taken from the forests in Lagina, which was treasured for their value wand-wise and because it was a mythical emblem of Hecate, the Greek Goddess of Magic and Witchcraft. With assistance from a freelance tradesman named Rottovag Fapax, secret acolytes like K'hantos Joth and Doctor M'Vor Thanidis sold their spurious craftsmanship and funnelled the proceedings back to their leader, who facilitated distrust between two local families to make them believed that the other was responsible for such dishonourable activities, shrouding her face from unwanted looks when the pollution from these experiments triggered mutations in the local wildlife that drew attention from P.Y.R.A.M.I.D., a defence initiative that investigated and later unearthed the involvement of Death Eaters, though Cerin remained undiscovered and at large.
Shadows and plans[]
Like other cells that encompassed the Thracian Rangers, the resurrected cult of Mhirsmorde had a synergistic relationship with the crime lord Cirano Montani and his cartel, which supplied weapons and other equipment to their arsenal. As reimbursement to the Shotgun for his support, Olono allowed the kingpin to contact her subordinates as pilots for his own operations, which accumulated funds that the Thracians backchannelled through their auspices, funnelling the revenue into the unmapped hinterlands, where the Z.Z.R.K. remnants were refitting their diminished forces. Through Montani and his criminal alliance, the Cimmerian Collective, Cerin continued to expand her own sphere of influence within the mobland. To this end, she reached out to negotiate a pact with Madame Milaa, a Muggle boss that she knew was affiliated with the technocratic market and met with her in a face-to-face encounter on more than one occasion, through the latter was never made aware of her actual identity. As stipulated in their bargain, the Milaa crime family supplied the Death Eaters with a mobile sea platform that was intended to serve as an isolated site for Kranzolt to conduct his research. In return, Olono granted supplied Milaa with a division of her elite commandos that allowed them to turn the tides on their competitors, bringing their reign to the entire underbelly at Raixon, which worked to the benefit of the cult, enabling them to establish their own presence at the harbour.
Though the wider world believed that she was a peace activist, Cerin Olono influenced events that were the basis for several inconsistent reports that came across the desk of Minister Hermione Granger and her counterparts. Though the Thracian Rangers were blamed for these activities, their real source came from a more sinister wellspring and were intended to divert attention as Olono mobilised fresh followers of the Dragon Lord that venerated his dark powers. Buoyed by the faith of the cult and her own drive to fulfil the legacy that her deceased father had left behind, Olono chartered designs for a blood sacrifice that would liberate their master from the interdimensional realm that held him, believing that her dreams were premonitions from ancient warlocks and the spirit of her own sire, whispering to his illegitimate daughter from the grave. Because of these supposed visions, Cerin thought that she was fated to complete the release of the Dark Lord, bringing his needless torment to a conclusion. Meanwhile, she and her forces also laboured to destabilise common faith that civilians of the Contrecoeur Valley had for King Muskar and his crown, igniting violent demonstrations inside the streets of local towns beneath the concealment of the darkest night.