hc mankar backstory stuff bc what else am I meant to do with my brain
Fleshing out Mankar’s backstory bc I need to for Mortal Intentions.
I’ll talk more about his early life later but when he’s ~50 (95 in elf years), the Empire is well aware of his presence and outspokenness as a Camoran. However, at the same time, he doesn’t have any political power (neither in Cyrodiil nor Valenwood), and is living amongst the poor in the Waterfront with his mother. After a failed assassination attempt on Mankar and Momkar, they flee to Cheydinhal, where his mother dies shortly after (old age + complications with the attack).
Distraught and defeated, Mankar tries to find work with his tainted reputation in the Empire. He finds it with Baron Evraise, who hires Mankar under ulterior motives.
Evraise is seeking greater political power within the Empire and figures that keeping a Camoran in check will win him a few favors. He keeps a close tab on Mankar, who is trying to write commentaries, critiques, and sermons about the mistreatment of the Empire in his downtime. Evraise has Mankar work himself to exhaustion as a house attendant (the property that the Baron pseudo-owns is massive, and there are many others working there), and will occasionally go through his things, find his writings, and burn them. Mankar is unable to do much about this.
As far as design, I wanted to give Evraise the look of a country club attendee—seemingly harmless in presentation and reeking of haut. Two faced as hell.
Mankar is supposed to have a beard at this point in his life but it fucked with the expression so I got rid of it for this one
Then, there’s she who actually owns the state and all its properties, Baroness Tinesi. She is a much more pleasant figure to Mankar, even if he he still doesn’t appreciate her position of power over him, but she at least isn’t one to abuse him like Evraise is. She has pity on Mankar’s situation and history and talks extensively with him about politics and the Empire, largely to get a better read of the diversity within Cyrodiil. Casually, they even have a “book club,” which eventually became a time and place for Tinesi to discuss more personal affairs and the martial drama going on between her and Evraise.
She will eventually mother Ruma and Raven.