Cliopher "Kip" Mdang

Cliopher "Kip" Mdang of Loaloa is a bureaucrat and tanà from the Vangavaye-ve.

During his career in the civil service of Astandalas before The Fall and Solaara after it, he rose to become The Hands of the Emperor, Lord Chancellor of Zunidh, and eventually Viceroy of Zunidh, ruling the world in Artorin Damara's stead while he went on his quest for an heir.

Early Life
Kip grew up in the large house his grandmother had built, which was in the Tahivoa district of Gorjo City. He lived with his two older sisters, Vinyë Vawen and Navalia Mdang, his mother Eidora Mdang, his father Vinyo Varga, his grandmother Aurenia Mdang, and multiple aunts, cousins, and other relatives.. When Kip was eleven, his father died by drowning. Kip coped with his grief with petty larceny and fistfights, until he was sent to Loaloa with his great-uncle Buru Tovo. Tovo taught him how to dive for pearls, the family dances, the Lays, and other traditional knowledge. Kip stayed on Loaloa for a year before returning home.

When Kip was around twelve, his cousins Basil, Dimiter, their older sister, and their parents came to live at his family house. Kip became good friends with Basil and Dimiter, and they were close as brothers into adulthood.

Kip attended the University of the Vangavaye-ve, where he studied history and statistics. He became friends with Ghillian Poyë, Falbert Kindraa, Cora Laianyo, and Toucan Nevan during his first term at university, and was convinced to join Traditional Culture events with them.

Kip was twenty-one when Artorin Damara became Emperor. He visited Saya Dorn not long after, where he saw a portrait of the new Emperor. He felt their fates were intertwined and was determined to join the Imperial Bureaucratic Service. He took the exams, failing four times due to cultural assumptions baked into the etiquette questions before succeeding on the fifth try. While trying to pass the examinations, his sister Navalia encouraged him, but then died of yellow fever. Kip felt he had to honor her faith in him, and persisted in the exams. After succeeding, it took him six months of travel to get to Astandalas.

Astandalas
Cliopher spent his first year in the Ministry of Health and Illness, reading the reports from the provincial secretariat and writing reports on what patterns there might be. His superior stacked Cliopher's reports without reading them. After six months, he told Cliopher to shorten his reports. Cliopher spent months finding patterns and doing research, and condensed his findings into one document. His superior passed off the report as his own, and was given a major promotion and a minor title on its basis, but did not take Cliopher with him.

Cliopher transfered to the Ministry of Trade and made less people angry there. He got passed around from sub-department to sub-department, as people disliked how efficient he was. Eventually he landed in a department whose director was almost as idealistic as him, and began to feel that he was going to be able to do something worth doing. About the same time he started to make a few friends, and Basil and Dimiter came to visit, and he was happy.

Then the director broke her back, and was replaced by a bully who hated Cliopher. After a few months under the new director, he started to think that it was time to go home. A person he thought was becoming a friend decided to not invite him to a Silverheart party downtown, so he was at the Palace when the Fall happened.

Cliopher woke up after the Fall and could not tell if he was dreaming or awake. The first time he opened the door of his room the halls were all completely dark. The second time it was daylight, but all the normal magic was gone, and it was dead quiet. He went to the cafeterias and found some other people there. Cliopher lit a fire in the kitchens because he was the only person who knew how to light a fire without magic.

Cliopher went to the throne room and found the five or six hundred people that were left in the Palace. Cliopher was the only person from his department left. He was one of three people from his wing of the Palace left. Princess Indrogan organized people, and Cliopher joined her. Lady Jivane, the Lady of Zunidh, came to the source of the magical disruption, found the Palace and the sleeping Emperor, took control, and set Princess Indrogan to the slow restoration of government. Cliopher was given a job as the under-secretary, to read and condense the reports that started to trickle in from the rest of the world.

Cliopher got reports of all the disasters across Zunidh after the Fall, but nothing about the Wide Seas except a wall of storms. No one who went west into the storms came back. He sent letter after letter with anyone that was traveling, hoping one would make it home.

A hundred years after the Fall, the Emperor awoke and was made Lord of Zunidh. Cliopher continued to work on reports. When Captain Figar came to the Palace to ask for leave to go west, several people told her Cliopher had a letter for her. Cliopher asked Princess Indrogan for leave to go, but she refused him. So he sent his letter with Captain Figar and stayed, though he regretted it deeply the moment the ship left.

After many months waiting for news to come back and getting nothing, Cliopher couldn't bare it any longer and resigned. He left the Palace and headed home.

Rebuilding the World
When Cliopher arrived back in Solaara, Princess Indrogan commanded the Master of Offices to find a position for him. The Master of Offices sent him to trial as his Radiancy's secretary, hoping Cliopher would fail. Instead, his Radiancy was impressed and appointed him as his secretary permanently.

Some time later, there were battles being fought at saltworks in the town of Littleridge. Cliopher was sent to talk to the rulers involved and broker peace if possible. He persuaded the warring factions to admit their authority came from the Emperor, and promised them titles if they agreed to peace.