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.

Appearance
"The man at the desk was no physical threat, not to her, though he was not entirely lacking in strength from what she could see of him. He had good shoulders, at any rate. He had stacks of papers and pens and ink distributed around him. The Lord Emperor’s secretary, presumably."

She looked at him again. He had changed into less formal clothes, but his white tunic was of fine cambric, and his draped wrap—she didn’t know the name they called the garment here—was of very beautiful teal-blue silk.

He was otherwise very ordinary: about her own age, with grey liberally salting his black hair, his features pleasing enough to look on, his physique reasonably trim but without the other man’s muscles. His skin was a sallow golden-brown, closer to Jullanar’s friend Basil’s than Pali’s richer colouring.

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 thirteen, 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 bear it any longer and resigned. He left the Palace and headed home.

Journey Home After the Fall
Cliopher traveled south on land with a detachment of the Guard who were setting up an outpost in Southern Dair. Then he spent months prisoner of one of the mountain tribes, who thought he was a spy. Cliopher persuaded them not to kill him, but they instead chased him over the rope bridges that ran across the Southern Gray Mountains. He made it to the port of Csiven and sold news of the world for a few weeks. He convinced a captain to take him west to Do Alouak, where he joined another ship that turned out to be pirates. They took him around the Southern Hook of the Yenga and then through the Pinnacles of eastern Jilkano. Cliopher walked from there to the City of Emeralds.

Cliopher eventually found a merchant who would take him west to Nijan. On the second day of their journey, they entered a magical darkness. They followed a frigate bird through the darkness for an unknown amount of time, until they reached Zangoraville. The people there had lost all their ocean-going ships and no one wanted to go west into the storms. Cliopher was finally sent to Saya Ng, an old scholar and Wide Seas Islander. She taught Cliopher how to make a boat and went with him to read the stars.

The second day out they hit a typhoon. They weathered it, but were thrown off course. After a few weeks, they saw land birds and followed them, hoping to find an island. Another typhoon came, and Saya Ng went overboard. Cliopher was thrown off course again, but saw a frigate bird and followed it to a small island. He stayed on the island for a while, repaired his boat, and danced. He danced the fire dance over and over, until he found the part of the dance that matched the currents and winds around the island. He used the dance as a map to sail home, going island to island and rebuilding after storms. When he finally arrived at the Ring, he found an efani shell.

Cliopher made it to Gorjo City and went to his family's home. There he found his relatives around his grandmother's bed, as she was dying. They were happy to see him, but also morning his grandmother, who soon passed. Cliopher intended to stay in the Vangavaye-ve, and asked Gilly to marry him, but she said no. She said that Cliopher was too ambitious to be happy there. He was unhappy, felt disconnected with his family, and without a purpose, so when a ship was heading back to Solaara, Cliopher went with.

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. This agreement was later formalized in the Littleridge Treaty, which established the basis of Zunidh's new world government: the boundaries of the seventeen principalities, their hierarchy, their rights and responsibilities with respect to both his Radiancy as Lord of Zunidh and to their citizens. The signing of the treaty concluded the Century of Wars.

After his travel to Littleridge, Cliopher was awarded the title of the Hands of the Emperor. This allowed him to stand in for the Emperor during rituals that required touch, while also giving him a position of authority.

He was later made Secretary in Chief of the Offices of the Lord of State. This meant the heads of each ministry reported to him, and he decided what to pass up to the Emperor, and what to handle himself. He was also made the head of the Imperial Bureaucratic Service.

Cliopher achieved many things during this time, which include, in no particular order:
 * Redesigning the postal service four times
 * Funding the creation of the sea train and ensuring it extended to the Vangavaye-ve
 * Creating graduated taxation for small merchants and manufacturers
 * Creating and funding a hospital system that includes free health care
 * Creating and funding teaching colleges
 * Establishing the Indrogan Estates in the world's largest cities to alleviate dire poverty
 * Implementing protections of the kula ring
 * Overseeing the audits of government departments
 * Implementing the decimalization of the currency
 * Rooting out corruption—bribery, profiteering, insider trading, price fixing, protectionism, false weights, and fake measures
 * Establishing interprovincial treaties for movement of goods and people
 * Ensuring open access to the Lights, to the sea train, and to the universities
 * Overseeing the overhauling of the examination system
 * Creating stockpiles of food and supplies in case of disaster

After years of this work, Cliopher decided to invite Artorin Damara on vacation to Lesuia in the Vangavaye-ve.

In response to this overture of friendship, Emperor Artorin elevated Cliopher to Lord Chancellor and then to Viceroy of Zunidh, putting him in charge of the world government while he went on his quest for an heir.

As Lord Chancellor and Viceroy Cliopher was able to take his reforms even further, in particular by implementing an annual stipend for every person in Zunidh.

Retirement
Cliopher invited the entire Imperial Household, including the Emperor, to come home with him when he retired, and bought a house in Gorjo City for them all to live in.