Kedarick VI

Kedarick VI
King Kedarick VI of Iretis
Details
Race	Human
Birthplace	Iretis, Theros
Lifetime	Mending Era
Spouse	Klytessa
Children	Lara (daughter)
Sources

King Kedarick VI of Iretis was a human king of the polis of Iretis on the plane of Theros. His city housed 10,000 residents, and Kedarick worked actively toward obtaining peace with the Leonin of Theros, but he fell afoul of Ashiok's schemes and his legacy ended in tragedy and the fall of his kingdom.

History

King Kedarick VI of Iretis had seen his beloved wife Klytessa of Meletis and his daughter Lara leave Iretis, worried about their survival in the troubling times building up towards the peace treaty between Iretis and the Leonin of Theros. Kedarick could not stop them leaving, but he did write many letters to them, hoping they would return to him one day.

Kedarick sent his advisor Udaen to broker the treaty, unaware that Udaen was in fact Ashiok in disguise, and that the real Udaen had died two months earlier. Kedarick took the old man's recovery from his death bed and his sudden newfound vitality as merely an answer to his prayers.

On the imposter Udaen's advice, Kedarick ignored reports of nightmarish monsters on the borders of his kingdom, disbelieving the existence of something that left no corpse when killed. When his friend Thoros Clawkiller offered his support for the upcoming peace treaty, Kedarick thought it a major victory, to have such a prominent expansionist come around to the side of peace. Thoros was welcomed to court and initially revealed no treachery, but then he pulled his nephew Teralos's head from his satchel, blaming his death on the Leonin. The young man had been killed by the largest cat he had ever seen, seven or eight feet tall with a powerful build, four arms, two heads, and teeth and claws as long as daggers. A cat out of nightmares, which killed ten more men and then disappeared in the middle of battle, evaporating into mist.

Kedarick refused to believe such a monster could exist, but he told Thoros he would investigate. As he turned to leave, Thoros pulled his dagger and lunged at the king, but the false Udaen quickly used his staff to knock Thoros to the ground. Everyone, including Thoros himself, seemed surprised by this set of actions. Kedarick's soldiers quickly killed Thoros's men, and Thoros himself was beheaded by Kedarick, his former friend.

While Thoros's brothers and sons gathered an army of several hundred men, Kedarick was confident that the upcoming signing of the peace treaty with the Leonin would be their salvation. They met near the height of the sun, at a pavilion set up by both sides, far away from both Iretis and the Leonin tribal areas. Udaen and Kedarick were at the table along with two of the king's bodyguards, Chelta and Vanin, as well as the six Leonin tribal elders.

While signing the treaty, a tall human figure encased completely in metal appeared from nowhere. His body was covered in spikes and sharp edges, but his metallic form moved fluidly and easily. Another man was swathed in a greenish mist, large clumps of honey dripping from his hands and tongue. Each of these nightmares instantly killed one of the Leonin and then disappeared.

Then, right in front of Kedarick, the two-headed, four-armed monstrosity of a cat appeared. The bodyguard Chelta stabbed the monster's chest, but the creature seemed unphased by this and killed Chelta immediately. Then behind Kedarick, an inky cloud of darkness, roughly man-height, floating a few inches off of the ground, with a pair of golden glowing cat-eyes blinking from within the cloud materialized. The other bodyguard Vanin charged the cloud, hoping perhaps to find something to kill within, but a clawed hand came out of the darkness and dragged him into the cloud. Then only screams, and eating and chewing noises could be heard. Those golden eyes blinked once, and then the cloud moved in the opposite direction, killing and enveloping Kedarick's soldiers outside of the pavilion.

By now, the humans and Leonin had started slaughtering each other, each side assumed the other had betrayed them. Kedarick joined in on the fray, killing one of the few remaining leonin elders. Within minutes the battle was done, and twelve humans were the only ones left standing as a few Leonin stragglers made their escape.

Following the slaughter, Kedarick wrote letters to Meletis, Akros and Setessa, pleading for help. He received a reply from Meletis, who put all the blame on Kedarick himself, for slaughtering Leonin during a peace treaty, and for lying about nightmare monsters that had no known history on Theros. Meletis formally declared their support for the Leonin mission to overthrow Kedarick and end his tyranny, severing all diplomatic ties with the smaller nation. Akros and Setessa similarly declined any offer of aid.

A Leonin army, numbering thousands marched to Iretis's walls. Kedarick knew that the only way this would end in a way that spared his people would be for him to present himself to the Leonin to save the people of Iretis from their rage. But before he could take action, the false Udaen entered the throne room and told the king that his wife and child had been murdered by the Leonin. The story of their deaths was a lie, but it achieved its goal nonetheless. All hope now lost, Kedarick drew his dagger and stabbed himself first in one eye, then the other, screaming all the while. An invisible Phenax lingered by the corpse of the king, impressed at the tragedy that had been wrought, as Udaen's form resolved into the planeswalker Ashiok, the mastermind behind the fall of Kedarick and of the entire city-state of Iretis. Phenax would have the city to house his Returned, and Ashiok was given free rein to continue his torment of the people of Theros.

It did not take long after the fall of Iretis for legends of King Kedarick VI of Iretis to surface. Despite his condemnation by the three large polises, he was portrayed in a heroic light in the stories, and the king who ripped out his own eyes so he wouldn't see his wife and child murdered by treacherous leonin quickly became a legend among storytellers.

Story appearances

Title	Author	Publishing date	Set	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Building Toward a Dream, Part 1	Ken Troop	2013-11-27	Theros	Theros	Kedarick VI, Klytessa, Lara, Udaen, Thoros Clawkiller, Teralos
Building Toward a Dream, Part 2	Ken Troop	2013-12-04	Theros	Theros	Kedarick VI, Klytessa, Lara, Udaen, Chelta, Vanin, Mogis, Phenax, Heliod, Ephara, Iroas, Ashiok
Desperate Stand	Matt Knicl	2014-04-16	Journey into Nyx	Theros	Vinack, Aesrias, Solon, Kedarick VI, Kytheon Iora, Erebos, Athreos