Welcome, again. This is the Characters section. I have info about just about every character important or not in the book, and a few drawings I made of them too.
Characters in "The Kingdom of Mammon"
Main Characters:
Aegis Sicarii-He is an assassin of the Terrans, well trained, and he must go to Mammon to rescue the prophetised One from the Queen of Mammon, who is a tyrant and will kill the One. He was raised since birth as an assassin because the Terrans knew this day would come where he had to perform a great mission, the Prophet told the Terrans this long ago before Aegis was born. The name Aegis (meaning protector of God) symbolises his duty to protect the newborn one, Janus. He is a young man of about 18. See my drawing of Aegis at the bottom of this document.
Archelaus-The village Elder of Melatiah, the city in the caves where Aegis was born and raised. He also becomes Aegis' teacher, training him to fight and use stealth, endure cold and pain, and blend in with the Mammonians. Aegis seems to admire him and trust him, but really he is filled with hate and loathing for him, because he believes he was used merely as a tool toward a cause, just like the Mammonians were used by the Queen Mammon. Archelaus also lied to Aegis about his parents being killed by Mammonians, so that Aegis would not question murdering Mammonians and killing the Queen. Archelaus is about 55 years old.
Gaspar-Magus of Time/Power-Gaspar is quite powerful indeed, and is in the employ of the Queen, as are the other two Magi. He lives in the capital of Mammon, Nazareth, and works directly with the Queen. Later he betrays his brothers and sides with the Queen, and he ends up killing her instead to take control. He takes part in the final battle with Aegis at the end on the ceiling as Mammon falls, but loses. The Mammonian guards and civilians obey him and his mother the Queen without question because they fear their power. He is sort of the rival of Manáen, the Queen's knight, for the favour of the Queen. He is about 2900 years old.
Belthasar-Magus of Reason/Wisdom-Belthasar is mainly an inventor, and lives in the city of Kajar where he invents things and practices different magics, and teaches them to others. He invented the machine that drains people of Mammon of their dream powers etc., and the machine that keeps Herod alive and extracts his magic as well. He is a good person who aids Aegis during his journey. He is about 2900 years old.
Melchior-Magus of Life/Spirit-Melchior lives in the city of Enhasa, the city of dreams, where people may go to enhance their spiritual powers and have the lucid dreams where they actually are giving the Queen their energy, and he is the father of the One, Janus, and tries to conceal this as much as possible, although Belthasar already knows and is very worried about what the Queen and their brother Gaspar will do to Janus. He stays on the good side the whole time. His wife is Mary. He is about 2900 years old.
Herod (Prophet)-Herod comes to Aegis as the Prophet and tells him of Janus, and that he must rescue him, and go to Mammon. Prophet is actually the spirit of the Queen's husband, Herod, and he is imprisoned by the Queen in Herod's Tomb, and his immense powers are what saved Mammon during the ice age. During the ice age, he was the One born with greater mental and potential power than any other ever seen. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, it was very important that he had so much, and he used it for good. The Prophet is his projected spirit, an APPARITION. His name is Herod. Thousands of years ago, he was born, with the powers of magic and to mould dreams, and he taught others his ways, and then came the ice age, and he used his powers for good to save Mammon, but the Queen, his greedy wife, knew that his powers would not be able to save everyone for long, and so she imprisoned him while he was weak in the "Tomb" and channelled his powers for eternity to make Mammon a "utopia" and cast all those who were unnecessary (anyone who had not yet learned magic, and therefore could not give the Queen energy by dreaming) to the Earth to endure the ice age. He is about 3000 years old. The Mammonians believe that Herod's Tomb is simply where he was buried and where his spirit rests peacefully.
Queen of Mammon (Rachael)-Evil tyrant who wants all controlling power. She wants to be a God. Wants to kill the One, whom she does not know is the son of Melchior until later. Eventually near the end of the book, she repents and admits her wrongdoing, and as Herod is released from his tomb they reconcile and forgive one another. Age: about 3000 years, just a little younger than Herod.
Janus-The name of the One, who will prophetically lead the Terrans to Zion, the promised land. He is the son of Melchior and Mary. He is 12 during the story. He is crucified at the end for taking the people out of Mammon as it falls, because they think it will always be an ice age, but 3 days after he dies, he comes back to life, and he performs a miracle as all the snow of the ice age begins to melt, and then the people are very sorry for crucifying Janus and his parents Melchior and Mary, and they beg forgiveness. Janus is to be reborn in the epilogue, as the son of Aegis when Aegis is resurrected from Herod's tomb, where he locked himself as Mammon fell and after killing Gaspar in the ceiling battle. See my painting of Janus at the end of this document.
Manáen-The assistant of the Queen. He is a loyal follower, and always does the Queen's bidding. He often comforts the Queen in place of her imprisoned husband Herod. He is actually very hateful of the Queen, but he follows the Warrior's code strongly, believing that you must be loyal to your master, even if your master is evil. He participates in an honourable showdown with Aegis near the end, where Aegis is forced to kill him. Even after the Queen is murdered by Gaspar, he still follows Gaspar's lead and fights Aegis, believing that devotion to one's master is paramount.
Secondary Characters:
Quasinado-He is the hunchbacked doorman at Melatiah. He is very excited when the Mammonian soldiers are destroyed by the robotic soldiers of Belthasar's invention. He is quite stupid.
Mammonian Soldiers-These soldiers are very loyal to the Queen as she has conditioned them from birth using special lucid dreams, and they will obey her orders without question. They are also very afraid of her massive power.
Mammonian Droids-These droids were created by Belthasar, the Magus of Wisdom, son of the Queen, about 75 years before the story takes place. He wanted to make them so that the Queen would not need soldiers, so that everyone could just be peaceful. She ordered them destroyed because she feared them, since she could not use her magic to control their minds. Of course, Belthasar saved a few, and these few he reactivates to save Melatiah, the city of the Terrans, from the Mammonian soldiers the Queen sends to destroy when Aegis accidentally destroys the Nightmare Gaol. The leader of the Mammonian warrior droids is called Calamity.
Mary-Mary is the wife of Melchior, and the mother of the Holy One, Janus. She has to give birth to Janus on Terra in the cold in a shack, so that the Queen would not find out. Gaspar foretold that someone very close to the Queen would have a child who would end her reign, somehow. Unfortunately for the Queen, she was far too busy killing every child born to one of her Senators or the other politicians in Nazareth to even realise that her daughter-in-law had a child. Mary also stayed at home all the time so that the Queen would never happen to see her pregnant. At the end of the book she is crucified by the outraged Mammonians for being the mother of the one who supposedly "damned" them and destroyed Mammon, just as Melchior is for being Janus's father.
The Council-This is the group of politicians, senators, and such who govern the cities and people of Mammon. They must all answer to the three Magi, as well as Manáen, and the Queen. They make small and unimportant, yet necessary, decisions that the Queen and Magi and other people higher up do not have time to deal with. They too know the terrible secret of Mammon, and are basically immortal as long as the Queen decides to keep them that way, however anyone who opposes the Queen in the slightest is simply locked in the Nightmare Gaol.
Mammonian Citizens-The people who live in Mammon are generally very ignorant. They know of the people who suffer on the ground in the ice age every day, but don't care for them at all. They think that the Terrans deserve to be there, after all they lack what the Mammonians have. They eagerly put themselves in the lucid "dream machines" created by the Queen and Belthasar, and unwittingly allow all their mental energy to be sucked out to empower the Queen. Once all your mental energy has been absorbed, you die, so the Mammonians tend to die at a very young age, usually around 25, except for people like Manáen, the Council, and the three Magi, who are also given energy by the Queen and know the terrible secret of Mammon.
Character Drawings
I currently only have Aegis and Janus. More soon, possibly. : )
This is my watercolour painting of Janus, the Holy One, who leads the people of Mammon to Zion. Those who have played Chrono Trigger may recognize him.
Well, here is my sketch of our would-be hero, Aegis Sicarii, the deadly and skilled assassin and mage. Using his assassin training and physical strength, mixed with his powerful mental status and strong magical training and powers, he is an extremely strong person, capable of things far beyond most people. His physical weapons are the Damascus blades, two short swords as shown above, but he can also use strong magical attacks, such as flames leaping right out of his hands at his foes. (Standard stuff, right?)