The Mushkinek Uprising

Herte [HAYR-TAY] was an only child, born to modest means in the city of Maadigan. His father, a soldier, died when Herte was still very young. Left to support them both, his mother took on work as a housekeeper and seamstress. Despite hardship, Herte was a curious and intelligent boy. He taught himself to read in the private library of one of his mother’s clients. When he was caught reading at the age of seven, the client—rather than scolding him—was impressed by the boy’s aptitude and became his benefactor, nurturing Herte’s intellectual growth.

His early exposure to rare books and noble ideas sparked a lifelong fascination with history. Herte eventually earned admission to the Royal University at Maadigan, first as a student of classical history, then as a professor. Over the years, his studies revealed a troubling pattern woven through Cendomvitian history: cycles of war, followed by reconstruction and prosperity, then selfishness and inequality, rising unrest, and eventually full-scale uprisings engulfing the seven kingdoms.

Determined to understand these cycles, Herte spent years combing the libraries and archives of every kingdom, seeking records from the years leading up to each collapse. His seminal work, Unity or Slavery: An Explanation of the Failure of Rebellion in Cendomvita, was the product of fifteen years of exhaustive research. It remains one of the most widely debated texts in the University’s canon.

Then, without warning, Herte vanished.

On the night of his twentieth anniversary at the University, he left for a quiet celebration and never returned. Some believe he drank too much and drowned in the Mulcour River. But not all are convinced. Fragments of scrolls and a partial biography suggest Herte may have survived—perhaps even gone into hiding—to document the most recent and most devastating uprising of all: the Mushkinek Uprising.

Mushkinek [MYOU-SHKIH-NEK] is a name adopted by one of the most notorious villains in the history of Cendovmita. Mushkinek needs no introduction for those who know anything about him. He was born an only child into a middle class merchant family living in Maadigan, Hireotha. His mom developed a chronic disease when he was young and died when he was twelve. He developed an obsession for Princess Ta’arah of Hireotha, who was about two years younger than him, when he was ten. His obsession drove him to hate Prince Noam, Ta’arah’s older brother and the Crown Prince, not for his personality or actions, but because he stood in the way of Ta’arah becoming queen. Mushkinek began, when he was young, to develop sadistic practices, first on animals, then on people. By his late teens, Mushkinek had developed financial resources and underworld connections sufficient to begin his quest for power. He killed himself off, severing himself from his old life, and focused on expanding his network and resources until he held influence in every kingdom of Cendomvita. During this time, in addition ot accumulating wealth, he accumulated large tracts of property in remote areas of the Central Mountains, an east-west mountain range that spanned more than three thousand miles across and was nearly one thousand miles from north to south at its widest. He built or rehabilitated strongholds on these tracts of land sufficient to hold thousands of soldiers all in preparation. About a year before he set his plan in motion, Mushkinek conscripted a famed history scholar, Herte of the Maadigan Royal University, to be his biographer. It is only because of Herte’s work that we know anything at all about Mushkinek’s origins.