Full Name: Klepnos
Species: Immortal (Daedra)
Allegiance: Unknown
Religion: Unknown
Social Status: 5 (vast personal and corporate wealth; draws as needed)
Age: Unknown
Eyes: Variable, often green
Hair: Variable, tousled blond-brown with a goatee
Height: Variable
Physical Notes: Variable- A true master of transformation, Klepnos can appear as anyone and anything — though whatever the form, his actions will generally appear mischievous, foolish, or utterly insane to mortal eyes. His truest form is a young, thin man of medium height with tousled blond-brown hair and a closely-trimmed goatee. He has a fondness for the color green, and his eyes and clothing usually reflect this.
Behavioral Notes: Klepnos perceives the world in a way that very few can, with past, present, and possible futures interweaving themselves before his eyes. When he is engaged in conversation, he can see the different paths that the words might take, and the likely responses to each path; when he sees a person, he sees them not just as they are but in several variations of who they might become. Because of this, he often seems distractible, prone to abrupt mood swings and shifts in topic. His "reference frame" for future events shifts backward and forward in time — sometimes spontaneously, sometimes under conscious effort — and the further ahead he is perceiving events the more erratic and unpredictable his behavior becomes. He is aware of the difficulty this presents in interacting with others, and when it is absolutely necessary for him to remain coherent he will withdraw his perceptions back to the present moment. From Klepnos's perspective, however, coherency is overrated.
Klepnos believes that his preternatural insight is something that ought to be shared with the mortal races, but he has found few supporters for this idea among the rest of the Pantheon. Samekkh, whose own gift for prophecy is kept under rigid, disciplined control, believes that Klepnos has let his mind travel so far afield in the timestream that he has been driven utterly mad. Samekkh sees history as a series of orderly steps from the past into one "proper" future, and believes that the other possibilities that Klepnos sees are perilous detours that could destroy the world if any of them were allowed to occur. To Samekkh, history is determinate, and the proper role of the gods is to make sure that it comes to pass as it is supposed to. Klepnos, by contrast, sees a universe of unlimited possibilities, and believes that the timeline is eternally branching outwards as it travels forward, creating a myriad of alternate histories which are all true, real, and valid; it is the gift of free will that sentient beings are able to choose their path. The proper role of sentient minds is to open themselves up to perceive all possibilities, so that they can choose what seems best to them without being constrained by the limits of what Samekkh tells them is the "right" way.
The mortal beings of MK, of course, are unaware of this debate; Samekkh will not repeat his brother's rantings, and Klepnos believes that the only way to teach someone his way of perceiving the universe is to show them. To this end he plays the trickster, leading mortals into "learning experiences" that he hopes will open them up to his brand of insight. Sometimes he is successful, and the subjects of his attentions become mad — or at least seem to be mad, by mortal standards. At other times they suffer through the experience with their apparent sanity intact, never imagining that Klepnos might have been trying to show them something important. Klepnos particularly enjoys focusing his efforts on servants of Samekkh; such individuals are often highly intelligent, and their intellect can help strengthen their effectiveness as agents for Klepnos if he can turn them to his way of thinking. As an added bonus, any disciple of Samekkh that he can convert is one fewer agent that the Lord of Light can use to impose his vision of the future on everyone else.
Few other members of the Pantheon will tolerate Klepnos's company. Before the Fall, Ba'al used to keep him around as a court jester, since he found Klepnos's pranks on the other deities amusing. Ba'al knows that occasionally Klepnos displays flashes of brilliant and useful insight, but he has never really taken Klepnos's ideas about space-time seriously. Klepnos idolizes Velena and Artela as pinnacles of divine beauty, but they find his behavior off-putting and will not let him get close enough for his lust to develop into any more serious form of affection. Klepnos used to spend a lot of time with Suspira, who enjoyed his penchant for mischief and was more than willing to satisfy his libido. After the Fall, though, Klepnos became caught up with the opportunity to do his work on a more intimate, personal level, and he was unwilling to tolerate Suspira's slide into self-pity. They still meet from time to time on more-or-less cordial terms, but they don't have much to say to each other once the sex is over.
Supernatural Abilities: Immortal traits; daedric traits; Klepnos is capable of just about any illusion or transformation imaginable, but the effects are only temporary if they contradict the Curse of Metamor. His transforming abilities can be just as easily applied anyone he happens to be in the room with.
Klepnos is also rumored to possess several powerful magical artifacts, but these are intimately connected to his unique perspective on reality; those who use them extensively soon find that their own grasp of reality is slipping into a reflection of his. This experience is highly addictive, and usually results in the person going insane (at least according to any traditional understanding of sanity).
The irrational insight that Klepnos has into future events is available only to his disciples, not to one-time supplicants; once one has learned to see things the way Klepnos does, there is no going back.
Klepnos will still work deals with mortals in exchange for his help, and he is fond of the traditional "three small favors or one large quest" method of repayment. The tasks he gives his supplicants often seem random or incomprehensible, though it's likely that Klepnos has some greater purpose he is trying to accomplish in even the most irrational of these assignments.
Klepnos had no specific visible/detectable aura, even before the Great Fall, though the Lothanasi learned to recognize the telltale prickling on the back of one's neck. That sensation still happens when he uses his powers, unless he deliberately chooses to mask it.
Titles
- Laughing Lord
- Lord of Madness
- Master of Folly
- Master of Prophecy
- Lord of Trickery
Background
Klepnos is perhaps the most misunderstood of the daedra lords. He is infamous among mortals as a master of madness and illusion, a deranged and childish being whose actions serve only to increase disorder and chaos in the world. He is depicted as foolish, irrational, and completely without empathy for mortal beings, and anyone who would worship him is a deceiver, a trickster, and an agent of chaos, just as he is.
In reality, however, this "conventional wisdom" is largely the result of an extended propaganda campaign by Klepnos's elder brother, Samekkh; the truth is far more complicated. Klepnos is a trickster, to be sure, but there is a method to his madness, and he is as much a deity of knowledge as Samekkh is. While his behavior is often disruptive and unsettling, it is all in service to a plan that only he fully understands … a plan that might very well involve saving the world from destruction.
He draws power from the confusion, chaos and bewilderment of mortal beings — but in the past he was most driven by his own twisted idea of "fun." Now, instead of "fun", he is driven by his vision.
Holy Symbol
An eye with a spiral in place of the pupil.
Symbolic Creatures
Chameleon
"Holy" Day
Due to the influence of the Lightbringer Order the daedra lords were considered the "bad gods" or devils. As such, the Daedra Lords did not have individual holy days, but were all combined into one night, Daedra'kema (similar to the real world’s Halloween & Walpurgisnacht, with *much* sharper teeth and claws).1
Current Activities
Klepnos is at large, wandering around the world as his whims lead him. No one is quite able to track him, as he is an expert in disguising himself, but he comes out of hiding repeatedly to spread his message and his mission. His pranks are never lethal, but they can often bear interesting consequences for those who fall prey to them. He continues to seek new disciples, helping others in their journey of self-discovery, whether they want it or not.
Klepnos has also busied himself as an information broker. Anyone who does as much wandering as the Master of Folly is likely to pick up juicy tidbits here and there, especially since he can take on virtually any form he desires and thus go almost anywhere. Modern security systems can do little to stop one with his level of power, so even the secrets of the world are laid open before him (with a few rare exceptions, most notably the private files of Agemnos, Talia, Kyia and the Lothanasi, all of whom have wards that are effective against his intrusions). Klepnos actually likes Kyia quite a bit, and so he often contacts her privately with "urgent messages for her eyes only". About half the time these are nonsense or utterly useless data — the price of haddock in Isenport, for example, or the number of horseshoes that have been replaced in the last month in Flatlands province — but the other half is actually solid, valuable information that proves quite useful to Kyia. Sorting out the useful from the useless is, of course, an exercise that Klepnos has left to the Majestrix.
Word has spread about Klepnos's mysterious messages, and some people of suitably chaotic bent have been drawn to follow Klepnos and offer their services to him. These he accepts as boon companions, sending them far and wide to be his eyes and ears throughout the world and equipping them with the tools and magic necessary to do the work he wants them to do. In this way, over the last hundred years or so, Klepnos has put together quite an impressive network of informants and spies. Of course, about half of the time the work he assigns them is apparently pointless, but what do they care as long as he's paying them well?
As for where Klepnos gets his money, that's something of a mystery, but Imperial analysts suspect it comes from a combination of selling his unique services to wealthy customers, and the payoff from some of his more creative gags — but nobody knows for sure. Certainly some of it could come from the stock markets of the world, since a man with as much insider information as he has could make a fortune in trading. It's not as if anyone can arrest him for it…
Klepnos is willing to work with others (beyond his disciples) when necessary and when they can. He has been assisting The Starchild in efforts to protect Metamor (and the whole world) against the upcoming threat- one that he cannot see completely.2 Together with Samekkh and Nocturna, he is one of the three gods who have a connection to time and prophecy. A specific example is when Nocturna brought Janus Starson into a pocket of the Dreamlands and working with Merai, Klepnos used his abilities with illusion and time to bring out a little more of Janus's sympathetic/human side to help swing the balance towards survival.3 Klepnos got some of the trickster kick in this experience as well- he was disguised as a priest of Nocturna from the days of the old religion and was able to tease Nocturna as a result of it.
Disciples
Thousands of years ago, before the Lothanasi had achieved dominance over religion in Galendor, Klepnos was often worshiped as a trickster god and a god of magic. While he was known to be whimsical, capricious, and chaotic, he was not widely shunned among the religious. Gamblers, bards and rogues of all sorts often raised a glass in his honor, and anyone who was attempting some clever deception might whisper a brief prayer to him in supplication. While it was considered dangerous to be on his bad side, Klepnos was not greatly feared like some of the other daedra lords, and many saw the Laughing Lord as a mostly-benevolent prankster rather than a terrifying madman.
The Lothanasi's successful religious revolution changed these perceptions for most people, as the removal of the daedra lords from the officially recognized pantheon gave Samekkh's propaganda a chance to take root in the minds of the populace. While the Lothanasi victory was a positive thing, on the whole, in the case of Klepnos it did lead a distorted understanding of his purpose and place in the divine hierarchy. Now that Klepnos is walking the Earth and the Lothanasi's mission has evolved into a "Homeworld Security Agency", he and his disciples are working to correct misunderstandings about his mission and advance his ethos.
Disciples of Klepnos usually work alone or in small groups of no more than four or five. They are usually wanderers, traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles in pursuit of the missions that Klepnos gives them. Any true disciple of Klepnos learns to perceive time as he does, though not with the same degree of control, and as often as not they are following courses of action suggested to them by their visions rather than explicit instructions from their god. The missions they undertake are usually disruptive to the established social order but rarely deadly, though some servants of Klepnos have been known to assassinate political and religious leaders. They are particularly fond of mocking and embarrassing the disciples of Samekkh and defacing his holy sites, though it is almost unheard of for them to actually kill the servants of the Lord of Light.
Encounters with disciples of Klepnos are unpredictable. Such a person might seem completely coherent and rational, or he might seem like a raving lunatic. Their moods can change swiftly, and might prove to be an ally at one encounter and an enemy at the next. Most governments view Klepnos's agents with extreme suspicion, because they fear the disruptive effect that they can have on the established social order.
Known Disciples
Known Allies
- His Disciples
Known Enemies
- none stated to date
Story Appearances
Make Believe, Divide by Zero, A Lightbringer Carol
Sources
Make Believe, Divide by Zero, Pantheon, MK Wiki Entry- Lothanasi, A Lightbringer Carol
Author's Notes
d20 Notes
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (with some evil tendencies)
Divine Profile: Madness, Prophecy, Knowledge
Domains: Illusion, Mentalism, Oracle, Transformation, Trickery
Weapon of the Deity: Shocking Rapier
Voice Actor
In Make Believe, Klepnos was played by Tee Morris
In Divide by Zero, Klepnos will be played by Brian Gardner
