Marcus Villas, the Wise, leads the People of the South — the most intelligent people in the whole realm. Their defenses are never breached, their cities prosper, and their strategists are without equal. Of Marcus himself they say he can strike a target with an arrow from miles away, and that he once brought an entire war camp down without ever being noticed.
One of the Three Greats
Marcus is one of the Three Greats, the unseen lords of the valleys, held to be a spiritual leader rather than an ordinary man: they say no one has ever seen him. He embodies the creed of the South — the conviction that intelligence, strategy, and patience prevail where raw strength breaks.
To swear Marcus in the Faction Oath is to swear that faith: that walls which never fall and plans no one notices until too late are worth more than any charge. The South does not follow him as men follow a king; it follows him as minds follow an idea — which may be why no one has ever needed to see him.
Known Ties
- People of the South — the force he leads
- Heidr and Serena — the other two of the Three Greats, rival forces
- The Faction Oath — the rite by which the awakened may declare themselves his
Mysteries
Like the other Greats, Marcus has never been seen in any confirmed way. Whether the epithet "the Wise" was born of real deeds or of the legend the South cultivates about him, no one knows. His origin and his very physical existence remain deliberately open questions.
And there is the old whisper that Serena, leader of the Wanderers, once defeated him in battle. The South treats the story as a claim without proof — and a claim without proof, as any southern strategist will tell you, is worth exactly nothing.