Mozenrath

History
Mozenrath, as far back as he could remember, had always been an inhabitant of a place called the Land of the Black Sand, which has never been one of the nicest of places to visit. It was a place that was once fraught with volcanic activity, and likely still is in one corner or another, hence the color of the sand, caused by ash, and the vapors in the air. The sun never shines there, blotted out by a terrible green mist that tends to pervade the area the closer you got to the Dead City and the Citadel, Mozenrath's vantage point from which to rule. His earliest clear memories are of his tutelage under the previously ruling sorcerer, Destane, who was so feared that the likes of Jafar steered clear.

It is generally known that seven years before Mozenrath's final encounter with Aladdin, he began seeking the Book of Khartoum, an alchemical tome with a speaking face, containing many secrets to power. His interest in it likely developed even while he was an apprentice. However, some years after this he surpassed his Master, killed him, and turned him into an undead servant. No information exists as to when or how he got the gauntlet, and whether it aided him in defeating Destane, or if he stole it from Destane. He had done it recently enough before meeting Aladdin in the series that Iago, just as in the know as his former master, was not aware that Destane had been overthrown.

Deciding that he'd like to start his quest for greater power with a bang, Mozenrath kicked off the whole world domination thing with the intent to study and overtake magical kingdoms. Seemingly the most effective and risky method of doing this was to employ the use of a creature called the Thirdac. A creature known to feed solely on magic, hailing from a dimension where magic was as plentiful as the water, he knew that capturing one and forcing it to do his bidding would leave any magical opponant with no trump cards to protect them with. He got one, but he was unable to control it when he first brought it into his lair, and eventually, it was set loose in his Citadel, but not before dealing a crippling blow to him. To Mozenrath's detriment, the Thirdac bit him -- or rather, tried to eat the gauntlet. Rash and unwilling to give up his prized talisman, he of course dove his hand in right after it, and while he was able to save the gauntlet, his hand was rended irrepairably, and what flesh and skin that was not devoured eventually rotted and fell off. Because he must focus much of his energies on keeping his undead slaves "alive" and functional, he has been unable to shift his magical talents toward an element that might aid him in healing his hand.

Not willing to return the Thirdac to its dimension and unable to leave it roaming free in the Citadel, he went seeking someone non-magical to capture it for him. He found a self-styled treasure hunter/thief in the city of Agrabah, a cocky urchin by name of Aladdin. He offered to reward him greatly for capturing and collaring the beast with a special harness he'd made to supress its strength and power. After convincing the boy to come (he had to steal the idiot boy's pet genie to do it) he waited outside of his Citadel for the job to be done, not appearing again until it seemed Aladdin had successfully captured the Thirdac. Eventually, because Aladdin and his allies set the Thirdac loose against him again, he was forced to release it to its home dimension, and he has been at odds with the hero ever since.

Since this point in time, he has crossed paths with Aladdin numerous times while seeing himself through certain endeavors to continue increasing his power -- most of which Aladdin has ruined in some way or another, out of some sense of "duty" the boy thinks he has to the rest of their world. In most cases, other altercations occurred in Mozenrath's attempts to capture his Genie. In all of these endeavors he has been aided by his undead army and his constant companion, a flying, talking lamprey whom he named Xerxes. (Since this is his familiar, Xerxes will be coming with, provided there's permission.) Eventually, however, when the life-draining effects of the gauntlet began to take their toll, Mozenrath decided to attempt to switch bodies with Aladdin. The experiment was botched, of course, leaving the two of them trapped together within the thief's shell. Because none were aware at first what had just occurred (seeing as how Mozenrath seemed to be dead, to them) Mozenrath had a few chances to exercise his will within Aladdin's body, and in doing so, he reclaimed the gauntlet and began using it. When it was discovered what had happened, he agreed to show them the way to undo the spell and return him to his own body. However, once that happened, they took his gauntlet away again, trapped him in a floating cage, and left him for dead or worse.

Last Voyages History
Dead eventually happened, when the balloon keeping his prison in the air was burst, and the crash to the earth killed him. He was brought to the Barge from there, for the purposes of his redemption, and since his gauntlet and learning to master it was key to his recovery, it was restored to him. The first year of Mozenrath's incarceration was spent with only enough magic for the gauntlet to keep the remains of his right hand working. He would manage some magic beyond that -- the lifting of small objects, even building some basic wards. Essentially -- things he could do without his gauntlet to begin with. He befriended few people and had a habit for heckling girls. Despite this, he made fast friends with a woman named Shego, and the two remained significant parts of one another's lives for the whole of his tenure there.

For the first few months, his caretaker, called a Warden, was a vampire named Eric Northman. Due to Mozenrath's dismissive attitudes toward vampires and the undead in general, their relationship was a tense one, and Mozenrath was for much of that time secretly afraid of his Warden. He only began to trust Northman after the vampire rescued him from an attack by another Inmate, and after a world-changing event called a "flood" left Northman in a position to take advantage of him that he did not use. Of course, immediately after that, he vanished, leaving Mozenrath confused and abandoned.

After that, Mozenrath's Warden was a chipper and irritating fellow named Montgomery Scott, who exercised strong regulations to return Mozenrath's health to normal (he suffered from malnutrition from constant ritual fasting) and to get him socializing (having him work as a bartender in the pub). The trouble is that these were handled generally poorly, and the two rubbed one another the wrong way in several fashions, Scott often taking unfair and confusing turns that pushed the boundaries of personal comfort that Mozenrath had. On more than one occasion their disagreements left the young sorcerer enraged and hysterical. His health did begin to improve, and due to many long years in the condition he was in, the changes in his physical chemistry now caused him to start going through latent puberty, which only made him that much more easily provoked by his Wardens' well-meaning tactics. Scott also did not warm himself to him by openly mocking his current physical state and his self-consciousness and discomfort. He also at this time began to develop possible romantic feelings for Shego and had befriended an older man named Akio Ohtori, whose advances and manipulations at such a key time in his development left him extremely sexually confused. Promises to have his power restored led him to joining Ohtori in the careful planning and recreation of a ritual from Ohtori's world, with Mozenrath, as the magical center, facilitating the rituals themselves and taking the place that was once held by Ohtori's sister. These plans would continue through Mozenrath's next two wardens and into his time with the fifth.

As with Northman, Montgomery Scott disappeared at a crucial point when Mozenrath had begun to trust him and desperately needed Scott to be there for him. A Flood transformed him into a much younger version of himself, a scared little boy who would do ANYTHING to stay on the barge rather than return to his cruel master and continue to learn magic. Ohtori was the person to see him through this part of his ordeal on the Barge, thus further cementing his dependancy upon him but also a growing bitterness toward him. Mozenrath's third Warden, Roxy, he liked well enough. She counciled him through tense times with Shego -- a relationship made more uncomfortable as his dealings with Ohtori led him to be more secretive with her. She disappeared without warning, which hurt him probably as much as Scott's departure, despite their short time together. Next came Libby Widmore, who did not trouble him too much and that he tolerated well enough that during a very trying port he did risk his life and sanity to rescue her from a bunch of crazy ghosts. She did not depart the Barge, but the Admiral saw fit to unsort them anyway, and not long after, Mozenrath was sorted with Severus Snape, a wizard who immediately had his magical powers restored to full and endeavored to begin training him to use magic without the use of his gauntlet. The restoration of his powers was a secret he kept between the two of them, for reasons to be explained.

By this time, Mozenrath had become increasingly more submissive toward Akio Ohtori, and during the rituals themselves, he began to transform into something more closely resembling Ohtori's sister. He began to have dreams about her, and possibly, his intended fate, as something of a sacrificial lamb, and he realized that Ohtori's promises were empty ones and that the power of these rituals were actually more dependent upon him, at the center, and that completing them would make him no more powerful nor would it get him off the Barge. He confronted Ohtori once, in order to provoke Ohtori into correcting him and thinking he'd scared him into line. Then, during the final ritual, Mozenrath turned on him and killed him, revealing the extent of his returned powers.

Though he was punished with internment for his crime, Snape did not remove his powers further, claiming to understand he felt that Mozenrath had been pushed into such a reaction. Their lessons continued and their relationship as a Warden and Inmate became increasingly closer. Mozenrath began to regard Snape more as a friend and eventually a mentor and began to show more trust in him than in any other Warden he had before. In the year following, he began to display a sense of jealousy toward him when he began to form a romantic relationship with another Warden, Martha Jones. His possessive attitudes were a thorn in their sides for some time until he began to warm to her, though he continued to remark on their relationship with much derision. The depth of his insecurities were laid bare when Snape chose to leave the barge for a few days to spend some much-needed time relaxing. Mozenrath was convinced that he would be gone for good, or at least behaved as such, fearing that if he said aloud that he trusted he would return, then that was when he would not.

Of course he did, which wholly cemented Mozenrath's attachment to him. In time, Snape and Martha were married, and Mozenrath had become such a close part of both their lives that they were something of an unofficial family, unofficial until Snape extended an invitation to Mozenrath to, upon his graduation, go and live with them in his own world. Despite his initial resistence to using such "good guy" terms as "friend" and "family" and "love", he came to find he did look on Snape as something of a father figure.

His adventures in this time included many moments of personal development. He learned to use magic without his gauntlet to the point that his abilities without it equaled what they were with it back before he died. His continued discipline and physical health has made him fairly balanced with his magic, actually, and Snape assigned him two wardens to apprentice in magic. His choices slanted toward still semi-selfish pursuits, but on occasion he showed remarkable heroism. During an invasion by a horde of Aztec gods, he seemed to turn on even Snape when he joined him and others in an attempted uprising and betrayed the lot of them, cowtowing to the gods, offering them as a sign of his acquiescence and devotion. He used the freedom this granted him to loot his Warden's chambers and his own in order to devise some a few magical items that would allow him to exorcise the spirits of the gods from many of the other barge denizens' bodies. Luring them to him with promises of gifts and sacrifices he instead expelled them and saved perhaps several lives this way.

His friendship with Shego remained a deciding force in his existence despite their falling out over the Akio incident. When another Inmate killed her (she was restored to life later), he devised a potion that he simply termed the "worst nightmare potion" with the intent of poisoning the culprit. However, they disappeared from the Barge before he could use it, so he gave it to Shego and told her to use it on someone if she felt it absolutely necessary.

This would come back to bite him in the ass later when she did just that. Before he was given enough detail to know it was his potion -- made at least six months prior -- one of the persons investigating the incident attempted to search his room, as he had publicly announced his willingness to make potions for people. This led to an eventual blowup where he, becoming aware that it was indeed his potion had been used, came clean. Through all of this his Warden defended him steadfastly and left him the option to come forward as he wished, likely in the hopes that he would do the right thing, which surprisingly, he did. He not only came forward but he also convinced Shego to do so as well.

Other incidents would pepper his existence there, including his transformation into a "bad fanfiction" version of himself where he burst into song at random and was a little girlcrazy. He befriended an enemy of Snape's, one Sirius Black, which led to probably the worst fight that he and Snape ever had. They soon reconciled but it looked, for some time, that they would part ways on very bad terms. At another time, Moze once again became a younger version of himself -- twice, actually, once merely in body and overtaken by adolescent tendancies, another time as the teenage boy who would very soon kill his mentor. This form, especially, shocked his Warden, as he appeared as an emaciated young man riddled with bruises and abrasions. Destane even visited the Barge at one point, taking Mozenrath's place, and it became especially apparent that Moze's bullying attitudes had a definite source for inspiration, as the man was someone even Mozenrath's closest friends and allies found detestable.

Then, for seemingly no apparent reason, the Admiral unpaired them, much to their shock and detriment. Snape felt convinced that they were separated because he had become like a father to Mozenrath, too attached, and that for the lessons remaining for Mozenrath to learn, he needed an impartial teacher. He got this from an unconventionally sweet telepath by name of Arkady, who taught him meditations and how to keep his head clear in a crisis, creating in him a balance he didn't really have before. Through her, his final steps toward redemption were made in the lessons she taught him and, in identifying with her, getting in touch with his own sense of empathy. On realizing and regretting that something he had done had hurt her, and choosing to apologize and take responsibility for his actions, he triggered his own graduation.

He made arrangements with Martha and Snape and expected to wind up in Snape's world. He'd been told to wait to be picked up at Victoria Station, and understood that while he'd be going there instantaneously it'd be a much longer time for Martha and Snape. When he did arrive -- he found the Admiral had been kind of crafty in how he organized things -- or rather, he'd squeezed some things into the fine print regarding specifics. This...not so much a problem for him, but on looking at what is waiting for him, he has decided he wants to add something on to his deal -- he wants the ability to on occasion go home eventually, to his world, as Martha and Snape have been able to their own. While he felt he could fully break from it before and not look back, he has, on consideration, decided this isn't enough.

To get this, he found himself charged with protecting and graduating an Inmate. His first attempt was nearly half a year with a woman by name of Morgana. Though he sympathized with her plight, a number of elements eroded their relationship to the point he could no longer help her, so they were resorted. This included exacerbating ports that placed them both in danger or forced him to attack her, as well as the almost utter absence of support from the rest of the Warden population and continued meddling from one or two parties. A flood that reduced him to the state he was in at the age of four also revealed repressed memories of his early tutelage with Destane and severely compromised his ability to care for another person. After resorting, he was assigned a longtime Inmate by name of Richard Riddick, who he did graduate. However, when one of the Wardens found the means to take over the Barge and pose as the Admiral, she demoted many Wardens she felt were too evil to be anything but Inmates, him among them. His confidence in his ability to do the job already shaken, this demotion caused him to snap, briefly. It was his Inmate, actually, who helped him to see reason. However, in his attempts to infiltrate the bridge and kill the new Admiral, he inadvertantly killed another Warden. Shortly after order was restored, his Inmate graduated and Mozenrath was rewarded for facilitating that...but not with what he made a deal for. His right hand, however, was fully restored.

In the months following, Mozenrath's behavior was less erratic. In fact, he seemed more calm overall, based in large part on his decision to stop caring. This meant no longer worrying about the opinions of other wardens or second-guessing his own actions. After a short stint with one more Inmate that abruptly ended, he resolved to take his business elsewhere.

Boomtown History
Mozenrath arrived at New Dodge in June, 2013, immediately after the end of the Lockdown plot.

Personality
Mozenrath always liked to win, and this has never changed. For much of his life he has been very independant, and he generally does not like to be second best at anything he tries, which makes him a very thorough individual, if not an enormous jerk. (Sometimes it also means that if he doesn't master something right away he may get frustrated and quit if someone is not there to stay on him to finish it.) Generally, though, if he takes on a task, he goes all the way. No matter how crazy it gets. Period. He's not a group person, preferring to do things alone (because he hates sharing), and being the way he is, one can see why it is difficult to place him in a decent social situation if labor is involved. Before his time on the barge, when the case called for it, he was known to forge alliances when it would suit him best -- namely if there is a common enemy that he's willing to admit he couldn't handle alone. He comes off very much as a bit of a braggart and a snob -- who very much thrives on attention. He'd consider the word "egomaniacal" to be a compliment, but really, unless he's trying to kill you, he just comes off as unbelievably full of himself. Since the Barge he has also come to be seen by his closer acquaintances to be a bit lonesome at heart, if just a bit socially awkward, who seems to show his contentment by complaining. This often hidden aspect of his nature kind of shows why he'll take even negative attention over nothing at all.

The boy sorcerer has always thought of himself as very mature and cultured, often counteracted in the past by the fact that "It's not fair" seemed to be the most common phrase in his vocabulary, though this has been something he has slowly grown out of has he has genuinely become more mature. Mostly. He was the sorest loser on the face of the planet, and a bit of a sore winner, now that one thinks of it. Man, could this guy gloat. Like all nineteen year-olds (which he has been for the last two years), he sometimes seems to believe he knows everything. He is somewhat rightful to brag -- he's intelligent, and delights in reminding people of the fact. At heart, he is a survivor, and has long believed that good things only come from vast sacrifice. Mozenrath, himself, feels he has sacrificed much to get what he has now; he'd sooner sacrifice someone else first. He's just had a tendancy to whine a lot in the meantime, though this has become less the norm over the last two years.

Before the barge he seemed to be of the mind that now that he'd reached what he considered to be such a high level of power, he thought he could kick back and make a jackass of himself without fear of recompence. In the general use of his powers, he used to be surprisingly lazy, choosing to use his magic for mundane tasks that require almost no effort to do at all without such aid -- like walking into the next room, picking up a book, etc. He assumed he'd earned it.

This would be where a lot of his animosity for his arch nemesis, Aladdin, comes from. Aladdin, a thief blessed with uncanny luck, seemingly never worked a day in his life for any of his good fortune, something Mozenrath resents with all his being. He finds it unfair that he, the one born to privilege and with massive magical potential, was the one doomed to ache, crawl, and nearly kill himself for everything that he needed and deserved, while a boy who by society's standards was born into a life of hardship -- and was built for it, damnit -- could have all the lucky breaks: a princess to marry, the magic of a genie, and all the comfort a man's heart could desire. Knowing such a person exists is damaging enough for Mozenrath's self-image. Before he met Aladdin, he felt he'd practically conquered the world already, just by surpassing his mentor. Finding that all he's gained is not enough to trump the most insignificant of annoyances is infuriating, because for the life of him, he still cannot understand why he always loses. To put it his way: "It's not fair," and really, it's not, but he's probably the one Necromancer in existence who needs to be taught that life, in general, is not fair.

And then you die.

As a graduate he had a somewhat better hold on this than he did before. A lot of this is the supposition of the more deeply-imbedded turnings of Mozenrath's mind, things he wouldn't admit or willingly reveal in any way to any but the most trusted. He likes to appear confident and in control, and if that slips for even a moment, he knows he's failed. He's definitely been the type to hold a grudge and can nurse wounds, even psychological ones, for years at a time. He has in his time been a bully of the highest order, and his sense of schadenfreude and the lengths to which he has gone to exact his dominance and anger upon people suggests he's likely the sort of bully that was bullied once, himself. He would hurt you because you are not strong enough to stop him, and this would continue until you got strong enough (and smart enough) to do it. Now, he seems to be less overbearing about it, and just seems to find little wrong with teasing other people.

Yes, he's still kind of a dick sometimes, but that's not a hellworthy offense.

Mozenrath was addicted to power, and it can be said that he was also pretty aimless in his urges to amass it. While power is meant to be a means, he treated it as an end, seeking power for the sake of having it and never once giving the indication he had any idea what he'd do with it once it was all his. Because of the nature of his talisman, the gauntlet -- which amplifies the magical potential of whoever wears it -- and his already unhealthy habits, he was once, from the ground up, destroying the body in which he inhabits, possibly even his soul. A practitioner of old school Necromancy, he was accustomed to very long bouts of fasting for some of the rituals he performs, which explains how ridiculously thin he was under his robes and why they were so baggy and overelaborate. He didn't have an aversion to food -- he's seen once offhandedly picking up something to eat in his first appearance. He had just trained himself to the point that he didn't feel the need to eat more than once a day, if at all -- because his gauntlet takes the edge off for him, or it did before he drank from the elixir of life. This, coupled with his general refusal to do much magic without the gauntlet, meant that his body remained in a slowly worsening state of malnutrition. In the past, however, he'd shown himself as more willing to simply replace damaged goods than repair them, which indicated in him a general apathy for his physical being. One of the other results of the sad state of his health is that before the barge he had absolutely no sex drive -- these are energies he devoted entirely to his "work". Part of his maddening desire to acquire more power stemmed precisely from that -- he wanted to be the best, but he was also looking for some boost that would even him out and allow him to overcome the gauntlet's negative effects. He was entirely too pompous and self centered to realize that he could have done this if he would simply have done the right thing for himself. However, just before coming to the Barge, he wouldn't save his own life if it meant giving up any of his power to do it. He wouldn't have rather died. He'd just would have rather let someone else die.

One other thing that the Barge has taught him, other than life is better lived with people in it, is to respect and appreciate his own body. It's no longer an expendable commodity to him, thankfully, and he actually wants to look into getting his hand healed. Something that came of his willingness to sacrifice his body, though, was that before he could take a heavy beating without being forced to submit. It remains to be seen whether his integrity is still worth more than a pound of flesh.

He seems also less apt to aim toward enslavement and the wanton mistreatment of others, because he seems to actually care what certain people think of him, now, if nothing else. He has also experience enough to understand and appreciate how people are akin to him, and he's able to relate to them on a different level.

Well, most of them. He's still kind fo a snob.

As a Warden, Mozenrath showed a capacity to be of great assistance to an Inmate, knowing what it was like to be one and not being wholly disconnected from the person he 'was' prior to his graduation. He has shown proficiency in teaching people -- though he wasn't necessarily a nice guy while doing it. He doesn't think he has to be a stuffy 'good guy' to really live his life to the fullest, and this may be seen as a problem, but it's not so much. A lot of decisions he makes now that weigh between 'common sense' and 'unncessary' are actually choices between good and evil; he just chooses not to call them that because it messes with his general perception of how the world works and what being genuinely 'good' entails. Coming from a world where many prize Good and Evil as living forces in nature, he's been schooled in the dichotomy and has an angry teenager's perception of it on a bad day. On good days, especially since the Barge, he's become more aware that there are grey areas, that good and evil try to paint colors on perspectives that can only be limited by the terms. Now and again he falls into old patterns, however, and it has introduced a lot of conflict in his behavior before. Since his active decision to just stop worrying about it, he's been better off overall, but that doesn't guarantee he will always hold to that or that his old apprehensions can't come back.

Appearance
Mozenrath is just over 6 feet tall. He's not as thin as he used to be, has been eating well and has a decent layer of muscle on there. Though his icons show his very heavy and overelaborate garb from the series, you can assume he wears fewer layers than he used to. If he's working out or taking meals, he's probably not wearing his headdress; he probably wears it everywhere else though. He wars his gauntlet near-constantly, still, but his hand is whole underneath now. He's careful to bathe especially after physical labor, and he tends to carry the scent of exotic herbs -- not especially strong, and not at all unpleasant.

Links

 * Permission Post
 * Head Canon Post
 * In-Game Activity