Aramix, Eternal Pharaoh of Atenkhet (Ah-RAHM-icks)

Summary

Born into the merchant caste, Aramix's life had long since paved the way for her to take over the family business. In many ways, with an arranged marriage, obligations towards familial allies, and plenty of financial success already done, her life was slated to be an easy one. And so, she performed her duty, and succeeded well in it.   Such a life, however, was empty of meaning, and Aramix grew more and more discontent. The farther she ventured from her family's well-to-do business, the more problems she uncovered in the world. The poor, sickly, and lower castes alike in Atenkhet were suffering, but as she looked into the matter, she uncovered it was entirely by design.   Unable to ignore her findings, she delved further, and uncovered a sinister cult had taken root. With the mistress of it yet hidden from her, Aramix brought her findings to the judicial courts. Despite her due diligence, her findings were overturned–and indeed, found so offensive, Aramix was stripped of rank, title, and banished into the wastelands of Sa-kemet. Her family disowned her, finding her conduct unbefitting and dangerous to the natural order of things.   Powerless, she marched into the desert with nothing but a robe and three days of supplies. She knew of lands beyond Sa-kemet, having seen the prized maps of her family, and so she desperately tried to make it through. Day turned to night, and then day returned again, her supplies dwindling, and her cushy, comfortable lifestyle having left her horribly unprepared for rugged survival.   Doomed in the vast sands, Aramix fell, only to awake later in the tranquil waters of a cave. A secret cult had saved her, one that practiced worship of the three moons—a forbidden taboo. Hiding her disgust, Aramix earned their favor, and studied their teachings for years as a fellow member. Rising through the ranks, she acquired great prestige, reaching the very height of the cult. Through this position, she proposed a plan that she'd long harbored in secret. Knowing the truth of the corruption in her homeland, she convinced the cult their time had come to root out the evil once and for all. To this end, she was given a priceless artifact: a sun-gold forged staff adorned in the iconography of the Moons.   Bestowed with the cult's greatest weapon, she marched with her heretical fellows into Atenkhet proper. Sneaking into her own home city, she and the worshipers assaulted the palace of the cult. In the ensuing battle, Aramix slew the coven's leader and inner circle, killing the sickness of her home at its roots. Her mission done, she and the moons worshipers surrendered, and the aftermath proved to be an even bigger mess.   The one Aramix killed was merely one of many leaders, all beneath the-then pharaoh, a coven member herself. Brought to the capital and shackled upon the Golden Plaza, the pharaoh and other cultists smiled down at her. Behind them and their crowd-filled stands loomed the Guardian of the Black Pyramid, its titanic form casting them all in shadow. All around her, Aramix saw the end result of her failure–her nation heading to ruin, laughing and cheering all the while.   Staring upon the Black Pyramid as the sun crowned the sky, Aramix smiled and, as best she could, cut in to all those around her. With an oratory skill that stunned the rapacious crowd into silence, and made her argument–not to the crowd, nor the pharaoh, nor the nobles or any other mortals, but to Akenra and the Moons themselves. In a prayer as much as judicial case to be made, she laid the fate of Atenkhet before them instead. And so, when the Guardian moved at the pharaoh's command, she opened her arms, and embraced the incinerating blast from it.   Awash in the divine energy, everyone watched in awe as Aramix arose, the moons staff within her paw once again. With the icons of the sun and moons glowing brightly, she cast terrible magic upon the coven's arrogant leaders, burning them from the face of Veltrona utterly. To the pharaoh, she commanded the Guardian, turning it upon the traitorous ruler and her ilk. In doing so, all their followers fled into the scorching deserts of Sa-kemet, and the shifting sands swallowed them whole.   In the wake of such violence, Atenkhet fell into anarchy, with many of the noble families purging the coven. To the many masses untouched by the spectacle, Aramix became a holy figure in an instant, blessed by Akenra herself. Rather than capitalize on her new fame, Aramix brokered peace between the shattered priestesshood and the nobility. The masses demanded her coronation as only was right, but she insisted proper ritual to be followed, ultimately buying valuable years to stabilize her homeland.   With the blessing of the Solar Sect, Aramix went through the proper tutelage of priestesshood. She was nearly unanimously put forward as a successor candidate, with her opposition bowing out completely. Passing the ascension ceremony and its dozens of trials with arduous effort, she claimed the Solar Throne, ushering in a new age. City-by-city, Aramix reformed the government, reaffirmed allegiances, and reunited Atenkhet into the unyielding power it has since remained as. For what can be said of her rivals, they did try. Aramix outlasted them all, if not with her incredible leadership skills, then through time itself. As their flesh faded and their bones laid beneath the sands, she remained, and so all peoples called her 'Aramix, the Eternal'.   It isn't clear what became of the moons worshiping coven who aided her. Even their prized artifact had been changed, the moons removed from it to leave the sun alone emphasized. Aramix, tight-lipped and with the supreme power of the pharaoh, did not allow any to speak of it again. Still, people wondered. It wouldn't be out of place to have them all killed, such was their heresy.   Yet, Aramix easily speaks of her own prayers to the moons, and mandates the Solar Sect to include it within doctrine. Despite this paradoxical issue, this inclusion hasn't brought about the end of days that many in the priestesshood feared. While it overturned some ancestral traditions and conventions, moons-centric doctrine breathed life into a theology otherwise devastatingly stagnant. In a sense, it gave the push-and-pull tidal forces Uatkara needed in order to mature further.   Such has come to be a characterizing point for pharaoh Aramix. A vigilant and eternal guardian, but also a stern ruler who is constantly pushing her people forward.