Overview
Alistair is a millennia-old Brighthaven mage, administrator, infiltrator, and founder of Alistair's Network. Isandriel leaves him in charge of Brighthaven, and after Radiance Prime's destruction, Alistair uses that authority to pursue gods, temporal meddlers, the Order, shard wielders, and anyone else he judges dangerous to Valrindor.
After Raphael's revival, Alistair operates inside Raphael's Rahmavir faction as Alice, a trusted chosen with long black hair, fine robes, and a controlled public manner. As Alice, he works near Raphael, Severin, Doss, Eliona, Azarion, Nero, and Maric while concealing his own agenda from Raphael's chosen.
Appearance and Disguises
Alistair's own form is male, with short black hair. His Alice illusion gives him a woman's appearance, with long black hair, nearly black eyes, fine robes, and artifact bracelets that regulate his hollow state and essence suppression. He also wears silver armor and plain gray robes.
His illusions can alter his gender, face, clothing, and apparent persona. He uses them to pass as Alice, anonymous citizens, Raphael for a moment, and later Aldar. Alice's Meraldun birthplace belongs to the Alice cover story; Alistair comes from Brighthaven. His hollow-body state can make him partly transparent, nearly undetectable, and difficult to strike, though dense pressure, darkness, low-essence conditions, and air magic can still endanger him.
Personality
Alistair is patient, calculating, secretive, and ruthless. As Alice, he adopts a polite, loyal, and deferential persona; in private, he places, sacrifices, and turns allies and enemies against one another.
His early duty to protect Brighthaven hardens into a willingness to lie, use impersonation, arrange false alibis, abuse positions of trust, and push rival powers into destroying one another when he believes the result will remove people he considers worse threats.
Abilities, Skills & Magic
Alistair is a powerful temporal and cosmic mage who also uses divine essence. With temporal magic, he blinks rapidly, recalls events precisely, maintains illusions, changes personas, and suppresses his essence. His combat magic includes cosmic and divine shields, cosmic beams, divine light, healing, and destructive divine attacks.
His hollow-body state begins with his void-gate work near Arcanis Village. Repeated exposure to the void fractures his essence, while the artifacts and bracelets he builds regulate his phasing and keep his body from falling apart. He can phase through matter, suppress his essence, make his body nearly invisible, and cross hostile spaces that would kill most mages. He uses that state to pass through the breach beneath Zarephon and return with unidentified non-magical objects from the other side. After he takes Aldar's spiral shard, the transformation shatters those bracelets, but the shard lets him continue operating without them.
Alistair builds Alistair's Network, studies void gates and otherworld technology, embeds agents across Valrindor, recruits or manipulates powerful mages, and uses the shared Alistair names to conceal which agents belong to the network and who inherits each code name.
Background & History
Alistair begins as a Brighthaven leader under Isandriel. After Pyrathalor's destructive emergence devastates Radiance Prime, Alistair casts out Isandriel, Brighthaven rebuilds under his authority, and the nation keeps teaching the origins of the destruction. His search for a way to protect Brighthaven leads him to Aurelia's copy magic, Malverand technology, guardian activity, and eventually the buried half-circle gate near Arcanis Village.
At Arcanis Village, Alistair studies a buried half-circle gate and contacts the hidden entity later named Oktlix. The entity speaks to him and guides him on the other side of the rift; during this void-gate exposure, Alistair's body becomes hollow enough to phase through matter. His agents later operate in Ulzathir and Brighthaven under Alistair variants such as Toss, Doss, and Zoss. One Ulzathir operative, Alistair Toss, trains and abuses Helena before Sariel intervenes.
Back in Brighthaven, Alistair restructures the Brighthaven Triarch and creates a covert network of powerful mages who share his name. Agents such as Voss, Koss, Toss, Doss, Zoss, and related variants operate across Valrindor, inherit code names, train successors, and gather intelligence about gods, nations, magic, and the source.
During the Zarephon source breach, Alistair works as Alice among Raphael's chosen. He passes through the source breach into another version of Valrindor, returns with unidentified non-magical objects, and hides most of his otherworld information. He then pushes Raphael's faction and the Order toward one another, hoping the breach can be closed while his enemies destroy each other.
Alistair engineers the destruction of Zarephon by using Doss as an Alice double, planting the objects he brought back near the source, and triggering them while Eira, Kaelion, and Xarion attempt to deal with the breach. The blast destroys the mountain, the cave, the murals, and much of the surrounding valley, while Alistair survives and resumes the Alice persona.
At Cyndarel, Alistair gets Raphael's trapped faction through Aldar's darkness veil, then slips away with Doss once the battle spreads around the city. After Raphael and Aldar fall, Alistair detonates another object over Raphael's body, recovers the spiral shard from Aldar's remains, kills Zorath while posing as Alice, and takes on Aldar's appearance so survivors will accept him as Valrindor's protector.
As Aldar, Alistair regroups with Kaldaryn's survivors, uses excessive shard use as the cover for his altered essence, and travels toward Thalassai. In his meeting with Cassian, he pushes for eliminating Gabriel, Azarion, Nahm, and similarly powerful beings while hiding Aldar's death and his own identity.
Relationships
- Alistair's Network: Alistair founds and directs the network, using shared names, apprentices, illusions, and inherited code names to place agents across Valrindor.
- Raphael's faction: As Alice, Alistair serves beside Raphael's chosen while steering Raphael's faction and the Order toward one another and preparing to remove Raphael once he becomes inconvenient.
- Doss and Severin: Doss is a trusted agent who impersonates Alice during the Zarephon deception. Severin joins Alistair's work after leaving Lumeria behind.
- Isandriel and Brighthaven: Isandriel gives Alistair power in Brighthaven, and Alistair later blames him for Radiance Prime's destruction.
- Vianna, Kren, and Thalena: Alistair blames Viviana and Gren for Radiance Prime's destruction, later calls them temporal terrorists, and abuses Helena during her childhood training before Sariel removes her from his control.
- Oktlix: Alistair's hollow state, void-gate research, and long project develop through his contact with the hidden entity later named Oktlix.
Significant Events
Alistair uses the Alice persona to infiltrate Raphael's chosen, crosses the source breach, brings back unidentified non-magical objects, destroys Zarephon during the attempt to deal with the breach, and maneuvers Raphael's faction and the Order against each other. After the Cyndarel battle, he uses the spiral shard to kill Zorath and assumes Aldar Rehn's appearance.