Divine Emperor TanTan

Divine Emperor TanTan was Kuban Head-of-State, one of the Kuban founders, and owner of Free Derry.

Golden-Era Kuba
While little is known about the former Divine Emperor TanTan's early life, his role in proto-Kuba is well-documented (though minor). He participated in the growing platform race, agreeing to halt his expansion in exchange for autonomous status for his land in fledgling Kuba, an exchange that would put him in a unique position as Kuba expanded.

Role in the Troubles
TanTan played little role in the troubles, largely sequestering himself in Free Derry and occasionally embarking on journeys to recover ancient and powerful artifacts. It is suspected that TanTan became an active member of the KGB during the Troubles. His role in the KGB was largely considered controversial on account of his Goblin heritage.

Era of the Second Cube
Following the creation of the second cube using the Foreskin of Saint Gekyume and its subsequent split into five fragments, he set out again from the cube to reunite the Foreskin and claim its power for his own. Following his return with the completed foreskin, he, with the assistance of Gobbie Gobinov and the KGB overthrew the Theocommunist Worker's Party of Kuba and instated his own Half-Brain Unity Party.

Exile
While the reign of the Half-Brain Unity Party was largely peaceful, internal forces moved against it. Egg and Pwucachu Germilon carried out a peaceful coup d'état, after which former Divine Emperor TanTan went into self-imposed exile. His exile has continued to this day.

Death
While the INGSOC Party was able to keep tabs on the former emperor, their contacts were lost following the invasion of the Jebbic Empire, which has been unable to keep track of his whereabouts or activities. For this reason, it is suspected that he has died.

The Violet King
TanTan and the Violet King share circumstantial ties. The following is a journal written by TanTan, the content of which is not known to the public or to the Kuban government.

I don’t know the date, but my heart races. I was in my study, deep in my keep in the lower Kube. The artifact was whispering to me, whispering, that damned, incessant whispering, and I as usual I could not decipher the words. I wrote down the sounds, as usual. I tried desperately to translate, as usual.

For the first time, though, I understood. It’s inexplicable. I hear my comrades in the government. Hushed whispers. A coup. The artifact relayed this to me. A warning, perhaps? I will proceed with caution.

Day 1 since exile (S.E.):

Damnable traitors! I should have heeded the artifact. I was a gentle king! A kind monarch! It doesn’t matter. There is no greater vice, I suppose, than cruelty and power. My once-comrades will disseminate the idea that this exile is self-imposed; it is not. I told them I would go quietly into the night; I will not.

Day 70 S.E.:

Soviet Authorities did not take kindly to my arrival. It appears that the disinformation campaign of the current Kuban authorities was more effective than I anticipated, and I was chased out as a foreign spy as soon as I arrived. I escaped only through use of the artifact, whose whispers have grown ever louder.

Day 111 S.E.:

I have been in the woods for some time now. Evading the Soviets has been an unending struggle. Even when I can escape the barking of the dogs, the artifact warns me of their approach. My health is failing. My skin is taut and scaly, and my ribs hang far over my abdomen. My hands… I do not know how the tendons and ligaments still have the strength to pull my fingers. Sores, once minor, have grown necrotic and split open. If I do not find some refuge, some care, some revitalization… I fear my end is upon me. I take solace knowing only that I am close to the Soviet border.

Day 113 S.E.:

I stand in the shadow of the Kube. I rode the railway as long as I could after escaping the Soviet Union, disembarking near Serbia and Bosnia. The stench of chemical waste and human decay hit me long before I could even see the wall. I am going to draw on the power of my keep, marked with wards that have surely captured the souls of Kuba’s lost and damned. Yes, I feel it now; desperation, hunger, fear, excitement, greed. In my absence, many, many misguided souls tried to claim my stores of food, my riches. They failed. I am taking their essence; claiming their vitality for my own. Then I will move onto the Holy Land; I am compelled to do so by the artifact.

Day 115 S.E.:

I have arrived in Jerusalem. The whispers have become words; what was once hushed and incomprehensible has become speech as plain as day. I’ll listen to it, for now. I will take the corpse of X from its tomb, as it tells me.

Day 117 S.E.: The artifact has laid itself bare to me at last. I see its nature, its power. Its true power. A vast, bubbling, well of absurd impossibilities. Until now, I had believed that there may be some science behind the magic behind the artifact. I was so, so wrong. I am not a scientist. I am a madman with the unending potential of an entire unreality coursing through my body.

Day 118 S.E.:

I see the keep, I see the Kube. At any moment, I can be anyone. Yet, I need only be one person: L.B. Chicken. A drivelling, incompetent real estate developer, and the contingency plan that I didn’t even know I had. He’s powerful enough to act unabated, wealthy enough to pull any string that hangs, and weak enough of mind to fail to notice my incursions into his being. I have placed horrible barbs into his consciousness, and though I can leave him to act as he will, I can take control at any time. Poor fool.

Day 200 S.E.:

The tomes are gathered. The ritual is prepared. Tonight, I will rip a hole through reality, then through the unholy unreality of the red realm, the sea of souls. I will build a web of inter-dimensional roads. Through Kuba, Albania, Jerusalem, Ald Farm. I will be able to be anywhere. Anyone. I will break the spine of the Union, and then I will come for the Kubans.

Day ???

Time does not pass in the sea of souls. Demons assail me, occasionally, and I devour their essences; they are delicious. They grant me knowledge learned and lost aeons ago. I grow fat on their strength. And yet… They are morsels. Crude forms, expressions of simple thought and emotion given life. There are gods here, too; grand and terrible beings that shape this place.

It has been some time since my last entry. My physical form is… losing its integrity. I am in a state of decay beyond what should be possible. My skin sloughs off at the touch. My bones creak and shudder under my weight. My eyes, it would seem, have burst and run from their sockets. Yet, I see. I move. I am unbothered by the heat of this place. Under my skin, behind my eyes, where once I had a skeleton, power swells and splits my body apart. It is horrifying and beautiful.

My travels have exposed me to knowledge. Vast knowledge. The artifact, the body, they are fragments of something far, far greater. I hold pieces of a god. No, that’s not right. I have absorbed pieces of a god. In some grand, deluded way, I am a god. I hold at my fingertips vast legions of daemons, enthralled and trapped in my service by simple pacts and rituals. There is some logic here, unscientific and nonsensical though it may be.

I’ve done it. I’ve trapped and broken up the essence of a major presence in this realm. It shall be the first of seven entities drawn into a physical form. The Seven, my Seven, shall lead the legions upon the Kube. What I need now is an anchor; something to weaken the seam between realities. I began my work through LB Chicken, in his damned Kuba new-town. Some work of architecture corrupted to my ends. Regardless, channeling my magic through him tore his form to shreds, and his corpse is no use to me. I need a new conduit.

So, reader mine, I have one final favor to ask you. Enter the Oubliette, past the Seven and their growing forms. You will know what to do.