Scourge of Woe
Scourge of Woe was a Solar Exalt of the Dawn Caste, whose first incarnations perished amidst the fighting of the Primordial War. Scourge’s third incarnation was born to a mortal soldier fighting in the service of Merela during the closing days of that war, left weak amongst the Exalted veterans as the era of Incarnae rule dawned.
What Scourge lacked in raw puissance, however, he made up for in ambition, abandoning Merela’s service to forge his own empire in the East. Unwilling to surrender his ‘rightful’ independence when the Solar Queen attempted to solidify her power, he was amongst those who stood against her in the Meru War, a time which proved his martial skill... conflict against the Wyld and the renewed Primordial threat of the Aftershock War granted yet further opportunities to prove his skill, and he stood widely recognized as one of Creation’s pre-eminent generals, commanding the largest swathe of Solar forces in the Northeast. Peace did not sit well with Scourge when it came, and he turned to plotting, joining the White Jade Feather Society and pushing it towards its eventual shattering of the Deliberative and peace in Meru. Amidst the Thousand Struggles that followed, Scourge was once more in his element, and those centuries saw his brutal strategies of total war on full display... his was not a war of champions and melees, but of artillery trenches and flattened cities, where no amount of force was considered excessive. No few Solars, after the shattering during the Cascading Years, suspected Scourge of Woe might have brought the disaster about through use of a yet more terrible weapon.
The Years shaped Scourge, though if their purpose was to change his thirst for war then they failed. He emerged and accepted the peace which followed, but his ambitions were unchecked, and the elder Solar was now convinced that the key to establishing his righteous rule was control of the mighty Sword of Creation. Hise fforts towards that end were thwarted by his fellow Solars of the Deliberative, not eager to allow the weapon to fall to one who would likely see its daily use as a neccessity.
By the end of the First Age, Scourge was gripped with paranoia, convinced that other Solars plotted against him as he did against them (a belief that was in many cases true). Detached from the reality of mortal life, his vast Eastern empire was forged according to his warlike vision, strict hierarchies and military governments, his soldiers and subjects forced to speak solely using the created language ‘war cant’, a tongue efficient for clearly conveying orders and which had prayers to Scourge woven intrinsically into its grammar. He had no conception of mortal individuals, and even his Terrestrial servants were beneath notice, seen as so lesser that disobedience from them was inconceivable. Terrestrial and mortal alike suffered through military rationing and the lack of higher amenities (Scourge did not trust I AM and other artificial intelligences, as they were creations of Twilights he viewed as likely foes).
During the Usurpation, Scourge was killed by a pair of Sidereal assassins leading the bulk of his Dragonblooded officer corps in an assault on his central war room. He slew the vast majority of his attackers, but eventually fell without ever recognizing his own soldiers and their betrayal, instead believing the attack to be a clever plot by another Solar... his death triggered automated contingencies which sent his armies to launch assaults on his Solar rivals in the North and East, devastating infrastructure but easing the work of the Usurpers as they mopped up the last vestiges of Solar rule.
