FIRST APPEARANCE: p.176 (S1)
LAST APPEARANCE: p.327 (S1)
ORIGIN: unknown/Perceptive Times
CURRENT STATUS: deceased
Quiatas (kwai-ATE-us or KWAI-et-us) was a majordomo attached to the truevil Refusaleth Badidea, although his history has been disputed. A longtime member of the elite and mysterious Hatmender Briguild, Quiatas was a tough overseer, taking command of any operative too negligible for his boss. This allowed Quiatas to briefly wield Refusaleth’s forces, and seed his own shadowy agenda. With few exceptions, Quiatas was smart enough to refer to his master only as “Our Lord”.
Physically, Quiatas was trinocular, and wore protective goggles that retracted into his uniform hat. All three eyes were different, suggesting that each had its own unique augmentation, although their functions and purposes were mostly obscure. It is known that Quiatas could see in almost total darkness, predict behaviors with near-total accuracy, and detect passages of bodies backwards in time to their point of origin.
PERCEPTIVE HISTORY
According to Quiatas, he was recruited personally from the Hatmender Briguild by Refusaleth. By Refusaleth’s account, Quiatas saw an opening and ingratiated himself artificially by lying about his appointment to Mogrum. No written account currently exists that details Quiatas’s life before his position as Refusaleth’s majordomo.
NARRATIVE HISTORY
Quiatas emerged from the Darkness to report on Mogrum’s progress with the Skatalyx hordes, for Refusaleth. Mogrum relayed the Skatalyx’s findings regarding a cottage in the Kingdom of Inway, and convinced Quiatas to investigate.
At the cottage, Quiatas and Mogrum discovered dead animals and people, and a collapsed yellow crystal. As they pieced together what might have transpired, Quiatas received a message that Reclinus V, the king of Inway, was ready to surrender.
Continuing his glacial investigation on slugback, Quiatas found three inert Wallopers guarding a prison cube from Badman’s Island. Finding the (human) pilots to be long dead, Mogrum had the Skatalyx pry open the cube, freeing the psycho killer Tremenz, whom Quiatas recruited for active duty.
In the endless deserts of Drymouth, Quiatas found the Agratian surveyor Guntaur, who had slaughtered legions of Skatalyx single-handed. Quiatas brought him before Refusaleth, who promptly transported him to a remote location and dropped an island on him.
Quiatas returned to Drymouth, and (possibly of his own volition) offered its potentum M’Hoa M’Hoa everything necessary to rebuild his homeland, if he would swear fealty to Refusaleth. As incentive, Quiatas had Mogrum demonstrate the painful process by which Skatalyx are created, using Cox McCrackin as a subject. M’hoa was given a day to consider the offer.
“To fight us is to become us.”
-Quiatas, p214
Tensions continued to rise between Quiatas and Mogrum, with the former’s anti-conjuform prejudice becoming apparent as he accused the latter of obsession with revenge. Quiatas ordered Mogrum to lead a salvage crew to the island brought down by Refusaleth, threatening to penalize him for his impaired judgment.
On his way to Midiria to spy on the Empire, Quiatas visited Refusaleth in his fortress, finding the truevil focused and serious. Quiatas proposed that Refusaleth should expand his dominion to the Midlands, but his lord scarcely seemed to notice, instead naming the four Dark Unmentionables aloud, claiming his own name would soon join theirs.
Quiatas reported that again, the Skatalyx in Drymouth were being wiped out (by Bromance Evergreen and Radish-Hoof), and Refusaleth expounded upon the origin of Unicorns, as written in the Sacred Testament. He then revealed a captive Norris Bundt, halfway transformed between man and besmurchin, and said that if he could locate a pure human, he could learn how to travel from the Beyonding to Earth.
Back in Drymouth, Quiatas and Mogrum found M’Hoa M’Hoa dying, after refusing to stop fighting for his kingdom. Quiatas castigated M’Hoa for not taking his deal, and M’Hoa subtly mocked him by speaking only through Mogrum in a higher tongue than Quiatas could understand. In frustration, Quiatas admitted his Hatmender Briguild connection to the expiring potentum, raising his protective goggles to expose his three disparate eyes.
When Quiatas checked in on Refusaleth’s fortress, he found it empty except for Mogrum and the subborg, who pointed to a large hole drilled in the ground. Refusaleth, after destroying the Cloud Concourse, was spinning through the continental crust towards Fexes, the Lowest Point. With his lord seemingly out of control, Quiatas retreated to a sanctorum, and began to accelerate his plans of usurpation.
Quiatas explained to a disbelieving Mogrum that he had personally investigated the site where Refusaleth first emerged, and tracked his passage backwards through time to its point of origin. As proof, Quiatas produced a resinate displaying the moment; “a man seated before a lighted picture box”. For perhaps the only time, Quiatas spoke Refusaleth’s name, inadvertently alerting the truevil to his location.
Sensing great catastrophe, Quiatas visited Allied Councilor Yakimastu Obeisan at his home in Midiria. Quiatas appealed to the reticent councilor as a former member of the Hatmender Briguild, telling him (correctly) that if Refusaleth is ignored, it will rob him of power and make him defeatable. However, Quiatas’s belief that Refusaleth would not cross the ocean to Midiria was fallacious, as the truevil was doing just that, at that very moment.
Quiatas was communicating with an unknown party in Refusaleth’s fortress when Mogrum surprised him from the shadows. When Quiatas complained that Mogrum had it easy because he was remade rather than recruited, Refusaleth suddenly appeared to contest him.
Refusaleth weakened and demoralized Quiatas by questioning their connection during Perceptive Times. Confused, Quiatas was transported to the eye of the temporal cycle by his adopted master, and as the tides of time whipped around him, he disintegrated and ceased to exist.
FUN FACTS
- Quiatas is loosely inspired by American actor Del Close, and speaks in a very similar voice and cadence
- His name is a portmanteau of quietus and hiatus (as in hernia)
- His attire is inspired by Victorian era uniforms and clothing
- Quiatas metaphorically represents the danger of opportunism; the threat of those who manipulate crises or problems for their own purposes and gains
- Like all members of the Hatmender Briguild, Quiatas can somehow travel huge distances in short amounts of time