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  1. Characters

Hosni Hassan

Sultan of Ska'vyn, Emir of Skaven, Crown
NPC

Born in Kavzar to a poor family, Hosni grew up with very little. Within easy traveling distance to the city of Skaven, Hosni saw the rich lifestyle there and became very angry and bitter towards those that lived with ease while he and the people from his town worked hard and gained very little. At first, his life was spent living in the hamlet of Kavzar, working the odd job in town, and doing his part for the community. As the days went by, however, taxes and political upheaval just made life for the people of the hamlet worse and worse.

One of the tax collectors was being especially hostile in his efforts to collect when the person he was trying to collect from clearly had no means of paying. His body was dumped in the desert, and that was how Hosni got the attention of The Dark Brotherhood. The court pursued investigations into bandit clans in the desert and focused on that, with no eye being drawn, instead, to Hosni and Kavzar.

With the Dark Brotherhood, Hosni began spending more and more time in Skaven. He got to see even more up close how the nobility behaved and lived.  With that closeness, he got to know Zara, the daughter of the Sultan and Emir of Ska'vyn/Skaven. With no male heir, it would be Zara who would inherit the title, but her father wanted a male heir. In Hammerfell, there was no law that said only a male could inherit, but he wished for a male to inherit. So, for years, the Sultan had been bedding any mistress he could, in the hopes of getting a male heir. It would turn out, he had been successful. He was also a paranoid man, however. So, he kept his son a secret and let no one know. He would reveal his son when his days were few and he could ensure his son could be named as his heir. Not only did these acts harm his wife, but also his daughter. She was prepared to lead, had been studying in the ways of governance, and while her father was off philandering, she was the one to actually lead monumental changes in economic and agricultural reform in Skaven. While this made the rich richer, it also bettered the lives and working conditions of the working class. It made their lives better. It made them richer. It allowed them to have breathing room in the path of those tax collectors. It had a smaller effect on those from Kavzar, but it had an effect nonetheless.

Hosni spent a great deal of time spying on the Sultan and finding out where this secret son had been stashed away. He spied to see what was going on. Unsurprisingly, yet still infuriating, when the son grew up, he wished to dispose of Zara; have her slain so she could not interfere in what he might be able to do and accomplish as Sultan. Hosni hurried to Zara and told her, himself. She pledged him with her protection because of his selfless display of attention and care. And sure enough, in time, he would hear of it. The Black Sacrament, performed, in order to place a contract on Zara's life. As was often the case, when contracts came through, members assigned to the task would talk with other Dark Brotherhood to shore up what information they could about their target. Knowing Hosni had spied on the royal family, he had been asked. So, Hosni had his chance. He led the person into a trap and killed the Brotherhood Assassin tasked with slaying Zara.

From this, he earned a bit of skepticism, but he managed to dissuade and deject attention from him. However, this brought up a bit of paranoia in the majority of those in Skaven Sanctuary. With another target kill on a Brotherhood member, many feared the dilemma of the early 4th Era was unfinished and so they fled the Skaven Sanctuary. Hosni took another step. He took over the Skaven Sanctuary, leading those that stayed behind. In time, they would learn the truth, and many respected him as they too had come from squalor and repression. Hosni kidnapped the Sultan's son and brought him to one of the cells in Skaven Sanctuary then went to the Sultan and made the threat. Allow Hosni to marry his daughter and earn the title of Sultan and Emir in the stead of his son, and not only would he maintain the secret of the son's existence, but he would also allow the son to live. Hosni never trusted the Sultan to acquiesce to these demands, nor live up to them if he did. However, the Sultan did agree to them. So, after the wedding ceremony was announced and held, Hosni poisoned the Sultan while he slept one night, and away from the world, he went.

Hosni had no desire to rule, really. He allowed Zara to do what she had trained and prepared to do. She was the true Sultana, while he simply held the title and public eye. The miraculous event where a poor miner's son became Sultan of the land, it would take storm in everyone's concerns, and so the sudden death of the Sultan was spoken of, but soon flitted away from the public as Zara did what she did best, and made the lives of all citizens of Ska'vyn better.

Hosni used the benefits of being Sultan, however. With it, he got a better purview of the goings-on in all of Ska'vyn. Thus, he was able to build up the Ska'vyn Sanctuary again. With many having left, there was no one to contend with him claiming first to be the protector of the Sanctuary, and then... the Listener. He was never one to believe in the religious aspects of being a member of the Dark Brotherhood. All he had cared about was the doors it opened for him and the means to better the world around him, as he saw it. With the old Sultan dead, and those that were too frightened gone, he took over and named himself Listener. He took contracts from whoever he felt like, and any who contested the contracts would get fed the line about the Night Mother speaking to her Listener. There were still arguments at first when he started taking contracts from the Thalmor, but it was good money, and after a long life of squalor, he was all for making lots of money. He was Sultan and would not need to worry about the money, but in his mind, he was still that poor boy from Kavzar. The Sultan's money was Zara's, and he would not take money from her. He felt that Hammerfell could benefit from detaching itself from the constant debates between The Crowns and The Forebears. He felt that debate and its old ties to the Empire were in need of abandonment. With the Dominion, he felt a new wave of growth could be had. He could help bolster Zara's efforts by introducing new money and attempting to reinitiate trade throughout all of Tamriel since that flow of trade had been stifled since the eruption of Red Mountain and the Great Wars had separated the peoples of Tamriel.

So, he took contracts from Althír and saw it as a step in the direction of reunification and the betterment for all peoples of Hammerfell.