Tohafa – Lord of Mohanshu

“Tohafa” means present or gift. This is the name given to the lord of Mohanshu by his mother. Tohafa and Bhanu are the only dragons to have kept their “baby” names. There has been much speculation among the other dragons about the meaning of this behavior, but the simple truth is that Tohafa loved his mother. He was her last child, and she cherished him.

Tohafa is a small dragon, his body about the size of a large war horse. His skin is mottled, like sunlight on the forest floor, but he’s so dark that it’s difficult to see the pattern. His eyes are blue, like other dragons, but again are so dark that it’s difficult to see the color. Most people just think of him as black, with black eyes. He is a perfectly adapted night-time hunter, and he keeps it secret that he has trouble seeing in the bright light of day.

Like other dragons, Tohafa is magically powerful. Unlike most of the others, he revels in this power. He uses it, hones it, and pushes it to its limits just to discover what those limits are. He experiments with magic on himself, his land, and his people.

His mother taught him that his land and all that live there are his to use, but not abuse. “If you break something, it’s useless.” Unless, of course, you are trying to discover its breaking point. He sees the races as tools to be honed and used, but to do that he needs to know what makes them work, and what breaks them.

He forbids them to use magic, fearing they could become too powerful, but he is curious about their potential. In addition to his magical experiments, he is also engaged in social experiments. He creates situations that put pressure on his people, then observes what they do and how they resolve the problem. He has learned that the races are naturally prejudiced against each other, that it is very easy to goad them into hating one another, and that it is very difficult afterward to repair the relationships. He is now maintaining a delicate balance. He wants the races at odds with each other enough to keep them from allying, but not so much that they erupt into war which would devastate his domain.

His people are a powerful force, and, should the need arise, he is confident he could rally them around his banner.

 

This work by Jean Headley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.