Pug

Pug
Physical Information
Race:	Human
Gender:
Description:
Affiliations
Titles:
Occupation:
World:	Midkemia
Nationality:	Isleman
House/Clan:

Pug, also known as Milamber (after being rediscovered as a Magician on the Tsurani home world of Kelewan) is the most powerful Magician on his home world of Midkemia.

Early life

Young Pug before his meet with Kulgan

Pug was left as an orphan in the road until a woman left him at an abbey of Dala. Priests brought him to the Castle Crydee not having the means to raise him. Duke Borric conDoin declared him a freeman.

Pug grew as a kitchen boy in the small town of Crydee, and learned reading by head cook Megar and his wife Magya who treated him like their son. Tomas their true son was his best friend.

During one stormy night, he was introduced to the magician Kulgan who by use of a magical crystal sphere, noticed a great potential in Pug. Soon after, in his day of Choosing, Kulgan picked him for his apprentice. However although Kulgan sensed his potential and ability of the theory of magic, Pug was troubled for not being able to perform spells.

Apprentice

Eventually, during accompanying his childhood fantasy, Princess Carline conDoin during an excursion, she saved her life from two trolls. As a reward, he was granted the title of Squire and the estate of Forest Deep. Usually he dined next to Carline who generally became more open and close to him, to Squire Roland's dismay.

When Duke Borric decided to warn the Free Cities and Krondor about an imminent Tsurani invasion, Pug begged Kulgan to come along with Tomas.

Pug's power explode against Roland

The day before his depart the Princess called both Pug and Roland in her garden where they ended in a brawl. Pug unconsciously cast a spell which caused Roland to struggle himself. Pug prevented this and then calmly discussed their differences where Pug decided that Roland truly loved her and himself should live Carline for him. That evening, Roland, Pug and Tomas over cups of beer, sworn to be friends from now on.

The next day Pug and Tomas rode nestled between twenty pair of mounted guards and the baggage train at the rear. After days of travel, through the Green Heart, they encountered moredhel who ambushed them; the soldiers suffered many causalities, until Kulgan used a magic of mist that hid them. Eventually they reached the Grey Towers and settled in a cave. They were attacked by goblins and joined soon after by a band of dwarves led by Dolgan Tagarson.

Dolgan proposed to guide the band through Mac Mordain Cadal so that they could reach Bordon. After two days of march in the mines, they witnessed wondrous caves. On their way out however, they were attacked by a wraith. Again with help of Kulgan, the team flew towards the exit, but Tomas was left behind. When they went out, Dolgan insisted to go back and look if Tomas was still alive.

Eventually Borric and his team continued towards Bordon to meet Talbott Kilrane. They encountered Natalese Rangers who led them into the city but the ship merchant reassured the prefect he expected them. After a pleasant stay and rest in his mansion, the team sailed with one of Talbott's personal vessels, Storm Queen to Krondor.

Meeting the "hermit"

Two weeks while sailing in the Bitter Sea, a great storm hit them, and Captain Abram decided to turn. Queg would be impossible, and ended on the Insula Beata; after 3 days of stay while the sailors repaired the Queen, Pug accompanied Arutha, Kulgan and Meecham as they explored the island avoiding the tower of Macros. They found the ancient abandoned Insula Beata, where Pug had an encounter with a hermit who was none other than Macros the Black.

Meeting little Anita conDoin

When finally they reached Krondor, Pug narrated his experience with the alien ship to Prince Erland; he also met Princess Anita, who was pledged to marry Arutha. However the meeting was not how Borric wished since Erland had no authority to muster the Armies of the West and they were to go and ask the permission of the King himself, accompanied by the Royal Krondorian Lancers.

On their way to Salador, a storm of unusual intensity in the mountains west of Darkmoor and stayed at an inn outside the village. Later they fell upon a village being troubled by bandits which they drove away. The villagers welcomed and hosted the Duke's party, offering food and beds.

In Salador, the group was hosted by Duke Kerus, who shared his concerns to the Duke about the mental state of the King, and his tensioned relationship to Prince Erland. Pug was with them and heard all of it.

On his trip to Rillanon to gain King Rodric's aid for the Western Realm they soon realize King Rodric is mad and under counsel of Guy du Bas-Tyra and can gain no help from him. Later while they planned about how they could persuade the King, the invasion begins. Before Guy du Bas-Tyra could arrive and advise the King, he unexpectedly grants Borric the command of the Armies of the West.

Borric (followed by Kulgan, Meecham and Pug) go to Ylith and then join Brucal near LaMut to aid him with the defenses. During a mission to study the enemy lines, Pug was captured by the Tsurani.

Slavery

Four years passed, and Pug was working as a slave in a swamp camp on Kelewan, with a newcomer, Laurie of Tyr-Sog, a minstrel. Pug outlived all other Midkemians he knew, since they died from diseased or killed by their masters.

When his Slaver Master Nogamu insisted on cutting a rotted ngaggi tree, Pug fell and almost drowned in the swamp trapped under a branch. Nogamu called the other slaves to resume work and leave Pug; Laurie objected and Nogamu hit him twice. Lord Hokanu who was with them however, acknowledging all this was Nogamu's mistake, ordered Pug to be freed and cared, and Laurie too, since his injury from the slaps would cause infections.

The same night, Nogamu attempted to kill Pug with a knife and managed two injuries on him before Laurie stubbing him, and Hokanu hanging him.

Pug and Laurie were taken then by Hokanu to his father’s estate. There they were ordered to train Kasumi in every aspect of Kingdom culture and Language. There Pug also met a slave girl, Katala, with whom he fell in love and planned to ask her for marriage. However his Lords had other plans for him and Laurie.

Eventually Fumita, the brother of the Lord Kamatsu, was a Great One, and learned that Pug had been apprenticed as a magician on Midkemia. He claimed Pug for the Assembly, the brotherhood of Magicians, and they vanished from the Shinzawai estate, ruining thus the Shinzawai plans.

Pug was cleansed of his memory by the teachers of the Assembly and after four years of training became a magician. He learned he was a gifted follower of the Greater Path, a magic unheard of upon Midkemia; Kulgan was a Lesser Path magician, the reason of his inability to teach Pug. Upon attaining the Grey Robes of a Great One, Pug was given the name Milamber. His teacher, Shimone, watched as Milamber passed his final test, standing upon a thin spire at the height of a storm while the history of the Empire of Tsuranuanni was revealed to him. There he was steeped in the first duty of a Great One, attaining the Black Robes: to serve the Empire. Milamber met his first friend in the assembly; Hochopepa, a shrewd magician who instructed Milamber in the pitfalls of Tsurani politics.

Milamber, returned to the Shinzawai estate to claim Katala, and discovered he was a father of a son born during his absence. He also learned the Shinzawai were involved with a plot with the Emperor to force peace upon the Tsurani high council, which was dominated by the Warlord. Laurie was to guide Kasumi, who had by then mastered the language and customs of the Kingdom, to the King, bearing the Emperor’s offer of peace. Pug wished them well and took his wife and child to his home.

In a day, Milamber attended the Imperial Games, given by the Warlord to commemorate his glorious victory over Lord Borric. Milamber was shocked at the wanton cruelty, in particular the treatment of Midkemian prisoners. Enraged, he destroyed the arena in a show of astonishing magical power, shaming the Warlord and thereby throwing the politics of the Empire into shambles. Milamber then fled with Katala and William back through the rift to Midkemia.

End of the Riftwar

Eventually, the Kingdom and the Empire sued for peace. Being an important figure on both worlds, Pug was invited to act as a translator for King Lyam and Emperor Ichindar.

When the peace talks broke down, Pug was on hand to urge Lyam to commit his entire army to secure the rift, despite his reluctance to be a party to treachery. He was found by Macros the Black, and the duo closed the rift permanently. In the process, Macros was assumed dead, but not before asking Pug to travel to Sorcerer's Isle once the war has ended.

At the island, he was informed by Macros's major domo, the goblin-like Gathis, which Macros had bequeathed his library of magic to Pug. This, in addition to Duke Borric's gift of an island, eventually led to the founding of the first institution of magic in Midkemia.

Silverthorn

One year after the end of the Riftwar, Pug was overseeing the construction of the academy on Stardock Island. When an assassination attempt on Arutha's wedding day struck Princess Anita instead, Pug utilizes his knowledge to delay her death for Arutha to find an antidote.

When rumors of moredhel involvement surfaced, a seer, one of the many magicians who flocked to Pug's academy revealed a vision of the future, in which the moredhel invaded the Kingdom with help from an entity who spoke an ancient Tsurani dialect. The entity then reached beyond time and probability to strike down the seer. Shaken by the implications, Pug decided to take a risk and reopen the rift to Kelewan to search for answers.

During a meeting with Hochopeppa, Pug was captured and taken prisoner by the agents of the new Warlord. The Warlord had capitalized on the Emperor's shaming at the peace talks at the end of the Riftwar, and had the Emperor confined under house arrest.

Stripped of his Greater Path magic, Pug then did what no Greater Path magician had ever achieved, and used the Lesser Path magic to escape, and to free the Emperor. After being given a chance to explain, Pug was allowed access to the Assembly's library, where he found references to an ancient civilization under the polar icecap of Kelewan. Armed with this knowledge, he set out to find, to his surprise, a branch of the elven race, called the Eldar, living in a magical forest Elvardein under the ice. He would spend the next year being tutored by their leader, Acaila, on how to use his magic.

Darkness at Sethanon

Upon completion of his training, he sought the aid of his old friend Tomas, to summon a dragon, to begin their search throughout the universe for Macros the Black. They traveled to the edge of the universe, where lies the City Forever. Between Pug's magic and Tomas's powers, they overcome many obstacles in their path with ease, eventually finding Macros in a section of the city, called the Garden. However, a trap was sprung the moment they entered the Garden. A time trap, Macros explained, set by the Enemy to hurtle them backwards through time, since they knew that the Enemy was not defeated in the past. With Macros's magic stripped, Pug used every last bit of his knowledge and power to manipulate the time trap, accelerating their journey into the past, until they traveled beyond the beginning of time, thus ending the trap. From their vantage point in the City Forever, they watched as the universe began with a Big Bang.

Now free from the Garden, the three flew on Ryath to a place called the "Hall of Worlds", a place with which they can travel quickly across long distances to Midkemia. Macros again guided Pug, to accelerate them through time, to arrive in the present once more. While Pug was working his magic, Macros explained his actions and motivations throughout the Riftwar, including engineering the events that would lead to Tomas being a Valheru, and Pug gaining knowledge in the Greater Path magic. All this to prepare Midkemia for a coming battle against the Enemy, revealed to be the combined life forces of the ancient Valheru. They sought to return to Midkemia to retrieve an artifact, the Lifestone, from which they may reconstitute themselves, at the cost of every life on the planet.

Finally arriving in Midkemia at the correct time, they discovered that the Kingdom city of Sethanon, located above the Lifestone chamber, was under attack by moredhel, led by Murmandamus. Pug quickly traveled to Stardock and requested for reinforcements from the Tsurani through the rift, and from the Keshian garrison of a nearby city. Pug brought Shimone and Hochopeppa with him to Sethanon, needing their magical skills and their familiarity with Tsurani history about the Enemy.

Arriving at the Lifestone chamber, Pug and the Tsurani Great Ones begin fortifying the chamber to prevent a rift from opening. The arrival of Murmandamus in the chamber heralded an increase in pressure, as something sought to breach the dimensional barrier and access Midkemia. At the moment of the moredhel's death, Murmandamus's accumulated magic opened a rift for a brief moment, before Pug and the Tsurani Great Ones closed it again. A sliver of the Enemy had slipped through, however, and begin battling Tomas for the Lifestone.

When Tomas defeated his adversary, he also inadvertently activated the Lifestone, resulting in a massive tear through space, allowing hundreds of dragon-riding beings to enter the skies above Midkemia. The Lifestone, however, begin absorbing them, until Tomas remained the only Dragon Lord in the area.

TBC

Trivia

• Pug is the son of a Servant of Krondor and a Knight Captain in the Armies of the West.
• He became a Member of the King's family.
• He is friends with the Prince of the Kingdom.
• Pug is the Duke of Stardock.
• He is also a Great One of the Tsurani Assembly of Magicians.
• He is heir of Macros, and the current Black Sorcerer of Sorcerer's Isle
• Pug was a short man, 5'7 feet.

Children

William conDoin

William is Pug's first child born to Katala on the Tsurani home world of Kelewan as Pug was imprisoned there as a slave during the Riftwar. Pug and William didn't speak for many years after William wished to leave Stardock to become a solider under Prince Arutha's command, Pug believed William should remain on Stardock to continue with his studies. Against his fathers wishes William left the island and became a solider rising quickly through the ranks. It was not until the eve of the Serpentwar's attack on Krondor did Pug and William finally make peace.

Lieutenant of the Guard Captain of the Guard Knight Marshal of krondor One time Commander of the Armies of the west Prince of the Kingdom

Gamina conDoin

Gamina is Pug's adopted child, she arrived on Stardock with the blind seer Rogen. When Rogen passed away Gamina remained at Stardock under the care of Katala and Pug it was here she remained until she met Squire James when he was visiting the island. She has the power to speak with her mind and read people's thoughts.

Gamina is killed during the Serpentwar when she remains behind in Krondor's sewers with her husband Duke James. As they were the last to climb out, James had rigged the sewers with naphtha which unfortunately detonated before they could escape.

Magnus conDoin

Born to Miranda, Magnus was born with natural magical ability, he was brought up and trained on Sorcerer's Isle as a member of the Conclave of Shadows

Caleb conDoin

Born to Miranda and Pug and without magical ability Caleb felt out of place on Sorcerer's Isle and thus went to live with the elves for a number of years. When he returned from the elves Caleb became a member of the Conclave of Shadows.

Romances

Katala

Katala is Pug's first wife and the mother of William and adopted mother of Gamina. Pug first met Katala on the Tsurani home world of Kelewan where they were both serving as slaves for the Shinzawai family. When Pug was discovered to be a Great Magician and taken away from the Shinzawai estate for four years to complete his training

Duchess of Stardock Princess of the Royal House

Miranda

Miranda is Pug's second wife and the mother of children Caleb and Magnus. Pug and Miranda first met in an illusion of Halls of the Gods after Miranda went looking for Pug in the build up to the Serpent War.