(Planar tiefling transmuter wizard [he/him] / Factor of the Hands of Havoc / N)
Many factors in the Cage are called barmy. Perhaps none deserves to be called it more than Varpar Hogar; the very fact that he’s a high-up of the Hands of Havoc (and formerly a Xaositect) should tell a blood that much. Thing is, the message he brings might sound addled in the extreme, but it’s proven to be more successful than most anything else that’s ever been dreamed up. Is the multiverse itself barmy? According to Varpar, that’d be the case.
Unlike so many of the Xaositects, Varpar’s actually completely sane. His arguments are carefully though out; the product of a logical and reasonable mind. See, this blood used to be high in the Fraternity of Order, until they threw him out. His theories were too crazy for them, they said. So, going with his very philosophy, he threw in with the Xaositects. And what’s more; that tactic’s worked just like he knew it would. Varpar’s ideas are now more popular with the Guvners than he ever was when he was in their ranks. Confused? You’ll have to know more about his beliefs to figure it out…
The secret’s in opposites. A long time ago, this tiefling cutter Varpar noticed that whatever he did, the opposite always happened in the end. He got married to someone he loved; his life turns to a living nightmare. An acrimonious split later; he’s happier than ever before. His research as a Guvner takes him so close to an Axiom that it’s practically eating out of his hand; he’s thrown out of the faction. He becomes an enemy of order and law; the Guvners are begging for him to come back and tell them his darks.
It’s a barmy old world all right.
Varpar’s philosophy’s so simple that you think you’ve missed it when you see it: Do the opposite of what you intend. That’s it. No fancy words (those come when you have to explain to your friend why you’ve just betrayed them). ‘Course, they’ll see the benefits in the long term; it’s just that most cutters aren’t prepared to wait that long.
Every mathematician knows that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. There’s no point fighting it, berk, it’s pretty much an Axiom itself. Varpar realised that long ago.
What does this mean? Say a man wants to make a fortune. He sets up a business, begins to trade, works his way into the trust of the big-timers. He might even be successful for a while. Then what happens? One lousy mistake and it all comes crashing down around his ears! See, that berk forgot that for all his effort, there’s be an equal and opposing effort to make him loose all the money he’d worked so hard for!
“Never pay full price for the horse that doesn’t drink after you’ve lead him to the early bird who still hasn’t gotten that bloody worm even though its on the other side of the fence where as we all know, the web you weave is tangled when you first practice to conceive.”
– The Xaositect Okrodle, as he welcomes cutters to the “half price night” at his brothel
Here’s the clever part. Suppose the same blood subscribed to Varpar’s beliefs. First thing he does is go out and sell everything he owns, gets really unlucky gambling, and lands up to his ears in debt. That’s pretty barmy, right? Wrong! You’re forgetting the Axiom, berk. As soon as he’s done this, the mechanics of the multiverse are primed. All the cunning blood has to do is sit back and watch the rewards roll in, and the multiverse strives to give him back everything he’s lost. Hey presto! The cutter’s rich as he was before, and he can spend it all over again!
If you wondered why that rather logical piece of thinking belongs to the Xaositects, you’d be asking the right questions. Well, most of the Chaosmen don’t really care about the physics of it all; they just enjoy doing crazy things. Varpar despaired about it at first, but it was all part of his grand scheme.
See, once he’d told a few high-ups in the Guvners about his philosophy, they laughed him out of the Courthouse. Varpar’d pretty much expected it; after all, he’d worked hard and been successful for too long and knew a fall’d come any day. So he packed his bags and left the Guvners laughing.
A month or two later, and the Fraternity of Order’ve come to their senses. Just as Varpar’s fall from grace was dramatic, so his rise in the Xaositects has been meteoric. He’s as powerful and influential a blood as any in that faction. Could be that the Guvners are jealous, or perhaps they just want to get their hands on the dark of his beliefs. Whatever it is, they’ve invited him back to the faction, and promised him a post even higher than the one they sacked him from.
Will Varpar return? Who knows, but it’ll probably be the opposite of what you’d expect him to do. See, he’s discovering greater and greater subtleties in the maths of his beliefs; such that it might even turn out to be addled nonsense after all. Who knows indeed?
Source: Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net