Verkai

Verkai is the leader of the Exiles. He is a Shadowy black Nogan with red eyes. He has a dragon-like appearance, with large, feathery wings, jet-coloured scales, a face that resembles the dragon Thorn from the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini, obsidian-coloured clawed hands and feet with blood-red fingernails and claws, golden fangs, a powerful, curving tail, and bronze spikes running down his spine. He is one of the few Nogans that walks upright, but can also shift to a sliding mode for swift transport.

Verkai is cunning and sly, and not above slitting a few throats to reach his aims. He also, oddly enough, enjoys string music and frozen treats. He is also one of the few Nogans that dislikes water.

The low- to middle-ranking Nogans mainly refer to Verkai as the "Omnipresent One", due to his seemingly all-powerful ability to appear anywhere in the world.

Biography
Verkai was born on the Nogah Islets long before Verak Sunslayer to Lord Wyrda, a powerful, ruthless lone monarch of the Volcano Clan in his time. He fell in love with Datia, a gentle, silvery-skinned female Nogan from the Shore Clan, and soon after they became married (an action despised by many of the other clans) and had a child, Verkai. Due to the fact that Verkai was dark blue, the Wyrda suspected that Datia had been involved with someone else (when, in fact, the scale colour had come from Datia's father) and quickly killed her, stating that "she was of no importance to him anymore."

Thus, Verkai was, to Wyrda's initial dismay as he worried that Verkai would be gentle and kind due to his mother, brought up by him. However, these fears soon departed, as Verkai was proven to be ruthless, cruel, and cunning- traits that Wyrda himself greatly valued.

When he was ten, Verkai began being tutored by Niverru, a shady warrior from the Subterranean Clan, who taught him how to fight. Niverru was greatly impressed by Verkai's fighting skills, and knew that one day he would become a powerful ruler. However, Niverru had other plans; ones that involved Verkai killing his father and Niverru taking over the Volcano Clan- then adopting Verkai as his son. (Adoption was seen as forbidden by the general Nogan public, and still is today.) So, Niverru began to plant whispers of hatred in Verkai's mind, and when he was thirteen, after only three years of training (he was very skilled, and accomplished new techniques at an impossible pace), he crept up behind his father when he was sketching battle plans and stabbed a dagger- given to him by Niverru- into his back. However, Niverru never became ruler of the Clan as Verkai, having plans of his own, slaughtered the Nogan in a fierce duel that destroyed many of the foundation pieces and would, much later, resulted in the destruction of the Volcano Clan palace, previously a towering fortress of stone and fire, to its current appearance today.

Verkai then took over leadership of the Volcano Clan, and introduced consignment to the originally peaceful clan. With his army, driven to fight merely by fear, he began to conquer the other clans. He conquered the Air, Subterranean, and Plain clans first, which added to his land and air armies, and, after conquering several other clans, later defeated King Aquamaris to take control of the Underwater Clan, giving him advantages on land, air, and water. The Shore and Ice clans, the only two free clans remaining (the Storm Clan was unavailable, due to the storms surrounding their isle), banded together and, in a cataclysmic battle between the leaders of the Shore and Ice clans and Verkai, the King of the Volcano Clan was forced to surrender. Soon after, Verkai was sent before the Shore Clan justice system and was condemned to a life on a deserted island far away from the Nogah Islets for murder and misuse of power. Verkai was banished, and so his evil influence would never trouble the islets again. Or so they thought...

For Verkai had found, during his conquests, a small group of Nogans that were incredibly loyal to him and his cause. These were Romulus, a white-scaled Nogan from the Subterranean Clan, Darius, a brown-coloured Nogan from the Desert Clan, and several others whose identities are currently unknown. Verkai commissioned these Nogans to, first, gather as many books about magical powers as they could find and secondly, to recruit more lawbreaking Nogans to his side. The recruited Exiles were brought to Verkai's island (called the Island of the Exiles in legend) through various portals, which Verkai, having studied some basic magics in the Volcano Clan library, conjured up on one of his secret visits to the Nogah Islets. Through the books he recieved, Verkai learnt and mastered many of his current powers including shapeshifting and the ability to breathe water, fire, lightning, or ice. He gained the ability of Petrification Gaze after defeating the Medusa Serpent, a deadly serpent that turned its enemies to stone. Upon drinking its blood, Verkai gained that ability, and when he had fifty Exiles recruited and ordered them to build a fortress, Verkai placed a few of the more amusing and/or gory petrified victims of the Medusa Serpent in his bedroom and throughout the fortress.

Verkai then chose three of the earliest Exile recruits, Chattur'gha, Ulyaoth, and Xel'lotath to become the Dragon Triad, his elite henchmen and a level higher than the original group of Verkai's followers. In doing so, they gained unnatural abilities and powers. (See their individual sections for more details.)

A few years later, after the fortress had been built and Verkai had amassed easily over a hundred Exiles, Romulus and Darius kidnapped a Toa named Malaya “Mala” di Kyrkana from her home island and forced her to sing for them or be brutally tortured. After Mala escaped, Verkai spent the majority of his time on the Isles of Brimstone, a group of islands formed from cooled lava in the middle of an ocean of fire that are very close to the realm of Karzahni and far below the surface of Nogah. There, he was mentored by Charon-Ko, a mysterious entity that taught Verkai many things. During his stay on the Isles, Verkai gained a dragon-like appearance due to the Torchwood Herbs that were the only source of food there. The Torchwood Herbs were bright red in appearance, with sharp, almost claw-like thorns and scale-shaped petals. When he returned from the Isles, Verkai was notified of the appearance of Malaya on Terros-Nui by Brutus, an Exile who went to Terros-Nui in hopes of kidnapping Mala.

Abilities
-Spellbinder vision -Petrification Gaze (the ability to turn people and objects to stone just by looking at them; can be used at will; rays of green energy fire from Verkai’s eyes when using this) -Can conjure fireballs in his hands and launch them -Has some control over thunder and lightning -Can manifest fire and ice in many forms (Create fire or ice clones, create swords out of fire or ice, etc.) -Can shoot fire, water, lightning, or ice from his mouth -The ability to shapeshift -Is immune to fire

Weapons
-Long black-and-red sword similar to Tahu’s fire sword in blade design but with a dragon on the hilt. Verkai has named this sword Uruloki, which is the name of the Isle of Brimstone he found it on. -Six double-edged spears made of crimson crystal that, when summoned, seem to attack on their own without command from Verkai. These were given to him by Charon-Ko after Verkai made it through the Tunnel of Flame, a dangerous subterranean tunnel acting as a mode of transportation throughout the Isles.

Weaknesses
Verkai can be damaged by light-oriented powers although it might take a while for serious damage to occur and is nearly hopeless at fighting in the water (but can fight if necessary)