Ob Caligni is the Superior of the Caligni and lord of the Black House: the last legally named lord of an ancient house, cast out and sheltering in a mountain tower, whose true lineage is one of pacts with the world of shadows. “Ob” means “superior”; it is a title on the base name Caligni, held by one at a time.
| Type | Character |
| Title | Ob (“Superior”) of the Caligni; lord of the Black House |
| Birth name | Timoteo (Timothy) |
| Age | 4,004 years |
| Seat | A tower in the mountains |
| Spanish entry | Ob Caligni |
History
His existence is cyclical, “like a Lama who keeps being reborn”; the current holder is four thousand and four years old. Luigi Vampa knew him by this name.
He was born with corruption in his arm. The corruption was hereditary: his parents, on discovering it, painfully cut off the arm and gave him up for adoption. As a child he was called Timoteo (Timothy). Beings of light, finding that he was the child of the void, locked him in the Positive Energy Plane thousands of years ago and fed him in a cell “in the middle of a cube”.
He was later raised on farms in a very distant world, also destroyed thousands of years ago. There he grew fond of an ancient paladin with a metal arm, who had been found that way and was “the only one who could not be healed”.
His quarrels with the main house and the whole kingdom got him cast out, and he took refuge in the mountains.
Appearance
- In the final hall: “a gentleman dressed in white” with “a strange, silvery arm” — an advanced metal arm, with a normal hand on the other side. The pincer, the Claw of Glabrezo, is mounted on the metal arm.
- In the major encounter: “a gigantic figure, a sort of Pazuzu”, with black feathers, a head “like half a lion”, a sword and a whip.
The Caligni
The Caligni are one of the six first afflicted races of the Dark Folk: beings “who have made a pact with the shadow” and like darkness. A Caligni at birth is “like the chosen”; they form “a strange clan”. In the region they are common as drifters, “without a chief”, who sometimes seek work as mercenaries.
The tower
His tower stands in the mountains. The approach road bears “perfidious symbols” to keep anyone from reaching any point not established: symbols of sleep on the right, symbols of pain on the left — “the left hand of darkness if one is going toward the tower”. The symbols do not stop teleportation; the tower has been reached that way.
Deeds
- From the Black House he tortured the Wordbreakers for years.
- Garkhan actively seeks him as a nemesis.
- In the living chess game “he bets his own”, staking his own assets as a form of dealing.
- If he is reborn, killing him does not rid the world of him.
- Asked whether he passed information to the Superior, Luigi Vampa evaded, neither confirming nor denying.
Conflicting accounts
- Weak point. One account gives “total light”; another “absolute darkness. The Shade”.
- Leadership. The Caligni are said to have no chief, yet are headed by a title meaning Superior. Either the title rules people who do not recognize it, or the Superior stands apart from them.
Open questions
- Whether the man in white and the Pazuzu-like figure are two manifestations, two stages of one encounter, or two different beings.
- What the Black House is, and its relation to the black square and the Black Tower of earlier chronicles.
- Whether there were earlier Obs, and whether the title or the being is inherited.
- What the child of the void is, and why the beings of light imprisoned him.
- What is wagered in the living chess game; the tower’s own appearance.
- His mother is known only as Mother of Darkness; the farms’ name has no fixed form.