Getulio Vargas Sao Cristavao bani Tytalus was the representative of the Order of Hermes to the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions from 1943 until 1998, when he was transformed into a statue of solid gold by the Ascension Warrior.
Biography
At 15, the university student Sao Cristavao, always fascinated with sailing vessels, stowed away on a slave ship headed to Brazil's sugar plantations. Upon arrival, he was captured by Frenchmen and sent north to work as a slave near a French-owned cannibal colony. Whipped, scorned, scurvy-ridden and spat-upon, Sao Cristavao's attitude toward life became permanently scarred.
A Portuguese raid saved him from his eventual fate in a cannibal's pot. Left gravely wounded, he Awakened as he crawled to the nearest sugar plantation, where his countrymen attended to him and, thinking him part of the raid, heaped praise on his valiant effort in the massacre. His story was blown so out of proportion that he soon found himself telling it to the king and queen back in Portugal, who bestowed upon him his own sugar plantation for the fiction that he, by now, almost believed himself.
Educated, Awakened and independently wealthy, Sao Cristavao was gradually inducted into the mysteries of the Hermetic Order by an acquaintance. His flaws made him an able student and a simple pawn. Noting his skill at certamen, several cabals within the Order set him up as a figurehead for their own covert interests, which included grooming the Council for eventual Hermetic leadership. By 1714, though still not a personable man, Sao Cristavao had freed the slaves on his plantation and was working for the abolition of slavery throughout the world, a cause he still pursues to this day.
This does not, however, make him an egalitarian man; it was Sao Cristavao who insulted an Iroquois delegation so badly that half of the Native American Dreamspeakers left the Council in 1756, and it was he who encouraged the Ahl-i-Batin to do the same by proclaiming "Once you had great promise, my brothers. But in an age brought about by your peoples' own examples and arts, they themselves gather in filthy streets and stink of sheep dip and camels." This did not endear him to other Council representatives; his election in 1943 to the seat he now holds fanned outrage that has kept the Order out of favor- and out of plain sight - in Council politics since. Behind his annoying facade, Sao Cristavao's masters plot their takeover.
When Mark Hallward Gillan bani Flambeau uncovered evidence of the corruption of the Consanguinity of Eternal Joy, Sao Cristavao used his influence on the Grievance Committee to silence him. Gillan, however, had Porthos Fitz-Empress as an ally, and in 1996 the conspiracy was blown wide open. Fitz-Empress predicted that Sao Cristavao would soon be forced to resign the Seat of Forces over his involvement. This had not yet happened by 1998, when the Ascension Warrior appeared in Horizon. He transformed Sao Cristavao into a statue of gold, an act that set in motion the Conflagration in Doissetep.
Appearance
Sao Cristavao is a Portuguese man, roughly 5'6" and 125 lbs. Despite his 395 years, he seems like a battered 50. Mastery of the Arts has not healed his withered, bony face, misaligned nose and hunched back, nor the whip scars on his neck and hands. Perhaps his view of himself has set his image for life. Though a skinny, insignificant slip of a man, Sao Cristavao carries himself like royalty.