Julius Peppermint, the Man Who Became Death

(The Child’s Story & the Secret Truth)

The Tale (as told to children)

“They say Julius was a man who smiled at funerals. A man who never cried, even when his mother burned alive before him. A man who ate only bitter herbs and peppermint leaves, so his breath always smelled sweet, even as he whispered curses. When the Angel of Death came for him, Julius did not bow. He swallowed it whole.”

Children in Arkos still whisper it before bed:
“If you don’t finish your meal, Julius Peppermint will come. His eyes are black and gold. His breath is mint and ash. And he’ll take your name, so no one remembers you ever lived.”

The Truth (as feared by the Proven)

Julius was no ordinary human. He was born in the slums of early Nova Prime, a starving orphan with eyes that glowed faintly even as a child. He rose to power not through kindness or heroism, but through cruelty honed into ritual.

• He dissected animals, then men, to watch how death worked.

• He ate ashes, herbs, and poisons, training his body to blur the line between life and decay.

• He smiled when plagues swept the cities, saying: “All that dies bends to me.”

When Saint Estes waged war against the Broodspawn, Julius stood apart, despised by both sides. While others prayed, he meditated in morgues. While others fought, he listened — to the silence between heartbeats, to the whispers of carrion birds.

Then came the Ascension. No one knows the exact day, but records tell of a city where every man, woman, and child dropped dead in their homes, eyes glazed with mint-green light. In the center stood Julius, alone, untouched, breathing in the last sigh of thousands.

He had done what no human was meant to do: he took Death into himself.

His Godhood

Thus was born Varath Julius, the Proven of Death.

• His true form is skeletal and regal, cloaked in shadows that drip like tar, but his face always smiles with that peppermint-sweet breath.

• He is not the reaper with scythe — he is the suffocation, the stillness, the silence when a song ends.

• His hands turn anything cold and brittle. His gaze robs warriors of will.

Even the other Proven do not sit near him in Heav, for his presence is a reminder: all gods, too, can die.

His Failure

But Julius is afraid.
Afraid of one mortal who did what even gods fear: Lazarus Kane.

Kane beat death. Kane refused to bend. Kane absorbed the executioner’s gift and spat it back in Death’s face. To Julius, Kane is the successor, the usurper, the one who proves that Death itself can be dethroned.

So the God of Death has grown weak — distracted, paranoid, unable to keep balance. Souls slip through his fingers. Undeath spreads where it shouldn’t. Broodspawn laugh at him.

Some Proven whisper he will be replaced.
Some Thralls whisper his weakness is a sign.
And on Nova Prime, children still sing:

“Peppermint breath, Peppermint eyes,
Smile at the grave and Julius will rise.”

Varath Julius, the Proven of Death

(Compiled by the Collegium of Arkos, sealed for restricted study)

I. The Mortal Genesis

Julius Peppermint was born nameless in the gutters of early Nova Prime, the bastard of famine and ash. His first cries came in the shadow of plague fires, his skin pale and his eyes faintly aglow with black-gold light. The other urchins avoided him — for when Julius played among them, dogs stilled, flies gathered, and silence hung unnaturally heavy.

Even as a boy he pursued a single obsession: to understand the instant when breath fails, when warmth leaves, when the body collapses into a husk. He began with animals, skinning rats and birds, listening to their last twitch. Later he turned to men — beggars, drunks, the forgotten. His hands learned the anatomy of endings, and his mind catalogued the language of silence.

To strengthen his body for his work, Julius consumed ashes, bitter herbs, venoms, and peppermint leaves. This strange regimen decayed him outwardly yet preserved him inwardly — blurring the threshold of life and death until he himself became liminal.

By adolescence, he was already feared as “the smiling child.” Funerals turned colder when he attended. Priests cursed him, but their voices faltered in his presence.

II. The Path of Cruelty and Ritual

Unlike other aspirants of godhood, Julius sought no favor of saints, no pact with celestial or infernal powers. He crafted his own rites, his own sacraments:

• The Ritual of Silence: fasting for weeks in crypts until his heartbeat slowed to near-stillness.

• The Ritual of Ash: devouring the burned remains of corpses, whispering their names until he forgot them.

• The Ritual of Decay: allowing vermin to bite him, poisons to blacken him, and disease to riddle him — then overcoming each with sheer will.

Each act hollowed him further, stripping away humanity until Julius became something both present and absent.

III. The Ascension

The historical event known as The Black Stillness of Nova Prime marks Julius’s metamorphosis. Witnesses speak of a single dawn when the entire district fell dead in unison — mothers slumping over cradles, guards collapsing at their posts, birds dropping mid-flight. In the silence that followed, Julius stood alone at the city’s heart, breathing in the final sighs of thousands.

He had not called Death. He had consumed it.

Thus emerged Varath Julius, the Proven of Death.

IV. The Godhood of Julius

As a Proven, Julius’s divinity manifests not in the taking of life, but in embodying its cessation. He does not strike with blade or flame — his presence itself suffocates.

• Form: A skeletal, regal figure cloaked in shadows that drip like tar. His face smiles always, though his eyes burn black and gold. His body emanates a faint peppermint scent mingled with ash, a cruel mockery of sweetness.

• Domain: Not the reaping, but the stillness after the reaping. Julius is the void in a song once finished, the cold in a bed where a body lay, the silence of a battlefield after the last scream.

• Touch: Contact with him renders flesh brittle, hearts faltering, warmth extinguished.

• Voice: A whisper softer than breath, heard always as though just behind the listener’s ear, eroding courage.

Even among the Proven, Julius is shunned. He sits at the margins of Heav, for his presence reminds all that gods themselves are mortal.

V. Dominion and Worship

Those who serve Julius — the Thralls of the Black Mint — revere death not as punishment, but as sovereignty. They embalm their tongues with peppermint oils, burn incense of ash and bone, and welcome funerals as sacred feasts.

Mortals fear to call upon him, yet many do in desperation, whispering prayers for his “cooling breath” when plague or torment proves unbearable. To invoke Julius is to invite silence.

VI. The Fracture and His Fear

Though Julius holds absolute dominion, he is not secure. For one mortal — Lazarus Kane — has undone the eternal law. Kane defied death, absorbed the executioner’s blow, and returned unbowed.

To Julius, this act was not rebellion but heresy — proof that Death could be resisted, delayed, or even denied. It seeded in him what no god should feel: paranoia.

Since Kane’s defiance:

• Julius’s grasp has weakened. Souls slip past him into strange afterlives.

• Necrotic forces proliferate unchecked. The undead rise not in obedience, but in mockery.

• Broodspawn defy his silence, feasting amid corpses that should belong to him.

He has become vigilant, obsessive, watching for mortals who might mimic Kane. His paranoia curdles his power, making him brittle where once he was absolute.

VII. Legacy of Terror

To speak Julius’s true name is taboo among the Proven. Scholars mark his record in euphemism: The Smiling God, The Black Mint, The Silence Sovereign.

But the truth remains immutable:

• Julius Peppermint is no myth.

• He is the suffocation in every lung, the quiet after every war, the decay in every grave.

• All that lives bends to him — save one.

And until Lazarus Kane is unmade, the God of Death will never rest.