TM Stuff- Ulyer deRisma (Patreon)

[keeping the following spoiler-free for the plot, but does contain some bg info that may or may not be in the main comic]

This is the Emperor's best friend, sadly. I say sadly because they're not very good friends at all, from Ulyer's perspective. They have known each other for a while, as they were trained and shipped to the front lines together. They dug latrines together. They got shot at together. They also didn't get along very well. But after the war, a lot of things had changed for the chaotic, and most of the displaced survivors wanted to go home and feel normal, and like they could speak to others who had shared their experiences. Smaller communities, including Pasori who had fought for Old Mesda, stuck together, and Ulyer managed to get his now-disabled friend Luca into a government job doing administrative work and translation. A foot in the door, minus one foot/leg, I guess... Eventually that led to a career in politics, and then a career in authoritarianism, you know how it goes sometimes. 

Ulyer's trajectory peaked at an unsuccessful run for office, but Luca's star continued to rise, and he never forgot his friend. Ulyer on the other hand was afraid of exactly that, and of the Emperor's infamous temper, and has managed to get a lot of distance between them. He currently is the owner of Red Bear Arms, a private company that is sponsored by the government, and which manufactures and supplies pretty much all of the firearms used by the Territorial Army. He's very, very wealthy and lives in an isolated and mountainous part of the country close to the mines and refineries that supply the necessary metals. 

Oh, and to explain the picture, he's a Pasori Kan (wolf tribe), and hates his tribe for various reasons. His tribal name is Ulyer Rzma Kan, but he intentionally spells it "deRisma" to show that he's been Southernized and to distance himself from those guys (it's a little self-hating and racist but! pretty common in real life) (and also in this comic). You can't see the back from this angle but it's basically a bunch of fire-breathing wolves burning down their own forest, pretty metal.

Most importantly, he wears a lot of crappy belted sweaters, which is a dumb in-joke* from years ago that became canon, sighhh

* goo.gl/5iGivm