Creation

Phinneas II of Thane was created by Kelly Thompson and Meredith McClaren in Black Cloak 4.

Major Story Arcs

Phinneas II of Thane is the highest-ranking Dracona in the city of Kiros. At one time he had a romance with a royal Elf, Vasha. This was a scandalous idea because Kiros, especially the royals, is extremely race-conscious. An inter-species relationship could not be public. Eventually Vasha became pregnant but broke it off.

Both Vasha and Phinneas were married to others within their own race. Vasha’s daughter Phaedra is born and is given the family name Essex after her father. She also has a son, Hadrian. Phinneas has a son, Devaki.

Vasha doesn’t tell Phaedra who her real father is for decades, until finally she begins to grow Dracona-style wings and her past can no longer be hidden. She never meets Phinneas until one day a case comes up, involving the murder of her ex-fiance Freyal III of Sidra, the heir to the throne. Phaedra feels that Phinneas may give her the leverage she needs to prosecute the case against the Queen. She has also met with the Kiros Three, a group of powerful humans, who have been intimating that the Dracona killed Freyal, which she does not believe and wants to warn Phinneas about.

During a meeting that starts off awkwardly, Phaedra explains that she thinks the Queen killed her own son. When Phaedra says that she needs Phinneas’s help, he laughs at her conception of his power. He says that if he were so powerful, he wouldn’t have had to hide his relationship with her. He doesn’t know what the Queen is hiding but knows that the royal magician, Master Ividor, might. He goes to get him.

Meanwhile Devaki shows Phaedra a magic painting that, when unlocked, surrounds her with warm memories about her and Phinneas. He had kept these memories secret so they wouldn’t be found, but he could always access them.

Phinneas brings back Ividor. Ividor shows them a Taka that he found underneath the Castle. He doesn’t know exactly what the Queen is doing, but knows it has to do with the Taka. They all agree to find out what’s going on. Pax and Phaedra break into the Castle and Ividor, Devaki, and Phinneas make some preparations and arrive there later.

Pax and Phaedra see Lysanthir with a machine that sucks the magic out of the Taka and uses it to run the city. Lysanthir finds them and pins them to a wall with some magic. He plans to run Phaedra through the machine when the Queen arrives. They argue, after Phaedra tells the Queen that Lysanthir saw Freyal and Dace take the poison and that he dumped her body.

While they’re distracted, Ividor, Valorie, Phinneas, and Devaki rescue Phaedra and Pax from Lysanthir’s magic. They all fight the Queen and Lysanthir in a huge magic battle.

Phaedra is about to destroy the Taka machine when Lysanthir knocks her off the cliff with a magic explosion. Ividor collapses and dies, having been stabbed by a Dracona Dagger.

Phaedra is healed by a Maid in the water and flies back up, now with full Dracona-style wings, and destroys the machine.

The Queen and Lysanthir are put in a Supermax Prison. Phinneas becomes the new Prime Minister.

It is unclear whether Phinneas and Phaedra stay in contact at all, but mostly she retreats to the Narrows and leaves the Black Cloaks, because when she destroyed the machine, it also sent fires and floods throughout the city, for which she was blamed.

Phinneas is well-liked as Prime Minister and works hard to bring the city together. He is fairly successful. However, he is unable to fully replace the magic that came from the Taka and was used to run the city’s magical infrastructure.

Elea Veris, one of the Kiros Three, tries to create synthetic magic and uses the ancient giant creatures known as Dragyern to protect her project’s secrecy. She breaks Lysanthir out of prison to help her. Eventually Pax and Phaedra figure out what’s going on. They use Phinneas’s old house (now that he has moved out to be Prime Minister) as a safe house for their friends and family who may be in danger from Elea. Then they confront her.

Elea is killed and Lysanthir is recaptured. He gives them the secret of the synthetic magic.

They give the synthetic magic to Phinneas, who uses it to replace the Taka’s magic and heals the city’s infrastructure problems. The city is on its best path towards the future that it has been on in centuries, thanks to his leadership and his daughter Phaedra’s tenacious investigations.

Note: Phinneas is named “Phinneas II” for most of the series. However, twice in the last issue of the second arc, he is listed as “Phinneas III.” Since the use of “II” and “III” in male names is widely spread but unexplained, it is possible that, instead of referring to the fact that a name has been passed down among a family for two or three generations, it instead refers to something like rank, and that at some point after becoming Prime Minister, Phinneas grew from the II to the III rank. (The only other IIIs in the story are Freyal III of Sidras, the deceased heir to the throne, and Galal III of Veris, who is next in line after Freyal, so this makes some sense. Everyone else in the story with a number is a II—Aldric, Beeane, Theron.) However, it is most likely just a typo.