As is the case with almost all Cielcin, the details of Aranata Otiolo’s life are hazy at best. The prince touches the historical record in but one place: at the Battle Upon Demiurge in ISD 16227, where it was defeated by Hadrian Marlowe. As such, our only textual insight into the person and character of the Otiolo Prince comes from Marlowe’s writings and from the reports of then-Captain Bassander Lin, the ranking officer on the ground during the battle. From Marlowe’s own account, we gather that Otiolo was once a vayadan, a Cielcin slave-knight and concubine, to its master, the former prince Utaiharo, a successor to the Line of Zahaka, one of the first aetane, followers of the Cielcin God-King, Elu. According to the text of the Sun Eater, it would seem that Otiolo instigated a coup against Utaiharo and slew its former master and lover to obtain the princeship, instigating a uatanyr, a branching, in which the Line of Zahaka was further fractured, with its fellow vayadayan concubines Ajimma, Raiazu, and Tuanolo each claiming the title of aeta and a piece of Utaiharo’s dominion.

For the crime of regicide—an act universally condemned as blasphemous for a vayadan to perform, Otiolo was rendered a pariah by the wider Cielcin civilization. Perhaps it was for this reason that it was willing to entertain contact and alliance with mankind. Conditions under Otiolo’s rule are believed to have been dire, even by Cielcin standards. Per Marlowe’s account, its ship—the Bahali imnal Akura—was among the smaller mainline Cielcin vessels, suggestive of later, more rapid construction (it having been frequently observed that the older Cielcin worldships are far and away the larger and more robust).

Curiously for a Cielcin monarch, Otiolo appears to have elected to carry its own child and heir to term inside its own body, rather than implant the embryo in one of its slaves. What its reasons for doing so may have been are unknown, but it is suggestive either of a deep-seated mistrust of its own inferiors or an astonishing degree of maternal concern.

Otiolo was among a very small number of Cielcin princes—a number which included its rival, the great prince Syriani Dorayaica—known to have had relatively peaceable dealings with humanity, specifically with Kharn Sagara, the King of Vorgossos. It has been suggested that it was Otiolo’s tribe who first made contact with the Extrasolarians, well before the Battle of Cressgard, but there is nothing to confirm this theory. However, Otiolo is noteworthy as the master of the Cielcin expedition that crashed at the planet Emesh whose captain, Uvanari, surrendered to Hadrian Marlowe at Calagah.

The shape and great size of its horns suggests it is mnaema, one of the Cielcin race’s many distinct ethnic minorities. It is believed the mnaema are widely prized as vayadan, both for their ferocity and their aesthetic qualities. Regarding the prince’s age at the time of the Battle Upon Demiurge, we can only speculate, but it is likely the prince was older than five hundred standard years, as it must have been alive prior to the Battle of Cressgard.

Its name, Aranata, means ‘Longtoothed,’ believed to be a blessing given by a parent to its child, suggesting the name is the prince’s original, birth name. The meaning of ‘Otiolo,’ by contrast, is unknown, its etymology likely originating among the language of the mnaema minority, or in some dialect little understood by men.