Kwisatz Haderach in Waiting Paul Atreides

Traits: Noble Scion, Wise Beyond His Years, Destined for Greatness

Talents

• Cool Under Pressure (Battle): Paul may automatically succeed on a Battle skill test by spending 3 Threat (1 Determination).
  
• Direct: Once per scene, Paul may give an ally an extra action on his turn.
  
• Prana-Bindu: Paul may re-roll 1d20 on a Move or Discipline test.
  
• The Slow Blade: Paul may ignore an enemy asset in a duel or skirmish when he buys additional dice with Threat while making an attack.
  
• Voice: Paul may spend up to 3 points of Threat to buy automatic successes on a Communicate test (1 success/point).
  

The first and only child of Duke Leto Atreides and his concubine, the Bene Gesserit adept Lady Jessica, Paul was heir apparent to the Atreides dynasty. A boy of only fifteen, none could foresee how his destiny would shake the universe.

Paul’s very existence was an issue of secret contention amongst the Bene Gesserit who had ordered his mother to bear a daughter for Duke Leto. Conceived and born during a turbulent time for the Atreides, Paul was raised with great love by his parents. Despite the dangerous political turmoil in which House Atreides was embroiled, Paul’s childhood was sheltered from the worst dangers.

As he grew older, Paul received tutelage from the Atreides’ trusted retainers. The Duke had gathered about him some of the greatest men of his age: the renowned swordmaster Duncan Idaho, the warrior-troubadour Gurney Halleck, and the Mentat Thufir Hawat, among others. These experts in their fields provided Paul a superlative education and he proved to be a fine student.

By the age of fifteen Paul Atreides had been groomed for greatness, not least by his mother. The Lady Jessica, though only an adept of the Bene Gesserit, sensed a great fate around her son. Knowing that Paul’s birth interrupted generations of breeding plans by the Reverend Mothers, she suspected he might even be the fabled Kwisatz Haderach, the super-being that the Sisterhood sought to control for itself. Accordingly, she trained Paul in the mysteries of the Bene Gesserit, forgoing the usual order of instruction that he might be prepared for the dangerous times she foresaw. This decision was given grudging approval by the Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam after she administered to Paul the dreaded gom jabbar.

When the Emperor ordered House Atreides to take control of Arrakis and the harvesting of spice, Paul was as prepared for what came next as any boy could possibly be. Though yet untested in command and combat, Paul bore all the makings of a great leader. From his father he’d learned a keen sense of justice and empathy, tempered with steely resolve. From his mother, an appreciation for political subtlety and the philosophies of the Bene Gesserit. His parents were as devoted to him as he was to them, and they gave him every possible advantage against the many dangers they foresaw in his future. Paul would one day rule House Atreides, and the Duke and his concubine knew that the greatest dangers imaginable would one day be his alone to face.

But Paul was still growing into manhood. He’d been groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps but had not yet faced the hardest realities of leadership. He was not naïve, but he was inexperienced in the vicious maneuvering of the Imperial throne and the Houses of the Landsraad, to say nothing of the subtlest machinations of the Guild and Bene Gesserit.

At the beginning of the Arrakis Affair, Paul Atreides stood unknowingly at a nexus of events that would prove to change the very order of humanity itself. He had begun to have troubling dreams of a future in which he alone would make decisions with ramifications millennia in their unfolding.