Masked Beak

Race	Hiderid
Faction	Hiderid Coalition of Stars
Age	???
Alignment	???
Classes & Levels

The Masked Beak is a Hiderid entrepreneur who operates the tax-free haven of Port Haluci, on Hakaria. Despite the prominence of his persona in Coalition media, his true identity is unknown to most, as he only appears in encrypted holograms, the source of which has not been cracked. He appears in the attire of a black raven, with a red mask sitting over his bright yellow beak. Assuming the Masked Beak is a single individual, he is known to be a scheming, calculated Hiderid male with a penchant for ballrooms and masquerades.
His city sits on an oasis - the only one for hundreds of miles - and early power came through the strict control of water purification facilities illegally obtained from the Embassy Ark. After the discovery of rich ore veins across the surface of the Hiderid world, Port Haluci became a stop for the many cargo gondolas and grav-cars which cross the endless desert.
The Masked Beak has always been outspoken in its distate for the Coalition. He campaigns for an extreme form of minarchy, where the Hiderid would only rely on government for the enforcement of contracts and basic criminal law, and rely on the many warring corporations for everything else. Thus his city grows thanks to his policy of no taxation, albeit he charges "protection fees" on many of his town's poorer shopkeepers. As the Coalition is a society where everything is an open secret, the mere fact that he has been concealing himself in the shadows for so long, let alone his extreme procorp stance, has given rise to several conspiracy theories, such as the prevalent idea that he is merely a front for competing Hiderid corporations needing a tax break but unable to publicly ally with each other. Some outlandish theories on the Extranet even assert that the Masked Beak is some kind of AI. After biocompany Hexo-Geni, Inc was found to engineer countless deaths in a bid to push and profit from a Coalition culture war against the Zaalan, the Masked Beak openly spoke against both the Coalition and Hexo-Geni, but his libertarian stance shifted little.
In recent times, the Masked Beak has gained a new nickname : the 'Unseen Lobbyist' who sees all, but tells little. A few Hiderid businesspeople openly worship him as some kind of deity (something the Aeonic Way suspects is an instance of Aeon interference).