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Tell your princes and kings. Tell your eager tradesmen and grasping missionaries. Tell them I protect this land, and I will drink their blood if they try to take it.

–Cetshwayo's warning

Emperor Cetshwayo is a character in 80 Days. He is the leader of Zulu Federation, an empire controlling the southeast Africa.

Background[]

Emperor Cetshwayo is a fearsome leader who is well respected among his people and feared by the Europeans, as well as his own personal grudges towards them. Through the use of his automaton armies he managed to capture and hold such a large territory while also managing to fight off the European colonists who attempted to take it for themselves, effectively stopping a large portion of the Scramble for Africa from happening. From his capital seat in Ulundi he keeps tabs on everything and everyone in his country via his automatons, who answer only to him. When he came into power, he abolished slave trades and ordered its Artificers to secretly produce weapons in the form of animal-like automatons in preparations to face the incoming British forces. He has a companion called Bheka, a mind-reading bird shaped automata, which gave rise to rumors saying that he is a sorcerer who can read people's minds and talk to automatons.

Role[]

Upon meeting Passepartout and Phileas Fogg ,whether it be legally through Quelimane or being captured by animal automata after unwittingly attempting to smuggle guns across the border from Nsenga, he is getting suspicious of them, for coming to Ulundi instead of the European settlement of Bloemfontein, and start questioning their motives, as well as ordering Bhaka to read their minds. He proceeds to remark upon Passepartout's position as a personal servant and the vanity of Europeans as a whole, explaining that it will make them easy to defeat in the end. Apparently to prove that this is no empty threat, he then takes the two of them outside to show them some examples of his animal automatons that he can control at will with his mind.

He then removes his headband, showing his guests a diamond shard, matching those found in all of his automata, embedded deep in his brain, before giving Passepartout an ominous warning to pass on to the rest of Europe about what awaits them should they make an enemy of the Zulu Federation. Summoning his personal airship from the skies above his palace, he offers Fogg and Passepartout passage to their choice of either Bhayi or Antananarivo. Should they decide to go to Madagascar, Cetshwayo will tell of how he is good friends and allies with Queen Ranavalona II and he will call her up to arrange a meeting for them upon their arrival in the capital.

Character[]

Cetshwayo is unmistakably powerful, flaunting his Artificers and kingdom in an attempt to show his strength to the West. Passepartout can find him admirable or somewhat insane.

Trivia[]

  • He is based on the real King Cetshwayo of the Zulu Kingdom, who came into power after his father's death in 1872 and held the same hatred towards Europeans as in the game. He was feared because of his ruthlessness. The war against British, while in the game he was in war with them, the actual war was actually started in 1878. The Zulus won the first battle in Isandlwana, although possessing inferior technology and weaponry, striking fear and humiliation into the British. The war, however, was won by British, and thereafter they took a more aggressive approach to the Zulu.
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