Pobidiah Unkshuss

Major Story Arcs

The Unkshuss family are malicious humanoid aliens that sort of resemble Dr. Seuss characters, and control the Machovian empire from behind the scenes. The family patriarch is Pobidiah, who is a religious leader akin to the pope, as well as the builder of the Machovian home planet of Gimmegimme. His children are Jobidiah, Mobidiah, and Flobidiah. Jobidiah is an oligarch and owns most of the businesses on Gimmegimme. Mobidiah is the thug-like enforcer who does the dirty work. Flobidiah is the "black sheep" of the family, in the sense that she is kind hearted, but she usually does what Mobidiah says.

Pobidiah first encounters Moonshadow after Moon becomes a war hero. He and Ira end up at the palace. It soon becomes clear that Pobidiah is the real power behind the throne. Since he owns all of Gimmegimme, the true king, King Macha, is forced to (literally) kiss up to him and do what he says. Pobidiah has a variety of religious titles to back up his power, such as Pious Rabbi, although he is not actually Jewish (or religious at all). Half of Machovia is said to be on his payroll. He goes so far as to ban all books except his own, The Collected Wisdom of Pobidiah Unkshuss., which is just pictures of himself.

Moon realizes that Pobidiah is behind many of the plans that he has run into. Pobidiah instigated the current long-standing war between Machovia and another empire, Goyimia, from which he profits. He occasionally sends the king into a lunatic asylum to keep a better hold on power. And he gets Mobidiah to brainwash Ira to go on tour promoting the war.

Pobidiah soon realizes that Moon will be a thorn in his control of the kingdom. He manipulates events to get Moon charged with raping the Lady Shady, whom Pobidiah is apparently blackmailing, and who lies in support of the false charges. Pobidiah has all of Moon's own books burned and banishes him. Then he orders everyone on Gimmegimme that they can't give him food or a job.

Moon wanders helplessly until meeting Lord Gaylord, who has found a way to stop the war with Goyimia, thus earning Pobidiah's enmity. However, for now Moon and Gaylord go off to another planet and live peacefully. Unfortunately the Lady Shady kills herself, presumably out of guilt over what she did to Moon.

When Moon leaves to save Ira, Pobidiah has Gaylord's home destroyed, apparently killing him and his lover. Moon is stunned. He is eventually captured by Pobidiah's minions and he and Ira are put in his dungeon.

He says (insincerely) he has just truly converted to religion and needs to purge Moon and Ira's hearts. He gloats and harangues them, saying they need to convert. He threatens them at gunpoint, but Ira breaks their chains, and Moon takes Pobidiah's gun and shoots him (non-fatally).

Soon after Queen Dibbich manages to take back control of the kingdom, and captures and presumably jails Pobidiah's sons. However, Pobidiah has an actual religious conversion as result of his near-death experience, and becomes an honestly kind-hearted person for the rest of his days.