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There were actually two noteworthy people named Otanes kicking around the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE. One was the son of a judge named Sisamnes, who was charged with corruption by Cambyses and had his skin flayed. In order to keep the boy Otanes from getting any funny ideas of his own, Cambyses had the skin upholstered onto the judge's seat as a permanent reminder of what it means to cross the king's laws. Yeesh- Thankfully for this guy, he is not that Otanes. This Otanes was a Persian nobleman, the son of Pharnaspes and thus brother to Cyrus the Great's wife, Cassandane (maybe, more on that in a bit). He was also the father of Phaedymia, the wife of Cyrus's son Bardiya, because recessive genes were always fashionable among noblemen I guess. Actually, in truth, this level of incest was actually frowned upon even in Achaemenid society. It was one of the many sins that Bardiya and his mad brother Cambyses were accused of as justification for King Darius's usurpation. As much as I've already thoroughly bashed Darius for his nasty habit of mass propaganda, this one may actually be the fault of Herodotus. See, Darius himself lists his trusted comrade Otanes as the son of Thukhra, not Pharnaspes. Which yes, does bring our Otanes count up the three if this is indeed a different man from the brother of Cassandane. Hopefully you're already starting to see how much of a pain in the ass it was to make an NPC out of this guy.

Whichever he is, this is the Otanes who helped Darius overthrow his son-in-law in 522 BCE. When Phaedymia became suspicious of her husband's sudden change in personality, she snuck into his bedroom and revealed that his ears were missing. This seemed to prove that Cambyses had killed his real brother and replaced him with a body double, see "Bardiya" for more on that. She alerted her father, and Otanes assembled a crack team of six conspirators (Darius included) to have the false king assassinated. Since Cambyses committed suicide around the same time, and both of the brothers were heirless, the conspirators were left to figure out what should become of the Empire. Otanes, being the most senior and respected among them, spoke first, and argued that the time of oppressive autocrats should come to an end, that the people deserved to live under a democratic constitution and have the power to decide for themselves after being under the thumb of absolute monarchs for so long. His conspirators, presumably blinking one after the other after his beautiful speech like a cartoon, told him that was dumb and lame and that they had to resort to some sort of aristocracy. Otanes, probably realizing he was just too old for this, and knowing when he was outmatched, gave up and asked only that he and his descendants be allowed to live well and in peace. Darius, so nobly heaping the terrible burden of being king unto himself, granted Otanes's request. He continued his career in Darius's army for at least a few more years, reconquering the island of Samos for Syloson after his brother Polycrates finally kicked the bucket. Otanes drops out of the historical record after that… unless he is also the same Otanes who is listed as the father of Xerxes's charioteer… or the father of Xerxes's wife Amestris… we just don't know. If these are all different people then yes that brings us up to potentially five different Otanes kicking around with the Achaemenid Dynasty at the same time. I'm gonna go scream into my pillow now.

Design notes, I could find no images contemporary or modern of Otanes… well, this Otanes at least. There's plenty out there of the son of Sisamnes, because Renaissance and Enlightenment artists just really needed something gruesome to illustrate I guess. Not wanting to be any more confused than I already am, I tried to avoid using these as references. So really I was left to just wing it and try to design a relatively typical Persian nobleman. In the D&D game I ran, I did kind of conflate the conspirator Otanes with the son of Pharnaspes. I wanted to depict him as a kindly old man torn between his family ties and his duty to the people of the Empire. He loved his nephews, whether they were biological or not, and truly wanted to believe they could change, that all their shortcomings and feuds were just growing pains and attempts to live up to Cyrus's reputation. Finding out that Cambyses had murdered his brother and replaced him with a dismissive puppet was the final straw, and he was persuaded that something had to be done, or else Cambyses was going to burn the Empire to the ground. After the deed was done, and Cambyses laid dead at the party's feet, Otanes still felt shameful that it had come to this, and tried to enact reform in the name of the Persian people. And well… you already know how that proposal went.

Description
There were actually two noteworthy people named Otanes kicking around the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE. One was the son of a judge named Sisamnes, who was charged with corruption by Cambyses and had his skin flayed. In order to keep the boy Otanes from getting any funny ideas of his own, Cambyses had the skin upholstered onto the judge's seat as a permanent reminder of what it means to cross the king's laws. Yeesh- Thankfully for this guy, he is not that Otanes. This Otanes was a Persian nobleman, the son of Pharnaspes and thus brother to Cyrus the Great's wife, Cassandane (maybe, more on that in a bit). He was also the father of Phaedymia, the wife of Cyrus's son Bardiya, because recessive genes were always fashionable among noblemen I guess. Actually, in truth, this level of incest was actually frowned upon even in Achaemenid society. It was one of the many sins that Bardiya and his mad brother Cambyses were accused of as justification for King Darius's usurpation. As much as I've already thoroughly bashed Darius for his nasty habit of mass propaganda, this one may actually be the fault of Herodotus. See, Darius himself lists his trusted comrade Otanes as the son of Thukhra, not Pharnaspes. Which yes, does bring our Otanes count up the three if this is indeed a different man from the brother of Cassandane. Hopefully you're already starting to see how much of a pain in the ass it was to make an NPC out of this guy.

Whichever he is, this is the Otanes who helped Darius overthrow his son-in-law in 522 BCE. When Phaedymia became suspicious of her husband's sudden change in personality, she snuck into his bedroom and revealed that his ears were missing. This seemed to prove that Cambyses had killed his real brother and replaced him with a body double, see "Bardiya" for more on that. She alerted her father, and Otanes assembled a crack team of six conspirators (Darius included) to have the false king assassinated. Since Cambyses committed suicide around the same time, and both of the brothers were heirless, the conspirators were left to figure out what should become of the Empire. Otanes, being the most senior and respected among them, spoke first, and argued that the time of oppressive autocrats should come to an end, that the people deserved to live under a democratic constitution and have the power to decide for themselves after being under the thumb of absolute monarchs for so long. His conspirators, presumably blinking one after the other after his beautiful speech like a cartoon, told him that was dumb and lame and that they had to resort to some sort of aristocracy. Otanes, probably realizing he was just too old for this, and knowing when he was outmatched, gave up and asked only that he and his descendants be allowed to live well and in peace. Darius, so nobly heaping the terrible burden of being king unto himself, granted Otanes's request. He continued his career in Darius's army for at least a few more years, reconquering the island of Samos for Syloson after his brother Polycrates finally kicked the bucket. Otanes drops out of the historical record after that… unless he is also the same Otanes who is listed as the father of Xerxes's charioteer… or the father of Xerxes's wife Amestris… we just don't know. If these are all different people then yes that brings us up to potentially five different Otanes kicking around with the Achaemenid Dynasty at the same time. I'm gonna go scream into my pillow now.

Design notes, I could find no images contemporary or modern of Otanes… well, this Otanes at least. There's plenty out there of the son of Sisamnes, because Renaissance and Enlightenment artists just really needed something gruesome to illustrate I guess. Not wanting to be any more confused than I already am, I tried to avoid using these as references. So really I was left to just wing it and try to design a relatively typical Persian nobleman. In the D&D game I ran, I did kind of conflate the conspirator Otanes with the son of Pharnaspes. I wanted to depict him as a kindly old man torn between his family ties and his duty to the people of the Empire. He loved his nephews, whether they were biological or not, and truly wanted to believe they could change, that all their shortcomings and feuds were just growing pains and attempts to live up to Cyrus's reputation. Finding out that Cambyses had murdered his brother and replaced him with a dismissive puppet was the final straw, and he was persuaded that something had to be done, or else Cambyses was going to burn the Empire to the ground. After the deed was done, and Cambyses laid dead at the party's feet, Otanes still felt shameful that it had come to this, and tried to enact reform in the name of the Persian people. And well… you already know how that proposal went.