Darkmeister Ebann (sometimes spelled “Eban”) runs the Goyimian prisoner of war camp that houses (among others) the reluctant Machovian soldiers Moonshadow, Ira, Rigarollo, and Horntoad.
Ebann is rumored to be a terrible tyrant and eater of babies. However, once day Moon runs into him by accident while chasing his cat, Frodo. Instead of killing them, Ebann instead takes them into his protection. He misses his life and family from before the war, and has Moonshadow act as a bit of a court jester for him, playing songs to remind him of his old life.
Ebann is not a pure man of peace; he is responsible for the terrible conditions in the camp. But Moon is able to return some of his “humanity,” even starting a theater troupe with Ira, Horntoad, and Rigarollo that played privately for Ebann.
However, when Moon tries to get Darkmeister Ebann to give their relative freedom to all the prisoners, Ebann reacts badly, unable to grow quite so quickly or so far. He orders them to be executed, although he seems conflicted in doing so.
As they are being lowered into tanks of noxious fluid, the G’L-Doses intervene, and Ira explosively farts his way out of his tank. The fluid floods the camp, and fires break out. The Goyimians run off an leave the camp open. Meanwhile Ebann secretly closes the tanks underneath the Moon and the others, and they escape. Moonshadow finds Ebann, dying, and thanks him for the rescue. Ebann’s last words are, “I don’t understand.” It is unclear whether he is responding to Moonshadow’s thanks, or more likely to his role in the world of war and peace, as a conflicted figure that is both, as Moonshadow call him, a murderer and a savior.