THE VASTER CONSPIRACY

Vaster Vrain

Officially the Associate Director of the renowned Overdage Galleries in the Breslin Underground City, Vaster uses the gallery’s good name to sneak counterfeit sales records and provenances into institutional archives to legitimize the forgeries his friend, Chaudron, produces.

Formerly a painter himself, Vaster stopped making art and developed a taste for Sperrin whisky when his younger sister vanished from his studio loft forty starcycles ago.

Hain Chaudron

A savant painter who can copy any artist’s style but has trouble coming up with original ideas, Chaudron is a master art forger who also works as an art handler for Overdage Galleries, installing his fakes alongside genuine works in the gallery’s exhibitions.

Rochet Overdage

The owner and director of Overdage Galleries, Overdage inherited the gallery from his father and relies on sales of forgeries crafted by Chaudron and legitimized by Vaster to keep it afloat. A firm believer in Efirian astrology, Overdage retains the services of celebrity augur Walcher Balgrave and relies on his readings of the stars to determine the most auspicious times to install, open, and close exhibitions.

Galena Kohle

An impossibly wealthy heiress whose fortune compounds far faster than she can spend it, “Lady Galena” devotes her life to seeking the sole thing she can’t possibly purchase: sensation.

After buying a vastly overpriced forgery from Vaster, the two of them enter a twisted relationship, each seeking to take advantage of the other to fulfill their selfish desires. Vaster seeks to pilfer as much of her wealth and resources as he can, and Galena seeks the danger and degeneracy of Vaster’s lifestyle and the thrilling new sensations he can provide her.

Meissa Watzenroder

A traveler from the Zeelean Regency on the other side of the world, Meissa frequently visits the Breslin Underground City. She uses her connections as a member of the Gathering, an elite society of some of the most influential people from Breslin and across the world, to gain access to technology and materials to give her family’s jewelry business an advantage back home in the Regency.

Doctor Govard Rasteban

Chief of Anatomical Studies at Breslin’s War Memorial Hospital, Dr. Rasteban is a tireless researcher who devotes his time to studying the human body’s inner workings, dead or alive or somewhere between. He spends his free time on the frozen, darkward Valbaran continent, performing treatments and experiments at remote mining colonies, lighthouses, and abandoned manor houses.

Many of Dr. Rasteban’s treatments are considered unconventional at best, and he has often had to use his standing in Breslin’s medical community and high society to get away with experiments many would consider unethical.

Balladine Avemore

Antique dealer Ric Cairngorn’s perpetually disgruntled housekeeper, Balladine ends up entwined in Vaster’s scheme to sell forged artifacts. The two of them maintain a fake relationship so Vaster can have an excuse to come over and slip fake files and sales records into Ric’s archives.

Balladine, however, may be more than just a simple housekeeper. Her original employer, Ric’s mother Dr. Darya Cairngorn, was a longstanding member of the Gathering up until her untimely death, after all…

Sovereign Archpriestess Cinehilde Zenara the Illuminator Albamarle

A priestess of the Enshrinement of Lucca, a religion originating from the Zeelean Regency, Cinehilde runs the Shrine of Lucca in the Breslin Underground City. Catering primarily to travelers, exiled war criminals, and a few local converts, the shrine serves as a gathering place for the local Zeelean community and any drunks or addicts who need a quiet candlelit place to sleep things off.

Priestess Miccola Morvenna Bingen

Both a priestess of Lucca and an astronomer, Meissa’s neice Miccola’s time is split between her religious life and her academic interest in the stars, runes, astrology, and the influence that various stellar energies can have over life on Neith.

The only time Miccola doesn’t have a Seven Sword brand cigarette lit is when she’s performing a reading or preaching in front of the pillar at the shrine.

Renata Saenger

A member of a mysterious cult based in a ruined manor house in the darkward snowfields of Valbara, Renata’s entire body is covered with tattoos of arcane sigils, talismans, and inscriptions that she drunkenly scrawled into her flesh with needles and ink. She is an associate of Dr. Govard Rasteban, and it’s rumored that her fragmented mental state may be the result of one of his failed “experiments.”

Onzell Company Mercenaries

Based in the city of Onzell on Maida Isle, sunward of Breslin, the Onzell Company is a mercenary company that provides infantry, gunners, artillery, battlefield engineers, and more during wartime. During peacetime, members of the company serve as bounty hunters, tracking down fugitive debtors, escaped convicts, and anyone else who might provide a sizable bounty to keep their income flowing until the next war breaks out.

The Burgrave

A nobleman from the overseas Zeelean Regency and an acquaintance of Meissa, the Burgrave is a major collector of rare pre-Enshrinement Zeelean and Nealennian artifacts. Preferring to remain anonymous when dealing with antiquities dealers and auction houses, the Burgrave wears a scarf over his face not only to conceal his identity but to block out the Underground City’s humid and smoky air.

Eleasara Balgrave

The younger sister of celebrity augur Walcher Balgrave, Eleasara is also an augur despite being completely blind. Rather than reading star charts, Eleasara uses her sense of smell to recall memories of possible pasts and futures, with each degree of arc of every starcycle associated with a particular blend of perfumes.

Lodencia Vaye

A researcher who was censured and expelled from the Gathering due to unethically recording the last thoughts of her dying patients, Lodencia maintains a makeshift medical practice in the undercity slums, continuing her questionable research into the unnatural preservation of memories.