NPC Gallery

Aliénor is the aging viceroy of Châtelleries, as well as the Duchess of Langres. She is the latest in a line of dukes and duchesses four centuries old who have caused no end of trouble for the King of Eoran, or so you’ve heard from Yvette d’Eaurgentée when she passed by last.

Avelline is the newlywed wife of Étienne and is insufferably lovesick around her new husband. Her parents passed away when she was rather young and she was raised in part by Bayard, who disapproved of her marriage to Étienne for the simple reason that the latter is nearly landless and made a living from selling squirrel and fox pelts, while the former owned, among other things, four dairy cows inherited from her father’s herd; however, her pregnancy made Bayard’s opinion a moot point, though he had to be restrained from giving the boy a solid kick between the legs.

Bayard is a grumpy man who loves only three things: fermented turnips, beer, and Charlotte. He is unmarried and has spent most of his life pining after the resident elf, who in turn treats him much the same as anyone else in the village, since as everyone knows elves are not for marriage. Bayard travelled in his youth alongside Charlotte and La Hire, and a dwarven herbalist who has since moved back to Vivier Peak, and the group of them once slew a Winged Lion.

Bertrand is the withered, stooped patriarch of Pontaubert, a decade and a half older than the next oldest man and seemingly as hale as the day he turned fifty, so long as he remains seated. His hearing on the left side has gone and he has lost most of his teeth. Bertrand never had any sons, and his three daughters married out into Terrefroid, so he is mostly known as the cheerful old man who lives alone in an old house which will probably pass to his second cousin Bayard when he dies. He has a good relationship with Myurin and can often be seen tottering out to the bald hill to meet her.

Blanche is the daughter of Perrin and Marion, and one of the most eligible young women in all of Pontaubert even though she is a poor seamstress, because Perrin owns the only clay oven in the village while Marion owns the mill, so whoever marries Blanche is primed to have his children inherit everything needed to turn grain into bread. Blanche herself is somewhat spoiled and bratty.

Charlotte is the resident elf of Pontaubert. Despite being almost 40 she looks no older than 20, and she is infamous for preying on essentially every man in the village and also providing fairly hands-on education to couples, or men and the occasional woman who is not yet part of a couple. Charlotte is an extremely skilled seamstress and she has contacts in Vauclerc, and her income dwarfs that of everyone else in the village save Jacques and Marion. She once travelled as an adventurer alongside La Hire and Bayard alongside a dwarf, but did not much enjoy the experience and is not eager to share stories.

Colin is the son of Jacques and Guillemette. He is best known for being an annoying prankster who would do well to learn from his older brother Gaston’s example. Most of the older children dislike him because Colin has a tendency to insert himself into conversations he is not wanted in and also has a tendency to never shut up.

Étienne is a slender young man who was the son of a hunter. Said hunter was killed by a great black bear and Étienne’s life goal is to avenge his father by slaying the bear, or at least slaying three bears if he can’t find the original. Étienne is currently shamed by his inability to kill so much as a beaver despite his ability to trap squirrels and hunt even wolves and deer. Even though he brought down a boar last year there were still whispered jokes about his arrows being defeated by beavers the size of a cow’s rear. Étienne is recently married to Avelline and is expecting his first child quite soon.

Gaston is the son of Jacques and Guillemette, who despite his youth is already clearly destined for great things, or at least things as great as can be expected of a villager. He is tall and strong and handsome, and both responsible and witty. He is skilled at the things a man ought to be skilled at — repairs, fencing, scything, farming — and once killed a charging wolf with a hurled spear at thirty paces. He is elder brother of Colin and Perrette, and is apprenticed to his father as a blacksmith.

Guillemette is the wife of Jacques and the daughter of Jehan. She has a grudge against Charlotte because the latter spent an enormous amount of time hanging around Jacques twenty years ago when Guillemette was trying to seduce her future husband and never misses an opportunity to talk poorly of her. However she is kind and supportive to near everyone else, and her honeycakes have greatly boosted the reputation of her husband’s household.

Jacques is the husband of Guillemette and the father of Gaston, Perrette, and Colin. He is the acting Alderman of the village, since nobody else wants to play the part, and also the village smith. He was charismatic and decisive even as a child, and as a middle aged man he works to resolve conflicts in the village and also represents the interests of Pontaubert in Vauclerc’s public assembly. Jacques is the one who usually buys things that Pontaubert needs from Vauclerc whenever he visits and he has many friends in the town.

Jehan is an older, pot-bellied man who has gone slightly mad over the years eating strange mushrooms and speaking to Masseinelle. Nobody is more knowledgeable about the Dead than Jehan save for Masseinelle, and nobody is more knowledgeable about herbs than Jehan save for Myurin either, though he is never to be trusted with a concoction that he says is “mostly” harmless or “basically” safe, as those concoctions can afflict a man with visions of strange colours for a whole day. Jehan is the father of Guillemette and it remains a mystery how such a strange man came to have such a normal daughter, though the older folk will say that he used to be more normal before he began his mushroom habit.

Louis, or as he calls himself La Hire, is a constantly drunk man who never misses an opportunity to boast about his past deeds and show off his prodigious strength. No one knows where he gets the wine to get drunk. His wife died in childbirth along with his infant son and La Hire turned strange afterwards. Despite his able means and no shortage of suitors La Hire never remarried and spends all of his free time reliving past greatness on logs with his old sword. He once travelled with Bayard, Charlotte, and a dwarf who has since moved back to his own home on the Vivier Peak.

Mahaut is the daughter of Tancrède and Rēdagunþs|. She is beautiful in the way that peasant girls are not supposed to be beautiful and skilled as a woman ten years older than she is at near everything a woman is meant to do — childcare, weaving, cooking, housework — and she is also fully literate, owing to her father’s education. Mahaut enjoys swimming and is also the best runner of anyone in the village, and can run all the day to Vauclerc and back on a cool day.

Marika von Habsburg was one of the five who supposedly won immortality from the Crowned City. She now lives in, and governs, a small portion of the City. Marika has very little to do with the peaceful village of Pontaubert, but you know the name, as heralds announced her triumph some fifty years ago and the old men and women of Pontaubert can recall the name.

Marion is the wife of Perrin and mother of Blanche, and is the owner of the mill by the river. Her family long ago was probably very minor nobility since according to Yvette d’Eaurgentée’s stories only nobles owned mills, but if they were their status has long since been forgotten. People often suspect Marion of somehow rigging the scales and taking too much for the mill-toll but Marion also helps fund large purchases of iron tools or good boots from Vauclerc, so people can’t get too mad. Only a little mad. Most of the time.

Masseinelle is the cryptlord of Pontaubert and takes the form of a gaunt woman with a skeletal face. As per tradition she expects to be consulted on serious matters, and she sometime will leave her graveyard to wander at the edge of the village. She enjoys gossip and wine and has the mannerisms of an old man despite her form. Recently her graveyard has been flooded by the beaver pond, making it somewhat harder for people to visit her.

Myurin is the local alraune who can be found just past the broken crane on the bald hill outside of the village. She spends all of her time courting bees and hummingbirds and weaving strange fabrics of leaves and petals, and has little to offer mere mortals. However, she makes an exception for Bertrand, whose elder brother originally planted her, and often sends bees to request his presence. What they talk about, no one knows, and Bertrand claims to not remember.

Perrette is the daughter of Guillemette and Jacques, younger sister of Gaston and elder sister of Colin. She is a somewhat gloomy girl who has ambitions to be a professional seamstress like Charlotte but her mother, probably understandably, has been opposed to Perrette spending too much time around the elf. However, Perrette has already finished three entire pillowcases, one of which is pleasingly patterned, and in the future it is likely Charlotte will leave her loom to the young girl.

Perrin is the local oven-master and owns the only clay oven in town. He is husband to Marion and father of Blanche, and he is known for having been somewhat miserly and calculating even as a child — he married Marion, three years his elder, and fathered a child at fifteen, and it remains a mystery how a beardless youth like Perrin could have charmed the then-famous-for-her-coldness Marion. Perrin has ambitions to marry Blanche to Gaston in order to consolidate even more of the village infrastructure into his household but the rest of the village opposes this for obvious reasons. Perrin’s miserliness does not extend to his daughter and she wears clothing dyed bright in Vauclerc.

Qing Jingjiang is the elder sister of Qing Xuemei and the young mistress of the Qing household led by Saysahn. She lives in the Crowned City alongside her mother and their household and rarely leaves the City, or indeed the walled garden of her house. She is not yet of age and therefore lacks a courtesy name.

Rēdagunþs is a nun of the Temple of Ninanna, the wife of Tancrède and mother of Mahaut, who grew up far away from Pontaubert, and she has the ice blue eyes and unpronounceable name to prove it. She is exceptionally talented at winemaking and also, unusually for the Ninannan clergy, learned some midwifery at the infirmary also. Unlike her husband, she is much louder and more insistent on the moral superiority of Ninanna (and by extension, Pantokra) and while she does not insist that festivals and sacrifices stop, she is always very disapproving when people actually consult with the opinions of Masseinelle and Tialline.

Saysahn is a member of the Kansurin Censorate who is based in the Crowned City, but tours the countryside on Marika’s bidding.

Sébille is an old woman who grandly proclaims herself to be “basically dead” and who spends much of her time chatting with Masseinelle about times past. Sébille’s grandmother once told her that her own grandmother had seen the day when Masseinelle first rose from the dust and Sébille has since been fascinated with the Dead to the anger of her mother, who never quite forgave her mother-in-law for planting the idea into Sébille’s head and making her too strange to find a match. Sébille knows almost everything there is to know about everyone, and knows even more about brewing drink, but she is much too old to do the latter herself. She is still eagerly welcomed when she appears unannounced to dispense advice because no ale or beer has ever gone bad or flat when her advice is followed and the berries she specifies added to the mix.

Tancrède is the local priest of Pantokra and His representative in the village. He is a friendly and good-natured man who lives up to the ideals of the Pantokran clergy. He answers to the Bishop of Châtelleries in theory, and underwent training in his youth at the chapel of Vauclerc but was born in Pontaubert. He is the father of Mahaut and the husband of Rēdagunþs. He is somewhat disapproving of Tialline and especially Myurin being mentioned in the same breath as Pantokra; however he grew up among them and his disapproval is somewhat half-hearted.

A crew of incredibly overweight beavers have moved into Pontaubert starting around a decade ago and created a dam that has blocked one of the tributaries to the Tialline. This has created a large pond that drowned most of Thomelin’s fields, cut off Masseinelle’s graveyard, and also is teeming with lazy fish. The beavers can often be seen scurrying around and chopping down trees, and juvenile beavers also sometimes pass through the middle of Pontaubert looking vaguely lost. The beavers have never been successfully hunted in any capacity — and arrows always miss and they’re always too clever for traps — it is possible they are more than simply mundane.

Thomelin is perhaps the angriest old man in the village, but unlike all the other angry old men, most people understand his anger. The beavers that moved in a decade ago created a pond that flooded most of his father’s fields, and he has had to clear a large swathe of meadow just to get enough land to farm. However the beavers continually heighten the dam, causing him even more distress, and he can often be found dismantling parts of the dam in an attempt to salvage his harvest, though it is always repaired within a few days. Some have suggested that he take up timbering instead; none had ever seen a field cleared faster than Thomelin’s red-faced frenzy eight years ago.

Tialline is the nymph of the river that shares her name and can be found in the Tialline Combe, as well as all other points on the river if she decides to manifest there. Her power is awesome and all the villages which live on her banks rightfully worship her as a minor goddess, but Tialline herself rarely pays too much attention to the finite beings that gather on her shores. Instead she amuses herself by causing songbirds to form dance shows, creating abstract art from the silt that flows inside her, and kidnapping good-looking youngsters. She has recently become obsessed with garlic bread in particular.

Yvette d’Eaurgentée is a pseudodemon who originally hailed from a town to the East where the water that comes from the well is mysteriously silver-white until it meets the sun. She is a travelling singer and a storyteller who spends some of her time in her hometown and some of her time around Vauclerc. Her most recent visit to Pontaubert was four years ago, when she talked about nobles and kings and queens and dukes and other things you’ll probably never meet in person.