Ambrose Vell
Victim NPC
Grand Cartographer of the Worshipful Company for thirty years — brilliant, vain, and famous for the 'Vell point': he shapes every brush between his lips, and forty years of pigment have tattooed his tongue grey. The…
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Here Be Nothing
A scenario by Murder Maker
- Underworld
- Heritage
- Murder
- Power
- Dilemma
- Conspiracy
- Vengeance
The premise
For one hundred years the Worshipful Company of Cartographers has held the Crown's monopoly on the shape of the world, and tonight — the Centennial Convocation at Vellum Hall — the Royal Charter must be signed anew before dawn or the monopoly lapses forever. But when the doors open, Grand Cartographer Ambrose Vell is found slumped over the Charter itself, his ceremonial brush still in his hand, his lips stained carmine, the famous signature stopped mid-stroke. A Crown Examiner bars the doors. Wardens, widows, route-finders, foreign collectors and company men are sealed in with the body until the Charter is sealed or the guild dies with its master — and somewhere in the hall, someone has learned that the deadliest thing a cartographer ever draws is nothing at all.
The cast
Examiner Corom Hale
Detective
The Crown's Commissioner of Survey, sent to countersign the Centennial Charter. Grey, exact, unhurried. By royal warrant he has barred the doors: no Charter until the death is resolved, and no monopoly if dawn comes…
Warden Cassia Firmament
Suspect
Second Warden of the guild and heir-apparent to the Grand Cartographer's chair — polished, formidable, and campaigning even at a funeral. The Convocation was to end with Vell announcing his endorsed successor. Everyone…
Warden Elian Roke
Suspect
Warden of the Vault of Blanks — keeper of everything the guild was paid not to print. Forty years of service, a voice like dry vellum, and an absolute doctrine: the guild does not err, and what the guild omits, God…
Mistress Merren Voss
Suspect
Keeper of Inks and Colours — twelve years in the loft, hands stained grey to the wrist, clothes carrying the ink-maker's clove-smell that never washes out. The finest colourist the guild has ever employed; her carmine…
Ysolde Vell
Suspect
The Grand Cartographer's second wife — twenty years younger, dressed in mourning that fits too well, dry-eyed and precise. The Vell marriage settlement is, notoriously, a map: her dower parcels inked in her husband's…
Odile Vell
Suspect
The Grand Cartographer's only child — and, by the private admission of half the Low Table, the best draftsman in Vellum Hall. Her father refused, three times and publicly, to enter her name in the apprentice rolls:…
Captain Ino Marsh
Suspect
A route-finder of the Far Society, weather-burnt and famous once: the man who sounded the Grey Strait passage — which appears on guild maps as 'Vell's Passage'. Three days ago, in the Long Gallery, in front of a dozen…
Wren Alder
Witness
A river-pilot of the Milkwater Valley, come uninvited with a petition and staying unignorable: her people have heard the Grand Levee Company sounding their river by night, and the last valley that happened to is not on…
Factor Lucan Sorrel
Suspect
Factor of the Grand Levee Company — velvet, patient, and generous with other people's futures. The Company builds the canals and levee lakes that are making the realm rich, and Sorrel is the man who makes the paperwork…
Chevalier Aramis Fox
Suspect
A foreign 'collector of cartographic curiosities' with a legation address, immaculate gloves and a cologne that arrives before he does. He attends every guild function, buys every apprentice a drink, and has never once…
Pip Halloway
Witness
The youngest apprentice in Vellum Hall — quick-handed, chronically underfed, and lately walking around with the stunned look of someone whose luck has turned twice in one week. Pip's presentation vellum, due before the…
Casper Lume
Suspect
Master engraver of Vellum Hall — forty years at the burin, eyes going, hands still true, gin never far. The plates of half the realm passed through his bench. He talks to his work, and lately the work has been talking…
Dame Hepsiba Wick
Suspect
The guild's senior limner — sixty years of sea-monsters, compass roses and gilded margins, and a memory for other people's business that the whole hall fears more than the Examiner's warrant. She was at the Low Table…
Serjeant Bellows Krent
Suspect
Beadle and keeper of keys of Vellum Hall — twenty years at the great doors, a key-board like a church organ, and a ledger that is supposed to know where every key in the building slept. He found the body when the bells…
Intrigues
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Keys, Coins and Small TreasonsUnderworld
Every key in Vellum Hall hangs on its proper hook. Ask the beadle. Keep asking.
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Parcels and VowsHeritage
In the Vell family, love is a boundary dispute.
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The Blood LineMurder
He died signing his name, with the only ink in the realm that was his alone.
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The Chair and the NeedlePower
The chair is empty, the endorsement is ash, and dawn is a deadline.
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The Charter at DawnDilemma
By dawn the guild signs its next hundred years — or its own death certificate. Possibly both.
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The Empty PlacesConspiracy
The most expensive thing on a guild map is the place that isn't there.
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The Stolen MeridianVengeance
The strait bears the wrong man's name, and the right man is done asking politely.
Factions & circles
- House VellFamily
- The Far Society of Route-FindersTeam
- The Grand Levee CompanyFaction
- The High TableFaction
- The Low TableStaff
Here Be Nothing
For one hundred years the Worshipful Company of Cartographers has held the Crown's monopoly on the shape of the world, and tonight — the Centennial Convocation at Vellum Hall —…
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