Augustine Chotek

“History does not vanish. It waits.”

A well-spoken traveler with refined habits and careful eyes, Augustine Chotek carries himself as though he once belonged to rooms far grander than the mud of Emberwood.

He has never said so directly.

Who He Is

Augustine arrived in Drakkenheim with little explanation beyond a quiet insistence that the city’s past still matters.

He speaks fluently of court etiquette, inheritance law, and the weight of precedent. He corrects titles instinctively. He notices seals, crests, and architectural details others overlook.

Whether that knowledge comes from study — or experience — he has not clarified.

Why He Came to Drakkenheim

Augustine believes something important was lost when the city fell.

Not merely buildings or wealth.

Records.
Truth.
Legitimacy.

He claims that somewhere within the ruined estates and shattered cathedrals lies proof of something that should not have been forgotten.

He does not elaborate.

Personality

• Polished and deliberate
• Soft-spoken, even when firm
• Attentive to hierarchy
• Rarely reactive

He frames decisions as necessary rather than desirable.

He does not appear interested in coin for its own sake.

Reputation (So Far)

• Educated beyond most frontier adventurers
• Skilled at negotiation
• Strategic in conversation
• Guarded about his personal history

While others chase fortune in the ruins, Augustine seems to be chasing something older.

Present Status

Operating from Emberwood Village with the party, Augustine ventures into the ruins with clear purpose — though that purpose remains only partially explained. Emberwood's old families know the name Chotek is back. A face at Reed Manor says his blood once held a house in this city. And the Hooded Lanterns have trusted him with a commission into a meeting the Queen's Men are arranging.

Drakkenheim buried more than stone beneath its ash.

He intends to uncover it.

Recent Developments

A Name Remembered

Word has begun to circulate in Emberwood that a Chotek is in the village.

Kosta Stavros, who keeps the Red Lion Hotel, sent Augustine a courteous note in late Springtide. A small luncheon was being assembled — a gathering of old Drakkenheim families, the kind who still remember the names that used to matter. Augustine had been requested by name.

He accepted the invitation. The gathering is scheduled for the next several days.

Some of the names on that guest list have not been spoken aloud in Emberwood in years.

The Face on the Wall

At Reed Manor, while the party was conducting business with the man who currently occupies the house, Augustine saw a portrait above the dining room mantelpiece. A faded family scene from the late pre-fall years. Father, mother, two daughters, a son.

He knew the woman in the center.

The set of her eyes. The line of her jaw. She had Chotek features, mirrored back at him from a wall in a house he had never set foot in before. After a moment, the rest of the party saw it too.

She was his maternal great-aunt, or someone close enough that the difference no longer mattered.

Reed Manor had been a Reed family seat before the fall. Augustine's bloodline, by way of this woman, branched into that house. By the old customs of pre-fall Drakkenheim, that connection carried weight. By the customs of the present, who can say.

The portrait remained on the wall when the party left. The conversation had moved on. There was business to conclude, and a man at the table whose company did not invite genealogical inquiry.

Augustine did not raise it again that day.

He has not forgotten it.

What He Should Have Said

The portrait at Reed Manor stayed with him. It had been so long since he'd seen a face of his own blood that he'd assumed he never would again. He regrets not being more confrontational when he had the chance. That house was owned by his family.

The Piano

At the Black Ivory Inn, when the party moved to break the night that had held the Inn for fifteen years, it was Augustine's thunderwave that knocked Miss Charlotte back from her piano and tipped it over. While the others pulled the paladin Anika Patel into a back room to talk, Augustine quietly wedged the party's immovable rod into the piano's side so no one could stand it back up.

Luncheon at the Red Lion

Augustine kept his invitation from Kosta Stavros. The table at the Red Lion Hotel held what's left of Drakkenheim's old nobility: Lady Miriam Thorne, still dressed for a court that no longer exists; Julian Marrow, sharper-eyed than his age suggests; and a thoroughly drunk Baron Corvin Ashby. The talk was gossip, fine wine, and old history about a crown that has sat empty for fifteen years. See The Von Kessel Succession.

Stavros was more interested in stories than answers. He offered coin for anything salvaged from the Ivory Inn, and a standing wager that Augustine would find something he wasn't looking for before he found what he was.

A Request from the Watchtower

Between fight nights at Buckledown Row, Augustine paid Ansom Lang a visit at the Watchtower. Ansom was taken aback to learn the party was working with the Queen's Men, and fighting in illegal pits besides. Augustine told him it was purely for information, and for a contact with the Ironhelm dwarves.

That got Ansom's attention. The Ironhelms make fine weapons and munitions, and he'd like Ironhelm guns for the Lanterns. He asked Augustine to find out how a weapons trade could work — perhaps with Lantern patrols or men offered to keep the dwarves safe.

Augustine now carries a commission from the Hooded Lanterns into a meeting the Queen's Men are arranging.

Most recent session: Session 19 - The Queen Walked Out