Adrien de Montferrand

Characteristics

Derived

Combat

Status

• [ ] Temporary Insanity
• [ ] Indefinite Insanity
• [ ] Major Wound
• [ ] Unconscious
• [ ] Dying

Personal Description: Tall (6’1"), athletic, with sun-darkened skin and roughened hands from long days outdoors. His dark blond hair curls loosely at the temples; his eyes are a striking blue-gray, intense yet kind. His posture is military, but his clothes – a deep green coat, cream waistcoat, and riding boots rather than dancing slippers – mark him as a man more at home in the field than the ballroom. A thin scar crosses his left jaw, and when the light hits his eyes just right, a faint tremor of exhaustion shows beneath the poise.

Traits: Charming but quietly haunted. Polite enough for any drawing room, but carries the stillness of someone who has seen death in unnatural forms. Speaks plainly and avoids empty flattery. Deeply empathetic toward those bearing invisible burdens. Speaks softly, often with wry humour. Moves like a man always half-ready to fight or flee. Notices details others overlook – a trembling hand, a false smile, the scent of blood. Keeps a notebook filled with sketches of bones, insects, and ruins.

Ideology & Beliefs: Does not believe in God in the conventional sense – he believes in “forces” and “patterns.” Driven by the need to prevent others from experiencing the horrors he witnessed in the Pyrenees. The innocent must be protected, particularly those whose minds have already been scarred by what they have seen.

Significant People:

• Caroline Hartley – romantic interest, chosen openly at the Masquerade. Was a Brotherhood reserve target inside the University; recovered at the end of the Vienna assault (Session 14). Thread closed since Chapter 4, Session 1 – see Current Status.
• Comte Emeric de Puyrault – old friend who introduced him to the investigators in Lyon
• Marina Garrick – his emotional and intellectual mirror; killed in Lyon. Their connection was built on the recognition of shared scars.
• Lord Percival Harcourt – Order commander who recruited him

Meaningful Locations:

• Le Coteau des Ombres – His family hunting lodge north of Lyon, a converted Roman watchtower overlooking the Rhone valley. Contains the Montferrand Collection.
• Palais Kinsky – His Vienna residence; site of the Nightgaunt battle. Charlotte still convalesces there.
• The Pyrenees Abbey – where his patrol encountered something “older than God” and only he and one other man returned.

Treasured Possessions:

• His field notebook – sketches of bones, insects, ruins, and observations from years of travel
• The Resonance Compass – his experimental harmonic detection device
• Aelfric Cravat Pin – symbol of his Order initiation (received Session 5)

• Chapter 2 – Orphans’ Hospital: Wounded during the Blue Sash reinforcement assault at the rear of the hospital. Recovered before the road to Vienna.
• Session 9 – Masquerade Fall: Fell from a broken window at Palais Lobkowitz during the escape; caught and cushioned by Varrio on the port-cochere below. No lasting injury.

Phobia — Meat (Session 13): Developed after watching Varrio cut open the Wächter at the safehouse and seeing human viscera spill across the table. The creature’s human-origin organs — recognisable, wet, and wrong — were the sight that broke something in Adrien’s clinical distance. The phobia is new and its precise triggers (raw meat, butchery, surgical openings) remain to be established in play.

None. Cthulhu Mythos 08% derives from the Pyrenees incident, not from study.

• The Pyrenees Abbey (pre-campaign): During the campaigns against Spanish guerillas, Adrien’s patrol discovered an abandoned abbey where the monks had worshiped something “older than God.” Only he and one other man returned. The rest of the patrol vanished into the mountain mist, their screams echoing for hours. This is the foundational trauma of his life and the source of his Cthulhu Mythos knowledge.
• The Formless Spawn (Chapter 2 – Lyon): Present at the Goupil masquerade where the party witnessed a Formless Spawn ritual and child sacrifice at the Maison du Corbeau.
• The Nightgaunt (Session 6): The creature crawled down the exterior of Palais Kinsky, shattered Charlotte’s window, and attacked the party. Adrien delivered the killing blow, driving his sword through the faceless entity and pinning it to the wall. It dissolved into black goo.
• Harmonische Wächter (Session 8-9): Three Wächter deployed at the Palais Lobkowitz Masquerade via Adler’s command tuning fork. Bronze-scaled, almost-human creatures – the failed integration subjects of the Engine. Two were killed by fire (Varrio); one was controlled briefly by Georgiana through the fork and then burned.

• Emma Wentworth – companion since Lyon
• Georgiana Wentworth – companion since Lyon
• Freddy Cavendish – joined in Vienna (Session 6)
• Katherine Ward – Order operative, joined in Vienna (Session 7)
• Varrio Harrowmont – companion since the road to Vienna

At the Auberge du Muski, Cairo, mid-September 1814, having crossed from Alexandria via Rosetta and the Nile aboard a hired dahabiya ([Chapter 4](…/…/chapters/Chapter 4 - Calcutta/chapter-4-overview.html), Session 4). Physically uninjured through the becalming and the Egypt overland leg.

The Caroline situation is closed. She was recovered from the University and the theatre at the end of the Vienna assault (Session 14); Adrien carried her out himself and delivered her to the Hartleys at Palais Kinsky. When Mrs Hartley called him Caroline’s “betrothed,” he withdrew from the family entirely and never said goodbye — he heard her singing, scarred but intact, from elsewhere in the hotel before the party left Vienna (Chapter 4, Session 1), and has had no contact with her or the Hartleys since. She is no longer inside the University and no longer a Brotherhood target; the thread requires no further tracking.

During the becalming aboard La Speranza (Sessions 2-3), Adrien brokered the crew’s response to the crisis: he secured the cabin key from Captain Zanier and negotiated the rope tether before the crew threw Endicott overboard as a sacrifice, then spent the following day working the frightened crew with rum and patience. When the dead climbed the hull on the second night, he held the defensive line at the rail while Katherine broke and fled below and Georgiana alone carried the funeral rite to its end.

In Alexandria (Session 3) he formed a connection with Capitaine Thibault, a retired French officer of the Armée d’Orient, whose advice on the Rosetta river route shaped the passage to Cairo, and drew a line of credit through the French merchant house Maison Roux on Thibault’s introduction. In Alexandria’s victualing market (Session 4, corrected – previously misdated to Cairo), a one-eyed veteran called Mansour fell into parade step beside Adrien, loudly demanding back pay for a donkey he claimed Napoleon owed him – Adrien paid him off with a large coin to be rid of him.

His Calcutta-specific groundwork — Harcourt’s letters of military liaison, access to Fort William, the mess-dinner introduction to Lieutenant Hatcherly of the Bengal Engineers, and the demolitions role earmarked for the eventual counter-ritual assault — has not yet begun. The party has not yet reached India.

• Emeric de Puyrault – His old friend who introduced him to the investigators in Lyon
• Marina Garrick – His emotional and intellectual mirror (Chapter 2)
• Caroline Hartley – Romantic interest (Session 3 onward); was a Brotherhood reserve target (Session 9), recovered and thread closed (Session 14 / Chapter 4, Session 1)
• Palais Kinsky – His Vienna residence
• Le Coteau des Ombres – His family hunting lodge north of Lyon
• Montferrand Collection – His private research archive
• Order of St Aelfric – His current affiliation (recruited Session 5)
• Aelfric Cravat Pin – Order identification, symbol of initiation
• Lord Percival Harcourt – His Order commander
• Campaign Overview Updated – The broader campaign structure
• Charles Duval – His French coachman
• Francois Barbier – His second French coachman
• Thaliastrasse 12 Safehouse – Current safehouse (Session 9 onward)

{Player-facing notes. Protected – skills never modify.}

Tactical Support

• As a Bourbon noble with local estate ties, Adrien can secure legal access papers or nighttime permissions (hunting licenses, carriage passes) giving the party plausible reason to move through restricted districts after curfew
• His estate guards and stablehands can act as temporary NPC allies or distractions during operations
• During confrontations, he has personally contributed armed combat and tactical initiative
• Coachmen Charles and Francois serve as active field support