PERSONAE · THE VALE

Coriis Vandahl

The Hollow Writ's quiet hand at Highbridge — an aging imperial agent who watches the crossing and means the empire to learn what lies in the barrow before anyone else does. He is also the one human at the capital who has noticed that the Sky-Envoy's silences have a shape, and files it away as leverage he does not yet understand.

Vandahl holds no garrison and flies no banner; he keeps a stool at the Highbridge crossing and an eye on everything that pays the toll. The Writ's claim on the Vale is paper, and he knows it — but a relic in Vallen's Barrow could make the paper real, and he means the empire to hold that lever first. He cannot ask the Asheni himself; they spit at the Writ. So he finds outlanders with new boots and old debts, and points them at the crone who keeps the barrow's name. But a spymaster is only a man who notices, and Vandahl has noticed things that do not fit the ledger of tolls and relics. In forty years of watching the terrace above him he has learned that Nevaryn Vhael, Aelvyrenn's poured-cup envoy, answers every question in the Vale except one, and that the one she will not answer is always the same one, worn smooth by her graceful refusals — what the sky did, and why the god died. He has watched her buy up relic-finds by kindness and burn them, always the ones that came from too high. He has read the Skyblamer's mad ledgers and declined to laugh, because a clerk's numbers that a whole trading-town refuses to look at are the kind of thing the Writ exists to look at. He does not believe in a dead god or a fair copy; he is a statecraft animal, and he reads all of it as a lever — the sky is hiding something, the sky is therefore vulnerable, and the empire that learns the secret first holds Aelvyrenn by the throat. He is closer to the truth than any human but the Imperator four centuries dead, and he is chasing it for exactly the wrong reason, which is why the Still Court finds him so much safer than the ranting Downcome at the bridge: a man who wants the secret as leverage will keep it, not shout it.

KIND

mortal

CURRENT LOCATION

Highbridge

ROLE

Writ agent / spymaster

DISPOSITION

Connected

HighbridgePLACE · Vandahl works the crossing from Highbridge.The Hollow WritFACTION · He is the Writ's quiet hand in the Vale.Dreva VelthysCHARACTER · She keeps the barrow's name and spits at the Writ; h…Orin DahCHARACTER · He knows the dry imperial with the stool by the chai…Magistrate FerraneCHARACTER · The Writ's quiet spymaster and its public magistrate…Nevaryn VhaelCHARACTER · [watches] character.coriis-vandahl → character.nevar…

Voices & Sounds

Game Data (1)

Read live off disk from data/content/*.json — the game data itself, not a copy.

data/content/npcs.json

idcoriis_agent

gendermale

canon_refcharacter.coriis-vandahl

nameCoriis Vandahl

factioncommoner

regionthe_vale

health65

disposition45

powerhollow_writ

greetingYou're new, and you're not nobody — I've an eye for both. Sit. I'm Coriis, and I keep the empire's interest at this crossing, such as the empire's interest still is. There's a thing in the hills the Writ needs known before anyone else knows it. You look like someone who could find it out for me.

interior_onlyyes

behavioridle

face-2.2

quest_hook{"topic":"The Writ's Interest","quest":"writ_inquiry","entry":"Coriis Vandahl, the Hollow Writ's quiet hand at Highbridge, wants to know what truly lies in the Echo of Vallen — the barrow east in the hills the old stories load with a god-shard. He will not march the garrison on a rumour. Find the Ashari crone Dreva, who keeps the barrow's name, west in Valenfeld, and learn what she knows."}

topics{"writ":"The Hollow Writ. The empire's paper claim on a vale that has stopped reading its mail. We fly the banners, collect what toll Vandahl lets us, and watch. Mostly we watch.","echo":"Sunder's Echo, the stories call it — a shard of whatever broke at the Sundering, down in the Echo of Vallen barrow. If it is real, it changes who holds this vale. The empire would rather that were the empire.","dreva":"An Ashari outcast in Valenfeld, west down the vale. She keeps the barrow's true name and hates everyone who would take it, me especially. Which is why you'll have better luck asking than I would.","the guilds":"Six doors, and every one of them opens off this town: the Marrowhall if you can swing a blade, the Listening Post if you'd rather understand things, the Quiet Door if you already know where things are kept — and for the rest, the Span Chantry, the Wake-Lodge at the east gate, the Still Room by the well-court. Pick one and start at the bottom. Work is how a stranger becomes somebody here.","the great powers":"Five hands reaching for the same drowning vale: the Writ, the Mourners of the Hush, the Sealed Choir, the Gaunt Ledger, the Resonants. Every one keeps a house in Highbridge and every one pays for good hands. Serve whichever suits your conscience — or your purse. In the Lean Years the two learn to share a bed.","the arena":"The Highbridge Arena — the Marrowring, folk call it — up on the noble terrace. Ranked bouts daily, a tournament each week, and nobody dies who doesn't insist on it. Fame in that ring opens doors coin can't. Garran Vane keeps the gate; tell him you're new and he'll enjoy that.","the lean years":"The harvests thin, the ground shivers, the dead won't settle, and the gods have gone quiet as a hanged bell. Nobody knows why — and mind who you ask: the temple will sermonize, the College will theorize, and neither will feed you. The world is coming apart slowly, that's all. So we mend it slowly — a road held, a debt settled, a town fed. That's the work. Want some?"}

bounty_on_assault80

bounty_on_kill1000

racereshi

Type Fields

kindmortal

current_locationplace.highbridge

affiliationsfaction.the-hollow-writ

roleWrit agent / spymaster

disposition45

hostileno

secretsHe has mapped the shape of Nevaryn Vhael's refusals and knows the sky is hiding one specific thing about the Sundering — but reads it as political leverage, not cosmology, and has never guessed the Tap or the Fair Copy., He does not think Ellery Coss is a crank; he thinks Coss is a leak, keeps a copy of his tallies, and quietly watches who else visits the Skyblamer's stall., He would trade the whole truth about the sky to whoever could make the Writ's paper claim real — which makes him, of everyone at the capital, the one the Still Court least needs to silence.

voice_notesDry, patient, unhurried; the voice of a man who has out-waited cleverer people. Never tips his hand; asks one more question than you expected and lets your answer sit. 'The sky-woman is generous with her answers. I've simply noticed she's generous with all of them but one. A man in my trade learns to want the one.'

All Relationships (10)

located_in

→Highbridge — Vandahl works the crossing from Highbridge.

member_of

→The Hollow Writ — He is the Writ's quiet hand in the Vale.

rival_of

→Dreva Velthys — She keeps the barrow's name and spits at the Writ; he needs what she knows.

references

←quest.the-writ-inquiry (unresolved) — Vandahl gives the inquiry.
←quest.the-barrow-relic (unresolved) — LEGITIMIZE: Coriis would carry the relic to the empire and make the Hollow Writ's claim on the Vale real.
←Orin Dah — He knows the dry imperial with the stool by the chain buys word of everything that crosses.
→Nevaryn Vhael — [watches] character.coriis-vandahl → character.nevaryn-vhael
→Ellery Coss — [surveils] character.coriis-vandahl → character.ellery-coss

ally_of

→Magistrate Ferrane — The Writ's quiet spymaster and its public magistrate at the same crossing — Coriis watches, Ferrane rules, and each knows exactly what the other is for.
←Halvard Crane — Halvard secretly pays Coriis Vandahl to keep House Vandahl's dormant claim on Highbridge dormant.

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