The Unstrung Chord

A Vyr scholar unmade into the leader of the Discord — a mind frayed chasing a design that was never meant to be finished, a body remade by the failed device it carries.

It had a name and a chair at the Listening College once. Then it stopped studying old Imperium salvage at a safe distance and started testing a design fragment it was never meant to see, and what came back wears its old body but answers only to the Unstrung Chord — the staff it grew from the failed device, still carrying whatever half-finished plan hollowed it out. It feeds captives to the design to see what completing it makes of them, and it does not remember its own name unless the staff is made to give it back. It is not mad in the raving sense. It is simply given over to finishing something no living thing should be made to finish.