Master Otto

Master Otto is the ranking master of the witch hunters in the district of Sınır Sapı in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). He says that he was appointed in the name of the Council of the witch hunters, and that he was born and raised in Ak Şelale.¹²³

Appearance and reputation

Otto is a well-kept man in his forties who carries three long swords. Two look to be of steel or silver, their scabbards worked with griffin heads and wings; the third is of a dark, unknown metal and bears a motif of rock or mountains. He tells that a dwarf friend gave him a weapon after Otto killed a griffin that had slain the dwarf's kin. He also wears a pendant with a round stone, which he turned in his fingers as he took his leave.⁴²⁵

The elf commander Ignorr describes him as ruthless, impatient and at times careless, but no fool, a man who will give ground when his cause demands it. Ignorr said that Otto took an interest in Jonathan River's arrival but was busy with an inquiry in the countryside.¹⁶

The commission

Otto first hailed Jonathan and Olaf from his carriage as they left the elves' post, saying it was time they met. He took them politely into the carriage. He did not think they had brought the sickness, but he wanted to know how they had come into a closed district.⁷⁴⁸

He set terms: if they were gone for more than five days without word, he would send hunters after them, though for other business a letter or a word to any hunter would do; he also spoke of keeping them in a cell instead. There were ways to learn things without torture, he said, but he had no resources to spare for them.⁹³

At the hunters' camp he told them of his suspicion of a captain under the major Lucius Cardoor, who had several times left the town with only a few men, and asked them not to kill him but to search his house in secret. He agreed that firm proof of treachery would go to the major, but held that spreading a lead too early would lose its links; and he promised not to send hunters after them if the search forced them to flee.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Working with Jonathan

After an explosion in the forest most of the hunters went out to the countryside. Jonathan sent Otto a message by Sending: he had found something, and the explosion had been his doing. Otto answered that they would talk when he returned.¹³

When the two came back to their inn room, Otto was waiting there with his men; they had broken the lock spell to get in. He told them that in the countryside his men had fought drow in a hidden part of a cave and found a map there, and he showed them two short swords. The map marked the same places as the notes Jonathan had copied from Captain Markus's house. Otto thought Markus might have sensed the danger of the envelope found there without being a mage, and left it unopened.^14151617

At Jonathan's request he laid a hand on his shoulder, and the grip was felt as strong magic and pain. He explained that the hunters' common code comes before any one man's orders, and that his men would not obey an improper command. He asked Jonathan to stay in the town and look into the one who signed as V while Markus was watched, planning to strike the marked places in the countryside all at once so that no links were lost; the two agreed to keep in touch by Sending.^1819205

When Jonathan later questioned Markus, he held Otto up as proof that the hunters could be reasoned with: a man who would sit at one table with a mage.²¹²²

Spoiler: What Otto was not toldRevealSpoils: Zincirsiz #13 · Say what you have read

The governor said that the story of the sickness had been told to Otto as the truth, and that he did not know it was a cover.²³²⁴

After the cave

At the rulers' dinner Otto thanked Jonathan and Olaf. He hinted that they might have done things that could bear looking into, but said the hunters would open no inquiry. In place of Jonathan's lost mage's papers, he agreed to send word so that a hunters' captain on the road to Akşelale would sign a letter for him.²⁵²⁶