Orpi

Orpi is the civil head consul of Avlor Aten, a city of the Geroni, in the campaign Yeni Dünya ("New World"). He handles the city's civil and diplomatic affairs and sits on its ruling council beside the military commander Soteris and the judicial official Julia; the tabaxi Kuraks heads the city's detectives, the Eyes of Aten. Orpi favours a diplomatic settlement with the Empire, a view he admits is held by a minority.¹²³

Many bodies, one man

Orpi first met the band of adventurers from Aquila in two identical forms, one wearing a brooch marked with two stones and the other a brooch marked with one. He explained that they were not twins but manifestations of a single person, and that the law requires those with several manifestations to carry numbers. He can feel pain in each of his bodies, but a wound to one does not pass to another.⁴⁵⁶⁷

At the table it was explained that among his people several bodies bear one name, which is why whispering a name to the newborn matters to them, and that conservative elders think it shameful to change one's name or lie about it. Arcanists of his people try to learn the names of the demons active around their cities to defend them.⁸⁹¹⁰

Helping the strangers

When the band arrived in Avlor Aten through a painting and were taken for imperial agents, Orpi heard them out and weighed the chance that a magical object had carried them without intent. He then offered to help them escape, saying that he wanted contacts in Aquila who could send and receive news. He told them to go truly west, away from the great gates, and to meet a contact with a long, bound beard who would let them down the wall by rope; two hours later a bearded tabaxi passed their belongings to them through the window bars. On parting he said he knew the Inran could kill, but feared they would be caught between the Empire and the Geroni cities, whose forces were far greater.^1112131415

He offered his family's old house by a lake to the south-west of the city as a meeting place, and came there about an hour after the band, with a key, wearing his brooch marked one. He told them that the council had decided to hold them in chains for a detailed interrogation, which he admitted meant torture, and that this was unusual for harmless strangers who had cooperated.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

The governor's curse

At the lakeside house Orpi asked the band to carry a warning to the governor of Aquila: what had struck him was not simple poison but an old Inran curse that turns the skin and then the inner organs to wood, which only his own people could stop. He guessed that the governor had at least a few months but less than a year, and said that persuading a powerful healer of his people would take time and political effort. He did not want the governor carried off, only told through a channel he trusted, and feared that if the governor died, the hard-handed legion commander would take his place.¹⁹²⁰²¹

He gave them a letter under his own seal that said only that its bearers spoke for him, leaving out every detail in case it was captured, and offered money for the road and for bribes, with more on success. He could reach them with mental messages and receive their answer, but knew no way for them to reach him unaided.²²²³²⁴

Spoiler: At the lakeRevealSpoils: Yeni Dünya #11; Yeni Dünya #12 · Say what you have read

While they spoke, another of Orpi's forms had gone to his office in the city. As beds were being settled for the night, he suddenly said that he had been attacked, and running footsteps were heard outside. That form was killed; the Orpi at the lake was left in shock and confusion rather than pain, and later explained that he was still alive and that the loss was like losing an arm.²⁵²⁶²⁷

Constructs attacked the house. Orpi, no warrior, hid under the table and then in the kitchen after a bolt of lightning wounded him. With his guidance Finli examined the wrecked constructs and found that their first order had been to take him alive and their second to kill him. One attacker was taken alive; Orpi left a note in his pocket before the band moved on across the lake on two rafts, one of them a folded magical raft of Orpi's.^2829303132

Through mental messages to his allies he learned that the military commander Soteris had set aside the council and let a war-minded mage into the city, that Julia was held captive and that some senators and consuls had fled. He said it was the second coup in the city's known history. He gave the band the money from his house and promised them, once safe, an object that protected him against magical attacks.^3334353637

What he told of the land

On the road Orpi answered many questions, saying plainly where he was no expert. He told them that the arcanists had developed a theory that gods draw their power from their followers and that names carry power; that old texts blame a great catastrophe in the east on a struggle between gods, and that it did not reach his land, though he could not say whether a ritual of erasing names had spared them; that the north grows colder and may end in a sea, though no one has gone to see; and that, as far as they knew, no intelligent people lived underground. In one of the sister cities, he said, an old silver-scaled dragon living in human form had served as head consul for about seven hundred years.^383940414243

Perses and the road to Aquila

Orpi rode with the band on a great automaton to his allies at Perses Castle. When asked where the band's companion Sticks had gone, he said he did not know and would not speak of a departure aloud, since some owners can hear through their automata. At the castle he weighed going to Aquila as an envoy of the council, believing that saving a moderate governor would help prevent war; he proposed to frighten the refugee leaders more of war than of Deimos, and resolved to tell them that he would never stand with Deimos, even if it meant surrendering to the Empire.^4445464748

He set out for Aquila to take part in peace talks and to help the governor through those he knew, carrying a potion of invisibility to hide with if attacked. He said that the men of his people take part in sports at a certain age and that he had wrestled a little; on the road he changed into imperial clothes. After an ambush in the forest he guessed that the attackers meant to stop the band reaching Aquila, and he could not explain the strange events of the forest by any magic, realm or demon he knew.^495051525354

In Aquila

Orpi escaped the forest on the back of Fauna in horse form and entered Aquila beside the doctor Bruno, whom the gate guards knew; he was surprised to see weapons sold in the street. He told the band of costly Geroni locks that know their owner's hand and open on command without a keyhole, such as the one on his own office.^55565758

Bruno took him to a meeting with the diplomat Sarah, where Orpi explained his errand and argued that a cure brought from the mainland would not answer a different illness. He politely declined her offer of protection, not doubting her goodwill but not knowing her strength, and was hidden instead under sacks of flour at a baker friend's house. Fetched from there after an attack he knew nothing of, he said he could not name the shape-changing attackers, likened their old shackles to the bronze-like alloy on his people's shield rims, and wrote on paper, for fear of listeners, that the attackers might be after a book rather than the painting.^{59606162636465}

When the band met the governor, Orpi, who had travelled with them and knew all that they reported, thanked them, said he owed them his life and went over to the governor's side as his guest. Travis later moved him to the governor's side for greater safety. He worked on the governor's illness but had not yet found a cure. Kuraks, who had received several messages from Orpi asking whether the band still lived, later sought him out in the city.^666768697071