Derek Sunshield

Derek Sunshield is the Grandmaster of the Palanthor Knights, the Order of Palanthor.¹

The civil war

In 24 AVD a terrible civil war shook The Empire. On a cold, grim night Emperor Vaden I, the hero of Victory Day, was found assassinated in his bed; it was claimed that the assassin was a Chain Warden. Vaden II took the throne hastily and with little ceremony, swearing to avenge his father, and Derek Sunshield had stood wholeheartedly behind him from the first hours of that dark night. The new emperor's first act was to declare every member of the Order of Chain an outlaw and begin a hunt for Chain Wardens across the realm.¹

The Palanthor Knights' reputation was tarnished by the civil war, because their Grandmaster stood alongside the usurper and became part of the conspiracy.²

In Raphael Efsanesi

In the campaign Raphael Efsanesi ("The Legend of Raphael"), Derek is a high knight of the Palantir Knights in White City who takes the thief Raphael into his secret service. He wears mail and carries a sword with a large diamond set in its hilt.^{3 4}

The recruitment

A decree read out in the city square announced that the gang leader known as Dogface had been taken through the efforts of Derek, the Palantir high knight, and listed his crimes of murder, rape, theft and extortion; a knight of the Sword then executed him before the crowd. Raphael did not know the man, and his acquaintance Fazon remembered him only as a petty thief of five or six years before.^{5 6 3}

Soon after, Derek met Raphael and Fazon with mounted men and foot soldiers on the road out of a forest. He introduced himself, bound them to keep the meeting secret and engaged them for a month's hidden work; Karas, it turned out, had recommended Raphael. Horses were given at once, while land and a family name were offered only if Raphael survived the work.⁷

The three thefts and the duel

Back in White City, Raphael was taken, partly by force, to an empty villa in the nobles' inner ring around the palace, where Derek came to him. When Raphael remembered his name as "Sunlight", Derek corrected him: Sunshield. He said a Palantir knight could not normally work with a criminal and that no one was to know Raphael worked for him; another candidate had been passed over as too loyal to his lord.^{8 9 10}

Before revealing the real task, Derek set three thefts as a test: a silver saddle being prepared as a gift for the emperor by the horse dealer Vyvet near the southern gate, the spectacles of a gnome in the White Library, and something provably belonging to the chief representative of the Archon Academy. There was no pay for the tests: success meant employment and failure meant death. He forbade Raphael to return to his inn, and pardoned past crimes and those committed during the work, but no more. He gave him four days, then five, since he was leaving the next day to strike at orcs in the east who had broken an agreement.^{11 12 13 14}

Derek also spoke of his plans for the capital. The emperor was away, he said, and there was a gap in authority; when the work was done Raphael should choose his side well. He wanted the Night Rats, Picolo and the followers of Zolan gone from the city, asked Raphael for the names of those he knew in that trade, and criticised the emperor's tolerance of pirates and lawless dealings.^{15 16}

Raphael completed the thefts. Late one night Derek came to the villa with about ten men, had the drunken Raphael woken with a bucket of water, accepted the saddle, the spectacles and a ring of the Archon representative, and ordered them returned to their owners. Wanting to be sure of one more skill, he set an armoured squire with a longsword on the unarmoured Raphael. Both were wounded before the squire dropped his sword, and Derek ended the fight without a death.^{17 18 19 20}

The chain commission

Speaking to Raphael alone, Derek revealed the real task: to steal the chain of a dead Chain Warden, which he described as the last of a secret line of Wardens trained against men who do evil. He claimed that the chain falling into the same hands as a lost and powerful book would be a catastrophe, that a diplomatic request for it had been refused, and that it must be taken to Palantir Castle. He admitted his unease that the Wardens stand above the law. If Raphael refused, he would not leave the house; if he failed, force would be used and more would die. The commission is told in full under Raphael's stolen chain.^{21 22 23 24}

Spoiler: What Derek soughtGösterAçık ettiği: Raphael Efsanesi #8; Starter Setting Guide · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

The protection of the chain was only the reason Derek gave. He wanted it for the conspiracy around the usurper that carried Vaden II to the throne, and Raphael knew nothing of that purpose when he accepted and carried out the theft. After the emperor was murdered, a decree of the new emperor claimed that a chain of the Chain Wardens' order had been found beside his father's body, and the chain shown to the crowd was the one Raphael had stolen.^{25 1 2}

When Raphael asked whether the knights were behind the killing, Derek denied it: they had expected trouble, he said, believed the prince to be the target and protected him. By the prince's orders the city and its legion had been handed to the Palantir Knights, and Derek would answer for its security for six months.^{26 27}

Derek then pressed Raphael into service as an informant. He let Raphael's four helpers live on condition that they stayed inside the inn and kept silent, demanded the names, addresses and families of those Raphael had worked with, threatened the inn, and ordered that the chain mission be treated as though it had never happened. Raphael gave the names; most of those named were executed and some exiled, and in the six months of military rule two fortresses of the Chain Wardens were torn down. Years later, when a new revolt came, Raphael again stood at Derek's side.^{28 29 30 31 32 33}