Skip to content

Torguir IV Var-Nokkt

"We have run this fief like a guild for three generations. I am the fourth Torguir. I am also possibly the last."
— Torguir IV, in a sealed letter found in the Var-Nokkt archive (1003)

Peer of Var-Nokkt. Descendant of Duke Koliandre. Head of the Council of Elders that runs the dwarven Var-Nokkt family as if it were a guild. The fourth Torguir to hold the peerage. Currently the most quietly-besieged Peer in the upper city — between Master Ôdril Haarken's public challenge, his brother Arkan's disappearance, and the Usurer leverage that may have caused both.

What He Looks Like

A Tir-Nâ-Bor-descent dwarf in his early sixties — vigorous by dwarven standards, stocky, broad-shouldered, white-bearded with iron-grey streaks. Wears Var-Nokkt formal dress (deep blue and brass) in council; working dwarven leathers in private. Hands callused from forge-work he still does ceremonially. Speaks slowly, weighs every word.

How the Family Runs

The Var-Nokkt family is not run as a noble house. It is run as a chartered guild, with Torguir as Grand Master and his closest advisors as the Council of Elders:

  • Torguir IV — Peer; overall direction
  • Hildra — Torguir's wife; supervises judiciary activities of the fief; quietly an honorary Dressmakers' council member
  • Arkan — Torguir's brother; was in charge of family treasure; disappeared mysteriously after a corruption scandal
  • Torguir V — heir; internal affairs, relations with duchy, guilds, and leagues
  • Lyfha — daughter; relations with embassies
  • Ryankha — daughter; married to the first son of the Senex (dwarf king of the Ægis); guarantees the Tir-Nâ-Bor link. Mother of Ardhun, the young Cadwallon-resident dwarf sent from Tir-Nâ-Bor.
  • Krondnir — Arkan's son; leads the family troops under Torguir V's authority

What He's Carrying

  • The Var-Nokkt-Goldsmith alliance that has been the spine of upper-city financial power for two generations
  • The Var-Nokkts' Tir-Nâ-Bor connections through Ryankha's marriage
  • The unpaid moral debt to dwarven refugees the family has historically exploited (the Var-Nokkts famously regard Tir-Nâ-Bor refugees as "frustrated barbarians destined to live under the upper city")
  • Whatever the Guild of Usurers holds over him — which Master Ôdril Haarken has publicly demanded to know

What He Doesn't Talk About

Arkan's disappearance

Torguir knows where Arkan is. Or rather: Torguir helped Arkan disappear. The "corruption scandal" was a cover. Arkan was about to expose what the Usurers hold over the family — including specific documents naming Torguir personally — and Torguir, his wife Hildra, and Lyfha collectively decided to send Arkan into deep hiding in the Tir-Nâ-Bor mountains. The Senex III airship's unofficial drops in the Quithayran mountains are the route. Arkan is alive. Arkan has not yet decided whether to come back.

What the Usurers actually hold

The Usurers hold proof that the Var-Nokkt-Senex marriage of Ryankha to the Senex's son was bought, not negotiated — that the Var-Nokkts paid the Senex a massive secret bribe that, if known, would void the marriage, end the alliance, and likely cost Ryankha her position. The Senex knows. The Senex chose to take the bribe. Both families are complicit. Master Ôdril's public question — what do the Usurers hold over Var-Nokkt? — is the question that, if answered, ends two ruling families simultaneously.

Relations

  • Guild of Goldsmiths — primary alliance; cracking
  • Guild of Usurers — leverage holder; the central deadlock of Torguir's life
  • Master Ôdril Haarken — the man who asked the question; Torguir does not yet know whether to bribe Ôdril, kill Ôdril, or pre-empt Ôdril by going public himself
  • Senex — Tir-Nâ-Bor dwarven king; complicit
  • Ryankha — daughter; does not know the marriage was bought
  • Duke Den Azhir — formally cordial; the Duke knows too much and is waiting

The brother returns

Arkan Var-Nokkt sends a sealed message from the Tir-Nâ-Bor mountains: he wants to come home. He believes he can clear his name and expose the Usurers in one move. Torguir has 30 days to either welcome him back, intercept him, or eliminate him before he reaches Cadwallon. The party may be hired for any of the three.

The marriage truth

A document surfaces in the Scriptorium — Ryankha's true marriage contract, signed with the Senex bribe noted. If publicized, two dynasties collapse simultaneously. Three independent factions want the document: the Usurers (to extort), the Duke (to use as leverage), and the family itself (to destroy). The party finds the document first.

Ôdril's letter

Master Ôdril Haarken has been seen meeting privately with Torguir's wife Hildra. Three nights running. Hildra has not told her husband. Torguir is starting to ask questions about his own wife. Something about the Ôdril question is moving inside the family before the family realizes it.