Head of House Veilmore
Octavio Veilmore
Age: 52
The first man in the city and its calmest player. Always gracious, always in control — and never showing what he has really staked.
The world of Veilmore
Characters, houses and places — only what can be known before the story begins.
Prologue · 1830
Characters
Also in the prologue: Renato Astor, head of House Astor, and Aretino Vern, head of House Vern.
The other portraits are coming later.
The founders
The four houses
Veilmore was founded by four families. Their crests hang over gates, documents and uniforms, their history is taught from childhood, and speaking ill of a house here is far more dangerous than speaking ill of any official.
This is how the city stood in the summer of 1830.
House Veilmore
Politics and the council
The oldest and first of the houses. It leads the council and the city’s dealings with the outside world, and has the last word in the others’ disputes.
Being first does not mean owning everything: the city’s land and estates are divided among many owners.
House Vern
Archives and learning
They keep the documents, registers and chronicles, teach the city’s children and speak to its people on behalf of those in power.
The Verns decide what enters the city’s history — and what stays in closed collections.
House Astor
Army and watch
They guard the city and carry out the council’s decisions. Most of its quarries, sawmills and heavy transport belong to them as well.
But they are not the only ones with weapons: every house keeps its own guard.
House Lazar
Medicine
Hospitals, medicines, the training of physicians and research. When sickness comes to the city, everything depends on them.
The city and its surroundings
Veilmore
Stepped streets, old stone, statues with faces worn away — and the sea, without which the city could not survive.
The city
It stands on the hills above a bay. Getting here by land is long and hard, so almost everything — food, letters, visitors — arrives by sea.
The old harbour
Warehouses, fishing boats, taverns and the customs house. This is where Veilmore meets the rest of the world.
The countryside
Fields, vineyards, farms and villages, owned by many families and communities — not only by the great houses.
The Academymain story
The city’s foremost school. Its students all wear the same dark uniform, in the colours of no house.
The Vern Archive
The city’s memory is kept here. The Verns decide how much of it may be read.
The Veilmore estate
The seat of the first house.
The Astor estate
The family home of the Astors — not to be confused with their barracks.
The Astor barracks1830
Up the slope, outside the city. From here you can see all of Veilmore and the sea beyond it.
The Lazar hospital1830
The city’s main hospital.
Rovere
An old fortress on its own rocky cape. In the summer of 1830 it was opened as a quarantine hospital. Today it stands abandoned.