Valer Akos Tamaris

The Bane of Souls' Regalia

"We kept the mask long enough to study it, never long enough to understand how it was taken from us."Valer Akos Tamaris wears two relics that, by all appearances, came from the same hand: Gallowsreign and the Pallid Throne. Over the centuries, they have been seen apart as often as together, and nothing proves they were made for each other. Gathered on a single man, they make him the opponent the Ordo Aurorae would rather keep at a distance than hunt down.

Gallowsreign

A harness of leather, ivory and iron steeped in necrotic magic, whose ivory stirs slowly, like a living thing. It grants its wearer dominion over the dead and, through the Damned he animates, access to a knowledge sealed within the relic: every wearer the Ordo has faced already knew its strategies. A dimensional magic ties it to its master's laboratory, and that is how Valer leaves a losing fight. Its powers are commanded in extinct tongues, of which no wearer masters more than a part.

The Pallid Throne

A mask shaped by the same hand, long kept at the commandery of Pavoy before being stolen from it some fifteen years ago, without anyone ever learning how. It changes its wearer's bodily signature, so that he passes for a dead man among the dead or a living man among the living, and it heightens his mastery of necromancy and darkness. The dead recognize the seat in him, and it is the seat they obey. Its age suggests other command words, long since forgotten.

Together

The mask lets Valer pass for a dead man among his dead, so that one can cross his tide without ever picking him out, and the armor keeps a door open to his laboratory. Tearing off the mask frees the dead who obeyed him. Breaking the armor's bond cuts off his escape. It takes both to capture him, and that is exactly what no one has yet achieved.