Captain Roderic Vale

Six winters ago Vale recaptured the Terncross palisade and cleared its outer orchards of a nesting shale-maw and smaller carrion predators. A charter company wants his name on a prospectus for land it has not actually subdued; a former companion knows the deception.

Once led a noble-backed clearing expedition that secured three farmsteads, only to lose title when his employer failed to complete both the local and royal land registrations. He now sells his skill as a disciplined expedition captain and insists on written terms, survey witnesses and a plan to hold territory after the first victory. His black pennant is a rallying marker, not a claim of noble sovereignty.

He will not certify land as reclaimed unless settlement, supply and registration are viable, and he has faced down fraudulent charter holders for it. He leads expedition defenders under a black compass-star pennant, and casts nothing himself.

Named deed, The Terncross Keeping: Six winters ago Vale recaptured the Terncross palisade and cleared its outer orchards of a nesting shale-maw and smaller carrion predators. He then kept fourteen settler households supplied through a winter, witnessed their local filings and obtained the separate royal registrations. The deed people celebrate is the keeping, not merely the first battle. His name also appears on the Black Cut Expedition, a notorious failure after an investor diverted the food wagons.

Workings: Noncaster; expedition commander who employs the arcane field mage Elsbeth Fenn.

Captured: A mature shale-maw was trapped alive for nine hours behind an anchored wagon barrier; it was destroyed when the trap failed. Vale refuses claims that he captured a demon.

Notable item: Black Pennant Beacon — a small shuttered command lantern bearing his pennant mark; it flashes a coordinated retreat signal across prepared reflective panels. Ordinary oil and line of sight are required.

Allies: Elsbeth Fenn (61) is his salaried arcane field mage; the landholding patron Sir Cedric Marlowe (56) financed the Terncross winter stores. Vale sets tactics; Elsbeth controls the magical boundaries.

This season: A charter company wants his name on a prospectus for land it has not actually subdued; a former companion knows the deception.

For a company: Will lead a paid frontier mission if the party can secure lawful papers and sufficient supplies. He is admired by Warden Garrick Solm, but owes money to Sir Cedric Marlowe.

In person

43. Very tall, weather-roughened white man with collar-length iron-grey hair, the left eye clouded and the right clear, a broken nose, a scarred face with a broad old sabre scar at the jaw and a short salt-and-pepper beard; powerful, but stiff in the right knee.