Velthuryn — World Atlas

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Inkward Custodian

Reader-Tracker of the Excisors

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Tier 1 Skulk Difficulty 11

A low-rank Excisor operative who tracks readers rather than writings. Inkward Custodians work the gates, taverns, and academic registers of Aurenhold and the waystations along the Codex Fracture, marking the faces of anyone who reads what the Wardens have not approved. They are not the people who burn things. They are the people who tell the people who burn things where to go.

Inkward Custodian

Tier 1 Skulk

*"He bumped into me at the wine-house. He apologized. I did not see his hand."* — testimony of a Proof Wanderer interviewed three weeks after the fact.

Motives & Tactics:

Description

Inkward Custodians wear the grey wool of junior Excisors but no insignia — they are deniable by design. Their hands are stained dark with the resonance-coded marking ink that gives them their name: a small thumb-smudge pressed against a coat, a sleeve, a book-binding leaves a tag invisible to ordinary sight but legible to any Excisor field officer for up to nine days. They carry no obvious weapons. They carry small bone styluses, weighted boots, and a great deal of patience.

Motives

Identify and tag readers of Canon-adjacent material. Feed names, faces, and travel patterns up the chain to a Quill-Sergeant. Avoid direct confrontation — a Custodian who gets into a fight has already failed.

Tactics

Follow at distance. Mark first, identify second, escape third. If cornered, throw the marking stylus as a tagging dart (deals little damage but applies the resonance-mark for a Quill-Sergeant to follow), then run for the nearest crowd. Inkward Custodians do not fight to the death. They fight to the next street corner.

Difficulty: 11 | Thresholds: 6/12 | HP: 5 | Stress: 3

ATK: 2 | Bone Stylus: Very Close | 1d6+1 phy

Features

Resonance Mark - Action: Mark 1 Stress and make an attack roll against a target within Very Close range. On a hit, instead of normal damage the Custodian applies a resonance-mark to the target. While marked, any other Excisor adversary within Close range gains advantage on attack rolls against the target. The mark fades after 24 hours, or when the target succeeds on a Knowledge roll (DC 12) while cleaning their clothing or skin.

Vanish Into the Crowd - Reaction: When the Custodian takes Major or worse damage, they may immediately move up to Close range toward any spot the GM judges to contain three or more bystanders, and become Hidden. Any PC attempting to follow must succeed on an Instinct roll (DC 11).

Reader's Eye - Passive: The Custodian automatically succeeds on any roll to identify which book, manuscript, or codex a target has recently read, handled, or copied, provided the target has been within Close range for at least one minute. The GM gains 1 Fear when this passive yields actionable information.

Factions