Gyllyn Leblanc

Gyllyn Bardlac was the only son of two bakers. He trained alone with a rapier for years, then entered the Academy at twenty-one after Perennus Albion noticed him. Surrounded by heirs of the great houses, he was already dangerous before learning much magic: he joined swordplay and spellcasting closely enough to overwhelm other students in a few blows.

He studied broadly at first, then chose divination. His verchoix made him a scryer, and he spent the end of his first year with Frolix among Cerberus's criminal investigators. He later learned Guided Past, which lets him read what happened in a place. His familiar, Varken, sleeps inside an amethyst medallion and gives him a supernatural sense of smell. He fights with two rapiers, forged for him at Vlad by the dwarf Bolin, who noticed on sight that he was ambidextrous and asked him not to tell anyone — a rapier is not an honourable commission. They were plain steel, and he replaced them with an enchanted pair without ever getting rid of them. The Minotaur destroyed the enchanted pair; Bolin's came back out of the bag, and on Telus, during the downtime that followed, Charlie Stoneheart turned them into the Fire Rapier and the Psychic Whip Rapier. Gyllyn trained blindfolded until he could build a picture of a fight from scent alone.

His first death came on Brazzant, where the white dragon Brisé killed him during Perennus's expedition for flowers of intelligence. Vidock found a rare red snow flower that restored him.

Perennus prepared Gyllyn for a deadly tournament by making him wait tables unpaid for months. Gyllyn learned gastronomy and wine, befriended the cook — Jean Stoneheart, a Stoneheart heir who had left magic school for a kitchen — and gained no strength at all. The day before the tournament, a chest in Perennus's study called for help.

Inside was Armure, a conscious helmet that equips its bearer with a complete suit kept in an adjacent dimension. Gyllyn and Armure reached the semifinal and lost to Aldor in a fight both sides remembered. Armure was satisfied. It later trained Gyllyn under the false identity Tristan Longuepée, teaching him the swordwork of its first bearer, Antoine de Cerberus. It chose Gyllyn because his lack of ambition made him fit to be king.

Gyllyn also recovered the sealed white grimoire of Christophe Leblanc. It petrified him when he tried to read it, but he had already forced glimpses of its pages through stubborn effort. He returned it to House Leblanc instead of keeping it. Cosimo Leblanc answered by teaching him advanced divination and bringing him into the family. Gyllyn married Mathilde under Bond, joining their minds, power, and lives. Aldor paid the 300,000 gp cost.

During the war, Armure brought Gyllyn back from death and finally gave him all of itself. After that, death no longer kept him. In the Underdark, Armure chose the moment of Jerax's attack to close his mind, then let him endure the Aboleth's telekinesis. Gyllyn wielded the weapons of Battlefield against her. His rapier Esprit briefly freed Sven, Skarde, and Baltix from Sobiesansky's domination; when the alchemist tried to escape, Gyllyn caught him and beat him to death. Armure also subdued Gyllyn's verchoix when Sobiesansky gave it the order to kill.

Ferothar's fire could not keep him down. He spent his entire mana reserve letting the armor restore the people abandoned outside Cerberus's barriers, then survived Cauchemar's Phantasm, crossed the Underdark, and broke Fleur de Bataille with her own lance. Armure now holds him at twenty-five.

Gyllyn became king of the Ark after Archon fell. He and Mathilde have three children: Archon-Marie, Joséphine, and Christophe. He has learned no new spell in twenty years. Three centuries of dependence on a god left him an entire people to rebuild, and rebuilding consumes all his time.