Baron Argus de Ritornello is an Archontean noble-soldier of Ardis Vala who governed Ritornello by imperial appointment until the town was destroyed by a bomb egg. He survived and became a woodsman on the edges of the valley during the Hiatus.
| Type | Character |
| Other names | Lord Argus, Baron Arbúz (local pronunciation), He of the Golden Griffin |
| House | Basileon (golden griffin) |
| Father | Lord Burdock (Iskander Basileon) |
| Siblings | Lady Alexia (elder sister), Sir Glastum (younger half-brother) |
| Spanish entry | Barón Argus de Ritornello |
Background
Argus, an Archontean, ruled Ritornello by appointment of the Basileus, through the vertical cascade the empire calls “archontic delegation”; one account has him receive the barony around 2980 AEP by delegation of Lord Burdock, vassal of Drusus IX. An imperial communiqué circulated in the valley in 2993 AEP names him as the sitting baron, a “veteran noble-soldier”. His guards wore the golden griffin of House Basileon, blazoned gules, a griffin or.
His father, Iskander Basileon, called Lord Burdock, holds the nominal archontic title of the Burdock Valley and is half-brother of Juliana X Bellatrix, historical empress of the Archontean Reconquest. This kinship, not proclaimed, underpins Argus’s barony. Burdock’s children:
- Lady Alexia, the eldest, called the Green Lady.
- Argus, the second son, legitimate baron of Ritornello.
- Sir Glastum, the youngest, sent unofficially and left out of the main imperial register. He competes with Argus for glory and riches in Ardis Vala.
Rule of Ritornello
Before the Hiatus, Ritornello held some fifteen hundred souls of four peoples (Archonteans, Thorcin, Wiskin, demi-humans), a gray castle of dark stone, a palisade with watchtowers and two siege scorpions at the gate. Under Argus served:
- the knights of the golden griffin, among them Sir Theobald, captain of the guard and veteran of the western marches;
- the trained, uniformed Guard of Ritornello;
- local militia called up in alarm.
His duties were to secure the roads from the Archontean coast, especially that of Narsileon, two weeks’ march away; to administer justice for the Basileus, “not always strictly”; to coordinate the security of the whole Burdock Valley, delegated by his father; and to forge alliances with adventurers, rewarding those who removed local threats. An unwritten fifth task was handling Glastumville, whose notables and his half-brother resisted any tax on dungeon profits or regular garrison.
His forces were “insufficient against greater threats”; meanwhile the Benevolent Brotherhood smuggled relics beneath his tribute. A public devotee of the Decadian Orthodoxy (Imperial Church), he attended the Temple of the Divine Decade served by Father Belias.
Fall of Ritornello
A dragonfly carrying a bomb egg (the Egg of Ritornelo) approached the town. What the egg released, an arcane Rudishva module, a side work of Kerbog Khan, turned the fifteen hundred souls to ash and the castle to a charred silhouette against the Barrado Balacán. Argus survived because he was away on an inspection ride that morning. The adventurers he had allied with, the Seekers of Ardis Vala, had in their first cycle in the valley passed the egg to the faction that detonated it; the egg had passed through his hands. His responsibility is recorded as partial.
The fallen paradigm
During the Fifteen-Year Hiatus Argus became a woodsman and hunter on the edges of the valley, now sewn into the mists of the Valakhan: no castle, guard, tithe or siege engines. The golden griffin, stitched on a threadbare surcoat, became a password among those who remembered him. Decadian doctrinaires call such a figure the “fallen paradigm”: the officer who survived his jurisdiction’s ruin and chose the forest over the court. He still allies with those who descend into the dungeon.
He passed his shield and axe to Bayrum. The shield bears the golden griffin; the axe is the one the veteran of the western marches gave Argus at his appointment. Sir Glastum remained in his Azure Fortress upriver, Alexia in Burdock.
Rumors corrected
- Argus is not the husband of Bellaca, vampire of the Gulthias Tree.
- He does not carry the sword of Graz’zt; that sword belongs only to the inquisitor Valerius Utrecht.
- He is not of the workshop of “the lord of the rolled heads”; that attribution, heard in Estellara, is popular confusion.
Conflicting accounts
- The shield and axe were passed to Bayrum during the Hiatus; elsewhere, at the return in the present cycle.
- Juliana X Bellatrix is Lord Burdock’s half-sister, yet is also called Argus’s imperial great-aunt.
Open questions
- Why Alexia is called the Green Lady is not settled.
- His arc as the fallen paradigm remains open.