Time Bandits is an adventuring group of Uchronic Paris, formed there as an investigative-rebel organization. Born of official uchronic institutions, it later turned against them; it ruled Byzantium as a uchronic regency from 1051 to 1055.
| Type | Faction |
| Base | Orient Express platform, Gare de l’Est, Paris |
| Era | Uchronic Paris c. 1901; Byzantium 1051–1055 |
| Houses of the Cycle | ⏳ House of Carnal Time · ⛓ House of the Band |
| Spanish entry | Time Bandits |
Members
- Corvino — raven-wing summoner, master escapist
- Claude Nauge — possessed by Cvjetko Popović in 1914; permanent schizophrenia
- Philippe — teleportation operative, contact of Mony Vivescu
- Swann — arcane seer, keeper of the Byzantine varco (“passage”)
- Ärsvan — paladin of the Blessed Lance
- Lotario — trickster, reddish godling, the group’s operatic voice
- Aby Warburgo — chronomantic cover operator
Their plate shows six figures before Orient Express locomotive no. 57 at the Gare de l’Est, beside a trunk marked MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES CHRONIQUES; some figures, including one resembling Estela, are unidentified.
History
Around 1901 the five originals — Claude, Philippe, Corvino, Swann and Aby — opened an investigation in Paris that the viceregal regime wanted closed. It ended in a chronomantic crossing to the Bosphorus.
The group then governed Byzantium from 1051 to 1055 (Byzantine count), a uchronic regency sustained by the five-year loop that held the city in a repeating lustrum. The archive names it “Four Years in Byzantium”. The group:
- established the Akashic Calendar of Byzantium;
- fought demons, with the court of Theodora as cover;
- dealt with the Varangian Guard of the Great Palace;
- partially closed the varco.
The regency spanned the Schism of 1054 and ended in 1055, when Theodora took effective power. Associated figures: the co-empresses Theodora and Zoe; Zygomind, emperor in the annals of the lustrum; and Myeongwol, who came from Korea to Theodora’s court by the maritime silk road.
The first Paris cycle closes at Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. The Simultaneous Circle projected the group there as Uchronic Guards, under magical compulsion and partial amnesia. Claude became Popović and fired the shot; Corvino escaped on raven wings; Swann watched through the Astral Eye; Philippe teleported ahead; Aby ran chronomantic cover. Claude came away with seventy-five years of Popović in his psyche.
Later chronomantic reappearances occur along the A.D.A. axis.
Name and doctrine
The archive of the Plata gave them the name after observing their operations. Their doctrine is not to alter the past but to keep it from being forgotten: “El Bandito del Tiempo no cambia lo que acontece. Impide que sea olvidado.” (“The Time Bandit does not change what happens. He keeps it from being forgotten.“) They operate where the regime wants oblivion, and the regime pursues them.