Wicktrimmer is the clandestine leader of the Benevolent Brotherhood, a semi-secret society of smugglers in Glastumville and, before its fall, Ritornello, in the valley of Ardis Vala. He moves relics looted from the Mega-Dungeon past the baron’s tribute, and remains active in the present cycle.
| Type | Character |
| Role | Head of the Benevolent Brotherhood |
| Era | From c. 2987 AEP |
| Spanish entry | Wicktrimmer |
Name
Wicktrimmer means “he who trims the wick”; only this common-tongue form is recorded, not the Archontean or Thorcin original. In his youth he tended the candles of Glastumville’s workshops. The name also covers his present trade of “putting out wicks”: silencing witnesses, suppressing documents, blurring trails. It is a professional nickname; his true name is not recorded.
The Benevolent Brotherhood
The brotherhood is not benevolent; the name is kept by tradition, as a recognition code and as irony aimed at its pursuers.
Its main business is buying relics looted from the Mega-Dungeon (Archontean artifacts, Theosophist liturgical fragments, salvageable armor, minor stones) below the official chancery value. It evades the tribute of Baron Argus by routing relics to outside buyers before they enter the formal tax circuit.
Methods
- No violence, maximum opacity. The brotherhood does not kill as a rule; it prefers bribes to knives.
- Distributed network. Wicktrimmer stores no relics, keeps no books and signs nothing. Relics move through licensed peddlers, official imperial carts (with selective complicity) and coastal boats reaching the Burdock Valley.
- When a link falls, he does not defend it; he accepts the loss and rebuilds the network.
- On the surface it works alongside the Factorial Merchants, a formal guild.
Relations with the warden
Sir Glastum tolerates the brotherhood in Glastumville, informally:
- Wicktrimmer does not enter the Azure Fortress, and the warden never mentions the brotherhood officially.
- Its minor relics pay a discreet levy, a “voluntary contribution” to the garrison, unrecorded in Thesmothete books, which the wardenship accepts without acknowledging.
- Mages arriving through the brotherhood find refuge in a clandestine shrine of Thoth that the warden tolerates in a side chamber.
- The warden does not tell the baron of Wicktrimmer’s visits. Baron Argus, in Ritornello, pursues the brotherhood when he can.
Appearance
The baronial records hold three descriptions, none fully matching:
- Middle-aged, probably forty to fifty; medium height, slight build.
- Plain merchant’s dress without emblems; low, courteous voice, with an accent placed as northern Thorcin or provincial Archontean.
- Possibly a left little finger cut off at the first joint; he hides the hand in his cloak when greeting.
The Hiatus
During the Fifteen-Year Hiatus the brotherhood, unlike Eusebia or Belias, kept a visible organization. Cut off from imperial buyers by the mists of the Valakhan, it ran short circuits between Estellara, Valdemora and Glastumville and sold to buyers inside the demiplane: less volume, more sophistication, local aristocratic clients. The leadership held with minor changes; the brotherhood now works at reduced scale but comparable efficiency.
In the present cycle the returning Seekers have seen him at least twice without recognizing him: once trading relics in an Estellara tavern, once receiving a clandestine Theosophist mage in the side shrine of the Azure Fortress.
Open questions
- Whether “Wicktrimmer” is one man or a collective nickname rotated among leaders; a minority gloss suggests the latter, unconfirmed.
- The Chronicler of the Plata suspects deeper ties, suggested by night meetings in the cave, correspondence no official post carries, and payments in mercurial silver of disturbing purity:
- to the Sortians / Priscians of the Floor of the Great Abyss, perhaps feeding the restoration of the Arcanum Forge (a minor hypothesis, attested by two independent broadsheets);
- to the family network of the Thesmothete Eusebia Phokas (speculative, undocumented);
- to a church authority outside the Decadian apparatus, since some clients pay in non-Archontean coin of unidentified stamp.
- His whereabouts during the Hiatus are unknown.