Governor is the office of the highest authority over a place: in Antiterra the landowner-magistrate of each colonial post, and in Vala the ruler of Nesut Biti, Andreas.
This name refers to different figures in 2 worlds; the versions are not merged.
| Type | Office |
| Spanish entry | Gobernador |
In Antiterra
The Governor is the supreme authority of a post (fort, city, hacienda or region), landowner and magistrate at once, ruling with an armed guard, payment pacts and sometimes magic. One greets newcomers with: “Who might you be?”
Appearance and insignia
A governor has been seen “with the peg leg, with a certain slowness”, armed, in a beaver-felt hat, with “a metal armor, a kind of cuirass” under civilian clothes. He carries a banner of rank, “a kind of scepter-mace” and “a necklace too, an amulet”: “the insignia of his cursed power”, which he can lose.
The hacienda
His residence, the Governor’s Hacienda, is a closed quadrangle of European-Spanish design with “whitewashed walls”, holding an internal canteen, a food store, warehouses, stables, latrines, cells for rebel Indians, and a separate cell for Spaniards “instead of a shed”. Other posts have a governor’s house inside the city, as in Glastonville, and private houses he lends to other authorities, which become centers of corruption and dark magic.
Known governors
- Álvaro Amador in California, “the wealthiest landowner of the whole region”, warned of the Alibanese arrival. His wife, “the matriarch”, celebrates her birthday on the 6th with two days of festivities.
- Peter Student, “the Dutch governor of this era”, in New Amsterdam, “ruler in the general city of the West Indies”, with authority over a whole colonial territory.
- Others: a governor of Austral who “has to make his payments”; one housed in Glastonville; “the lord of this place, of this town”, over the quarry; a generic “governor on duty”.
Rule
He commands a guard of manseos alocados (“wild manseos”) whom he lets beat, “sometimes even rape and even kill”, and jail without cause. He must “make his payments”, grants audiences at fixed hours, negotiates with the English and accepts ransom deals. One accepted deal, “the children for their weight in gold”, “later went wrong”.
Spellcasting governors
Several governors openly cast spells: a magical protection within which to heal or be healed; a Blade Barrier, a shield of blades open to the air above; “columns of flame” and “rain of flames like meteors”. One is accompanied by a giant eagle that attacks his enemies. At least one is of the blood: “obviously he is a Cainite man”.
Weight of the office
Under one governor are “the twenty-one presidios, monasteries and besieged forts”, with lands stretching hundreds of kilometers north and south. Of territories where pacts unravel: “the governor on duty has not been able to hold it either”.
Open questions
- Are the peg leg and beaver hat Amador’s, Student’s, or the office’s livery?
- To which post does the Cainite belong?
- In “the shady governor Santos”, is Santos a surname, a nickname or a garbled name?
- Who appoints a governor, and to whom does he answer and pay?
- What became of the children of the gold deal?
In Vala
“The governor of Nesut Biti sent us.” There the Governor is Andreas.
- Force. He commands guards under his direct jurisdiction, whose livery he “has had changed”. The guards at Viti (“they are from Viti, from the other town”) also fall “under the direct jurisdiction of the governor”.
- Territory. At least Nesut Biti and Viti answer to him; the nature of Viti’s tie is not stated.
- Lineage. His two daughters hold posts of arms and faith: the Captain and the paladin Talia Cristalia. He has “certain intentions of mixing his lineage with the blue one”.
- Machines. He tries to free bodies sealed in crypts with machines, including “his body”. According to one “la Palena”, Andreas held magic items “encapsulated within himself” that he tried to dissolve “to suck that magic and do something with it”.
He has his own house (“he was at the governor’s house”). The governorship is transferable: at one point it is handed to La Jabalina, who “will appoint a governor” under its tutelage.
Open questions
- What are the machines, where are they, and are they an attribute of the office or Andreas’s own venture?
- Whose is “his body” sealed in the crypt: the Governor’s own or a third party’s?
- Is “the blue one” the Blue House of Uruk the Blue or another lineage?
- Who is “la Palena” (possibly misheard)?
- Why does Andreas hand the governorship to La Jabalina, does he remain in office, and whom does it appoint?