Callidus

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Eternal of Autumn

Sobriquets

Known as the Prince of the Argent Tontine, Callidus is most concerned with greed.

Appearance

Callidus is a potent horned male with fine clothing. He is rarely encountered without a ledger or two, and never without the ability to create a contract.

He is usually accompanied by one or more of his secretaries - clever Eternals in their own right who serve as his proxies and advisors. His massive appointment tome, the Iron Ledger, is kept by his meticulous Heralds, who often appear as Freeborn cambions. Scrupulous and precise, Callidus sometimes sends Heralds to offer bargains, or to follow-up on bargains made by others.

Concerns

Callidus seeks to control everything through greed and desire. He exemplifies the idea that everyone wants something, and that by identifying their desires and being able to supply their needs, an individual can wield immense power. He also sees greed itself as the primary motivating force of living things, and supports and extols philosophies that highlight the influence of avarice and wealth.

While all Autumn Eternals enjoy bargains, Callidus revels in them. He invariably creates a contract to cover any agreement he makes, and is the Autumn Eternal most likely to invoke the Lictors to witness an important agreement. He invariably sticks to the letter of a contract, and some bargainers have met unfortunate fates due to not reading their agreement carefully enough. He can and has been bested in his bargains, and tales are told of heroes who dealt with the Silver Prince and came away rich, but his nature is such that a bargain that seems fair at first often grows more constrictive and dangerous as time goes by.... Callidus is quite pragmatic; he does not hold those who best him in contempt; he often tries to arrange an audience with them to discuss how they bested his contract, so that he can avoid the same mistakes another time. However, he is absolutely ruthless in hunting down anyone who breaks a bargain they have made with him.

The Prince of the Argent Tontine is fascinated with mortal religions. Callidus undestands that faith is a powerful force, but one that is extremely ephemeral. One of his personal desires is to understand the value of faith, and the need it satisfies in the faithful, the better to manipulate others using their beliefs. An extremely patient Eternal, he has been studying mortal religion for centuries, and often appears to tempt or bargain mortals away from their faith. Over this time he has amassed a great trove of lore on faith, and is said to possess several relics of the Imperial religion. His knowledge is best described as being 'technical' - he understands the politics of religion much better than he does individual faith.

Callidus is associated with both the rune Lann, and the rune Queros.

Boons

Bargains themselves fascinate Callidus, and he has several supernatural powers relating to creating and sealing them. He is known to possess many favours with other Eternals, and to draw on them to fulfill bargains on his behalf. He is particularly keen of getting bargainers into his debt, and reinforcing his ability to call those debts due with curses. His bargains are more likely to involve the bargainer doing or not doing something in return for a favour or service - it is less likely to involve mere payment with materials.

His most potent abilities deal with the manipulation of desire and greed, and guiding serendipity to increase wealth. He also possesses several abilities that deal with bonds, especially bonded items, and is said to be able to locate highly desired items in the material world with sufficient inducement, especially those that are unique or exotic.

Some priests are interested in the religious artefacts Callidus has gathered, but they tend to be very leery about entering into a bargain with the Eternal. Callidus appears to take particular delight in challenging and testing priests and other strongly religious characters who come to deal with him.

The Secretaries of the Argent Tontine

Unlike Eternals such as Basileus Kade, Callidus runs a tight ship. The Eternals who serve him do so out of a belief in his creed and a desire to increase their own wealth and service their own needs. There are few stories of incidents where one of them attempts to overthrow or betray Callidus, and many scholars theorise that all the Eternals of the Argent Tontine are bound with oaths and contracts that keep them loyal.

The Secretaries - literally secret keepers - who serve Callidus are lesser Eternals rather than Heralds. They sometimes deal with the Empire directly. either pursuing their own agenda or operating as proxies for Callidus. They may arrange audiences in the Hall of Worlds, or send Heralds on their own business. The three best known of Callidus' secretaries, who have dealt with the Empire in the past, are Numis, Malleas and Zand.

• Numis is a female Eternal who is fascinated by the role of coins and hard currency in agreements. She occasionally likes to take credit for inventing the idea of currency, or spreading it across the mortal realm - it is not clear if she expects this claim to be taken literally.
• Malleas is a male Eternal who favours gamblers and wagerers. He is known to send Heralds to arrange wagers on important events, and often creates bargains that involve gambles or risky ventures - he is also known to lend money but demand extortionate rates of interest for the repayment of the debt with dire consequences for forfeiture.
• Zand is a lawyer, and usually dresses in the style of a wealthy Freeborn scrivener, but in colours few Freeborn would choose. His robes and tagelmust are the dull metallic colour of well-handled coinage, and the deep black of oxidised silver. Scrupulous and precise, he is fascinated by the way contracts are created and used to regulate behaviour.

One or more of the secretaries tends to attend Callidus when he deals with mortals, and may make their own bargains at the same time.