One half of this dynamic duo is Gregor Ravenor Nykerius, a high-born from a family with ties to the imperial court. His life was destined to be one of luxury and comfort. However, Gregor's austere nature made him walk away from all of that quite early. He desired a meaningful life, even if it was a hard one, and his position as his father's fourth son meant that there would be precious little responsibility to go around. Gregor was sent to the Academia, Montgarde's most prestigious educational institute, and there he was taught the art of war. His iron will and staunch puritanism caught the eye of more influential figures and strings were pulled to bring him to the front of Montgarde's war of conquest.

Gregor proved himself to be a capable commanding officer, fearless in the face of danger, and he was plucked from the front after a few months and reassigned to Montgarde's capital. "Guard duty," the letter said. It turned out to be a front for a highly secretive training program, carried out in the bowels of the capital city's sewers. Gregor was to become one of Montgarde's elite inquisitors, a member of a nameless organization whose existence was publicly denied by the Emperor.

He has served faithfully since and has seen many of the dangers that lurk in the empire's shadows. These things and the horrors associated with them have eroded his faith, over time, and he has recently become an apostate. While this isn't something he publicly talks about (due to it being a social no-no and a taboo) the Templars of the church have picked up on it, based on his behavior and disdain for the church, and are watching him like a hawk. Non-believers are a threat.

His appearance is striking but not particularly handsome. Gregor's face is sharp and angular, featuring high cheekbones, prominent, arched eyebrows, a thin, disdainful mouth and cold, hard eyes, the color of glacial ice. His jaw tapers off into a thin, narrow chin, and Gregor's black hair, swept back in a widow's peak, makes him look older than he is. Gregor wears strong, sturdy apparel that, while worn with age, still speaks of his high-born background; a leather greatcoat worn over black, woolen clothes, complete with iron-tipped boots and leather gloves. He wears a wide-brimmed, tall hat and carries his badge of office with him in an inner pocket. Last but not least is his weapon, a pale steel longsword from the rimefire forges of the Isle of Faces that shimmers in the dark.

Loka Meissa ar-Raqis was a native of Irem Kopt in the opal expanse, an ancient and little-understood city surrounded by a vast sandstone maze within the grey area of what the empire possesses and what it still desires. It is a strategic linchpin, guarding both the untrod lands to the south and holding a port beside the bay of drowned ghosts. Its people are a mishmash of cultures left from old invasions, and it has no official religion, instead supporting an indefinite number of competing cults and allowing the most effective to survive. Many have tried to take Kopt. But the only certainty in the desert is that no one holds the Labyrinth City for long.

Loka is a Deva, or priestess, of the Peacock God, an astral outsider (Shanin) deity that the Imperial church officially denies the existence of. Though considered divine agents by the people of the Amber Sea, being able to manifest unearthly power that sets them apart from other would-be contenders, the Deva are more akin to pact-bound warlocks, tapping the fire of the stars through things no one fully understands. She begins this bleak new chapter of her life in the hands of the Imperial Church, condemned as an insurgent, a sorceress and an idol worshiper after being quietly abducted as a secret 'prisoner of war' from the aftermath of one of the desert's regular border skirmishes, in which no other prisoners were taken, and no other witnesses were left alive.

Loka is a brown-skinned young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, high-cheekboned, angular and nondescript when not wearing an hour's worth of southern cosmetics and hairclasps. Her king's ransom in colorful, opulent garments has been forcibly traded for a short, dull burnt-umber robe and a functional oiled-leather riding ensemble much like that worn by her new handler, and though it keeps the fog and rain at bay, she frequently wonders whether it would have been preferable to choose death than endure the enervating lack of color.

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Cult Quirks: Humans were not meant to deal too closely with Greater Shanin, even nominally benevolent ones like the Peacock God, and the women of the Opaline Temple slowly change the longer they serve and the nearer they draw to that awful and magnificent presence. These changes range from sensory distortion, to mania and insanity, to actual physical mutation in higher ranks. These are the effects we know of in Loka, so far:

• Overloaded senses -- Common amongst Peacock Deva, though degrees vary. The priestesses feel and perceive things more acutely, and in greater depth and texture than normal humans. This can sometimes work against them when the limits of what their minds can handle is exceeded.
• Synesthesia -- Common to Peacock Deva and regarded as a mark of the God's power. As the senses of the Peacock women exceed their boundaries, they bleed into one another, and input into one sense can result in feedback from another. Loka can perceive scent trails as colors, taste the emotions of those around her and observe patterns where none are otherwise visible through a strange association of sensory feedback with objects or events.
• Emotional Whiplash -- Angry one minute, laughing the next. Loka's mood twists like a feather in a hurricane.
• Selective Kleptomania -- "Koptic whore! Is your God a peacock or a magpie?"
  Sometimes Loka needs things, or thinks she should have them. Perhaps she even feels she deserves them, or that they technically belong to her even if their owners haven't yet been informed. Whatever the case, the compulsion to take them is irresistible. This was never a problem in Kopt, where the strongest Temples have authority to do things like this and the Deva's word was as close to law as the city ever gets. In many cases having an offering taken by a ruling temple was even considered an honor, and good luck. In Montegarde, however, things are somewhat different...