Argel Family

Biodata

Power Progression

These milestones concern individual family members, rather than a rank held by the organization.

Background / History

Founding and Loss of Military Authority

Abel Argel joined the Moses Ascetic Order as a child. After escaping the order and becoming a demigod near the end of the Fourth Epoch, he entered the service of William Augustus, Loen’s founding king 5.

Following the War of the Four Emperors, Abel defended Loen’s northern frontier against repeated Feysac attacks until the signing of the Holy Covenant. His service earned the family a hereditary marquessate and Winter County as its fief 1.

Three hundred years after Abel’s death, the family’s military influence had greatly diminished. The royal house reassigned its fief to neighboring Midseashire, revoked its military powers, and left its financial authority intact. Midseashire’s hilly terrain and poor suitability for grain cultivation made the transfer economically damaging 1.

Portu’s Restoration

Renewed warfare interrupted royal efforts to move against the family. During the White Rose War, Marquess Portu Argel held the defensive line facing Feysac. In the subsequent Oathbreaker War, he defeated Feysac’s attempt to overturn Loen and Intis’s gains, earning the family’s title of “Restorer” 1.

These achievements secured several more centuries of peace, but did not remove royal suspicion. The royal family later cooperated with other nobles to suppress the prices of Midseashire’s seafood and game, signaling renewed pressure on the house 1.

Withdrawal in 1034

In 1034, Marquess Abner Argel publicly declared that the family would abandon military and political affairs to preserve its house and fief through commerce. The family stopped occupying its House of Lords seat, and subsequent members neither attended military school nor joined the armed forces 1 2.

This sustained withdrawal ended its immediate conflicts with hostile nobles and greatly improved its standing with the royal house. Abner became known within the family as “Wisdom” 2.

Commercial development transformed Midseashire’s apparent disadvantages into sources of wealth. Grapes supported a major wine industry, mineral discoveries encouraged mining, and the family later accumulated numerous small stakes in industrial and financial businesses 2.

Renewed Public Activity

In early 1347, Hanno allowed Kronos to choose his own future. Kronos’s work on the ironclad project subsequently gave the Negan family an opportunity to draw the Argels toward the Conservative Party through a naval appointment 2 3.

Hanno responded by pursuing commercial ties across party lines. Kronos negotiated with Earl Hall, while Hanno arranged grain purchases from Conservative nobles. The family’s sudden activity attracted widespread aristocratic attention, but Hanno remained uninterested in rebuilding its former military influence 7 8 10.

The family then supported Kronos’s technological ventures and overseas plans, providing capital, management personnel, a merchant fleet, and Beyonder supplies for his voyage 11 14 15 37.

Members and Retainers

Family Members

The direct family line is small: Hanno states that no one from Kronos’s grandfather’s generation remains alive, that he is the only surviving member of his own generation, and that Kronos has only one younger sister 2.

Retainers

• Gner Bazel — Recruited by Kronos as a bodyguard and prospective right-hand man. Family resources supplied his Warrior Pathway advancement, including the Sequence 8 Pugilist potion 10 11 23.
• Beck Yardinis and the management team — Helped establish Kronos’s companies; Hanno supplied a trusted aide and a third of his trained secretarial team 14 15.
• Old butler — A Sequence 9 Reader who had not sufficiently mastered his potion to advance 24.
• Pugilist bodyguards — Guard the family storeroom; one sparred with Gner after his advancement 23.
• Nightmare retainer — A Sequence 7 Sleepless Pathway Beyonder sent by Hanno to demonstrate the danger of relying on physical combat against mid-sequence opponents 23 24.
• Beyonder-item custodian — Controls access to the item collection and enforces the marquess’s requisition restrictions 23.

Holdings and Businesses

Established Wealth

Kronos’s Expansion

• Ironclad supply partnership — Kronos offered enough iron, steel, and coal for half the project in exchange for access to a merchant fleet serving the Southern Continent. The family subsequently contracted with the Conston Coal and Steel Consortium 7 8 11.
• Bowen Trading Company — Its seven merchant ships formed the basis of the family’s maritime expansion. The trading-company shares were placed in Kronos’s name 11 14.
• Ansair Asset Management Company — Established to organize Kronos’s investments and acquisitions, backed by two million pounds and Hanno’s management personnel 14 15 21.
• Coim Company — Kronos acquired an eighty-three-percent stake in the anthracite and high-quality-charcoal business, and directed that the family’s newly mined anthracite be sold through it 15 21.
• Metal-materials factory — Planned for researching and producing new materials, preferably within Saint Hilarion Church’s sphere of influence 15.
• Walter Factory — Began operating a smokeless-charcoal production line; Portland oversaw the factory and its patents during Kronos’s departure 21 37.
• Pritz Harbor residence — Hanno ordered Benjamin Bowen to buy a suitable house immediately before the family visited the harbor 36.

Beyonder Resources and Training

Mystery Pryer Tradition

• Entry is voluntary: family members may drink the Mystery Pryer potion after reaching eighteen 2.
• Initiates must normally remain silent for five years to improve concentration and support their practice 2.
• The Oath of Secrecy, made from a Mystery Pryer characteristic, prevents speech and stings the wearer’s lips when they attempt to speak. It may be removed for meals 2.
• Family members learn sign language and train to interpret expressions 2 4.
• The family possesses records of the acting method, including combat-based digestion advice and three Warlock principles: study magical knowledge, publicly act as a Warlock, and create original spells 2 11 35.

Archives and Potion Formulas

Generations of notebooks preserve practical experience through Sequence 5 Astronomer, alongside analyses of other pathways’ abilities. The Mysticologist material given to Kronos contains only a few brief lines 15.

• The storeroom holds substantial potion ingredients under special preservation measures 23.
• Ingredients for Sequence 7 and above remain difficult to obtain despite the family’s wealth 23.
• Its item collection initially lacks Sailor Pathway items, as orthodox churches commonly recover their members’ characteristics 19.

Spell Grimoire and Deliberate Limits

The family’s Spell Grimoire exceeds seven hundred pages, averaging one or two spells per page. Its foundations are spells Abel learned from the Moses Ascetic Order, followed by generations of derivatives and increasingly mundane inventions such as toothbrushing and blanket-tucking spells 35.

Its comprehensiveness makes trained Warlocks versatile but leaves little room for original spell creation. Hanno reveals that the family knowingly accepted this obstacle and avoided seeking Sequence 4 formulas to reassure the royal house 35.

• Historical peak: Three family demigods advanced by analyzing Sequence 2 elf blood stolen by Abel from the Moses Ascetic Order 37.
• Current upper limit: One Sequence 5 Beyonder in his seventies, with his potion still incompletely digested; Hanno remains at Sequence 6 35.
• Political condition: Royal trust depends on the family avoiding military and political power and producing no new demigods 35.
• Surveillance: Hanno believes MI9 agents are present in the manor and tells Kronos to conceal any attempt to break these limits 35.

Notable Items

• Vampire Mask — Made from a Sequence 6 Faceless characteristic; changes appearance but requires five hundred milliliters of blood on each day it is used 23.
• Vampire’s Heart — Requisitioned alongside the mask; requires blood and later heals Kronos’s injuries during combat 23 26.
• Mystic Pouches — Two commissioned attempts produced restricted five-cubic-meter storage items. Only Warlocks and Scroll Professors can use them, and only Mystery Pryer-related objects can be stored 37.
• Elf Charm — Made from the family’s preserved Sequence 2 elf blood 37.
• Voyage supplies — Hanno equipped Kronos with the Lucky One Cane, Azure Brooch, personally made scrolls, spell materials, and a Scroll Professor potion 37.

Access is controlled by the marquess. Before Kronos reached Sequence 7, he could requisition limited utility items but not combat-oriented equipment, preserving the role of his own fists in Melee Scholar digestion 23.

Relationships

• Augustus Royal Family — Granted the original title and fief, but later curtailed the family’s military power and pressured it economically. Apparent royal favor remains conditional on political withdrawal and the absence of new demigods 1 3 35.
• Moses Ascetic Order — Abel’s former organization and the source of foundational spell knowledge. He escaped before advancing to demigod because of the danger posed by the Hidden Sage 5 35.
• Church of Steam and Machinery — Supplies technical assistance and commissioned items, but Hanno describes the relationship as mutual exploitation. The family suspects the church killed Portu after offering support for a pathway change: his returned characteristic contained no Savant traces to support the reported advancement failure 15 36 37.
• Negan Family — Historical tensions had faded before Kronos’s recruitment. Its attempt to draw the Argels toward the Conservatives prompted resistance, followed by efforts to improve relations through Philip 3 8 9.
• Earl Hall — New Party commercial partner in the ironclad project and an intermediary for acquiring a trading company 7 8 11.
• Rieveldt Family — Hanno proposed bulk grain purchases to balance cooperation with Earl Hall and expand spirits exports 7.
• Earl Levett — Concluded a grain-supply agreement with Hanno; the resulting connection also offered a way to resolve Gner’s military difficulties 8 10 11.
• Portland Momont — Kronos’s teacher and technical collaborator; supported negotiations with Hall and supervised the Walter Factory and its patents during the voyage 3 7 37.
• Black Skull Gang — Its extortion obstructed Kronos’s factory plans. Hanno supplied intelligence but warned against provoking whatever larger organization might support it 19 23.