125 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
125 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
# Assistant Headmaster Christopher Larkvale
|
||
|
||
> DM-facing NPC writeup. Students only know the “public” bits unless you show them more.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## Role
|
||
|
||
- **Title:** Assistant Headmaster for Discipline & Compliance
|
||
- **Age:** early 40s
|
||
- **Public Image:** The rules guy. Handles detentions, suspensions, parent meetings, and all the “By Order of Administration” notices.
|
||
- **Real Job:** Primary liaison to **[[Avalon Factions#1.1 Root Oversight Committee ("The Array")|Root Oversight]]** ([[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]), keeper of the Academy’s ugly secrets, and the man who signs off on anything that might look bad in a headline.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## What Students Know
|
||
|
||
- He’s the one you get sent to when shit gets serious.
|
||
- His office is where:
|
||
- Phones get confiscated,
|
||
- Parents get called,
|
||
- Future prospects get “discussed” in ominous tones.
|
||
- He has a way of talking down to people that makes you feel like you’re six, even if you’re taller than him.
|
||
- Rumors:
|
||
- He “used to be fun” before he went admin.
|
||
- He spends more time talking to that weird Oversight projection than to actual students.
|
||
- He has dirt on every teacher and will use it if they cross him.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## What He Wants
|
||
|
||
### Surface Goals
|
||
|
||
- A **calm, orderly school** with minimal magical incidents.
|
||
- Good statistics:
|
||
- Low injury rates,
|
||
- High graduation rates,
|
||
- No “Avalon Node Disaster” trending on spell-media.
|
||
- To keep **funders and parents** happy enough that nobody asks too many questions.
|
||
|
||
### Deeper Goals
|
||
|
||
- To stay indispensable to both:
|
||
- The **Academy** (as the guy who keeps crises contained), and
|
||
- **Oversight** (as the man on the ground who can make their directives happen).
|
||
- To **control the narrative** of what Avalon is:
|
||
- “Prestigious, safe, well-managed,” not “that place where the leyline almost ate some kids.”
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## Methods & Tactics
|
||
|
||
- **Soft pressure first:**
|
||
- “I’m disappointed,” “Think about your future,” “Let’s involve your parents.”
|
||
- **Procedural violence second:**
|
||
- Detentions, disciplinary files, loss of privileges, quiet black marks on transcripts.
|
||
- Uses **bureaucracy as a weapon**:
|
||
- “The forms say…” is how he wins arguments.
|
||
- Handles external actors (Oversight, law enforcement, parents) by:
|
||
- Always having a **plausible story** ready.
|
||
- Always having a **scapegoat** in mind if things get too hot.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## Relationship to [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] & Oversight
|
||
|
||
- Officially: [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]]’s **trusted point of contact** at the Academy.
|
||
- Unofficially:
|
||
- Resents being treated like a subordinate by a projection in his office.
|
||
- Thinks Oversight overreacts and doesn’t understand “real school realities.”
|
||
- Still, he will absolutely:
|
||
- Enforce Root lockdowns,
|
||
- Argue for extra monitoring,
|
||
- Sell the faculty on “temporary safety measures” that never quite get rolled back.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## Relationship to the PCs
|
||
|
||
- **Initial view:**
|
||
- They are high-risk, high-profile headaches.
|
||
- “If you were just normal screwups, I’d suspend you. The problem is, you keep being in the room when the grid hiccups.”
|
||
- He does not like them, but he does see their potential PR value:
|
||
- “Reforming delinquents into heroes” plays well if it works.
|
||
|
||
### How He Might Use Them
|
||
|
||
- As **examples**:
|
||
- “Even after what happened in B2, we’re working with them. We believe in second chances.”
|
||
- As **unpaid labor**:
|
||
- Safety committees,
|
||
- Peer mentoring,
|
||
- Helping staff monitor “at risk” zones—really just keeping them where he can see them.
|
||
- As **lightning rods**:
|
||
- Dumping blame on them if he needs to deflect Oversight or angry parents:
|
||
- “They were acting without permission.”
|
||
- “We took swift disciplinary action.”
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## Secrets & Pressure Points (DM Only)
|
||
|
||
- He knows more about the B2 incident than he has admitted to the PCs:
|
||
- [[Kalen D'Serris | D'Serris]] briefed him on the **Coherence patterns**.
|
||
- He’s under pressure to keep any talk of “emergent minds in the Root” buried.
|
||
- He has **personal skeletons**:
|
||
- A history of blurred boundaries with students *after* graduation – nothing officially proven, a couple of complaints quietly buried.
|
||
- A strong incentive to keep his position, because if he falls, a lot of buried files might surface.
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
## How to Play Larkvale
|
||
|
||
- **Voice:** Calm, patronizing, professional. Never yells; weaponizes disappointment.
|
||
- **Body language:** Neat, precise, uses folders and papers as shields; rarely out of a suit.
|
||
- **Key Lines:**
|
||
- “You are not on trial. Yet.”
|
||
- “Your feelings are valid. They are also irrelevant to the safety report.”
|
||
- “You are very fortunate that we are handling this in-house.”
|
||
- **Pivot:** If the PCs ever do something undeniably heroic in public, he’ll try to spin it:
|
||
- “This is what I’ve always seen in you” (lie),
|
||
- “Let’s make sure people hear the *right* version of events.”
|
||
|