NPC CITY
Eleanor Vance - [Glass Walker Elder – Philodox – Sept Leader]
Eleanor does not raise her voice. She does not need to.Her presence carries the quiet certainty of contracts already signed and outcomes already decided. Immaculately dressed at all times, she moves through the hotel’s upper floors and corporate offices with the ease of someone who owns both the building and the people inside it. In truth, she owns neither. She owns the flow between them — influence, obligation, leverage, timing.
She is known for fairness so precise it feels surgical. Disputes brought before her are resolved with unnerving speed, as if she had already anticipated the conflict days before it occurred. Many suspect she maintains quiet dossiers on every Garou in the sept. No one has proven it. No one has asked twice.Before Vail, Eleanor served in three other city septs, each one growing stronger in her wake. She never stayed long enough for stagnation to set in. When she arrived here, the Gilded Ledger transformed from an ambitious experiment into a functioning power structure within a year.
She does not posture for dominance. She structures it.
Those who know her well understand that Eleanor does not see the Weaver as a threat to the Wyld, but as a tool to contain the Wyrm. Order is not the enemy. Disorder without direction is.She works closely with the Shadow Lords of the sept, more than some Glass Walkers are comfortable admitting. She calls it “delegation.” They call it “understanding how the world truly works.”
Rumors :
Rumor claims she once orchestrated the quiet removal of a corporate executive who had unknowingly become a Wyrm-tainted liability, doing so without a single claw drawn. Paperwork, legal pressure, and financial collapse did what violence never could.
Some say she maintains a private office in the Penumbra reflection of the hotel, where spirit-contracts are negotiated as carefully as human ones.
Others whisper that she has never lost a Philodox challenge in her life — not because she wins, but because opponents withdraw before the challenge ever reaches her.
There is a persistent belief that Eleanor is preparing the city for something larger. No one knows what. The Shadow Lords seem unusually patient when she speaks.
Katarina Volkov - [Shadow Lord Athro – Ragabash – Sept Beta]
Katarina smiles often. That is how you know she is dangerous. She moves through the hotel like a guest who never checks out, blending into lounges, bars, staff corridors, and private offices with equal ease. She knows the security staff by name. She knows which executives cheat on their spouses. She knows which employees are desperate for money, and which are desperate for validation.
She collects secrets the way others collect favors. Officially, she serves as Beta — an advisory role, meant to support Eleanor’s leadership. In practice, Katarina handles everything that should never be traced back to the sept. Problems disappear around her. Rival interests lose leverage. Investigations stall. Potential threats find themselves distracted by sudden personal crises.
She has a way of speaking softly that makes others volunteer information they never meant to share. Unlike many Shadow Lords, she does not dominate through fear. She cultivates dependency. She and Eleanor share a relationship built on mutual respect and quiet understanding. Neither questions how the other achieves results.
Rumors :
Rumor says she maintains contacts in local law enforcement, municipal offices, and at least one minor Pentex subsidiary operating through shell companies in Colorado.
Some believe she has dirt on every Garou in the sept, carefully archived for future use.
Others claim she once manipulated a rival pack into destroying itself through internal mistrust without ever speaking to them directly.
There is a quiet belief that if Eleanor is the mind of the Gilded Ledger, Katarina is its shadow — and that many of the sept’s victories are hers, unacknowledged and intentionally invisible.
Adrian Kovač - [Glass Walker Adren – Theurge – Master of Rituals]
Adrian treats ritual like engineering. To him, spirit negotiation is not mysticism, but process. Measurable. Repeatable. Optimizable. He speaks to spirits the way a systems architect speaks about infrastructure — identifying inefficiencies, redundancies, and points of failure.
He has redesigned more of the sept’s rites than most realize. Old chants have been shortened. Symbolic gestures replaced with precise movements. Incense replaced with chemical compounds that produce more predictable spiritual responses. The results are undeniable, if slightly unsettling.
Some elders from other septs have called his methods disrespectful. Owl’s sept, interestingly, has never complained. Adrian spends most of his time in a secured hotel suite converted into a ritual laboratory. Screens display spirit activity readings. Glass surfaces are etched with sigils in dry-erase marker. Wires, crystals, and carefully labeled containers sit side by side.
He does not believe the Weaver suffocates the spirit world. He believes it maps it. He is one of the few Garou in the city who regularly walks the Umbra beneath the hotel and returns with notes rather than impressions.
Rumors :
Some say he has successfully bound a minor Weaver-spirit into a device that predicts fluctuations in the Gauntlet before they happen.
Others claim he once traveled to the High Branch Caern and returned unusually quiet, refusing to speak about what Owl showed him there.
A persistent rumor suggests he is trying to design a ritual that would allow the sept to move the caern’s spiritual anchor if necessary — a heretical idea that he neither confirms nor denies.
It is also said that the Shadow Lord Beta visits his ritual space more often than necessary, and that their conversations are never overheard.
Milos Radij — [Shadow Lord Athro Ahroun Master of Challenges]
Milos has spent his life balanced between glory and infamy. He is a man of violent contrasts — capable of quiet, disarming kindness one moment and acts of merciless brutality the next. Stories follow him like a second shadow: unjust killings, impossible stands against the Wyrm, and moments where he protected strangers at great personal cost. Many quietly wonder if he is unwell, his morality divided into stark blacks and whites. When asked, he only offers a soft smile that never quite stops at his lips — it reaches his eyes.
He has become the sept’s answer to problems that cannot be discussed openly. When negotiations fail, when patience runs out, when something must be done without witnesses or debate, Milos is the one sent. He does not ask for details. He does not report what happened afterward unless absolutely necessary. Issues brought to him have a way of ceasing to exist.
In recent years, Milos has grown calmer. The predatory intensity that once marked his gaze has dulled into something more measured, more distant. He oversees challenges with cold objectivity and an unwavering commitment to fairness, no matter who stands before him.
He speaks little of his past. When past deeds are mentioned — battles, names earned, places burned — he does not confirm or deny. There is a sense that he has done things even other Shadow Lords would rather not hear described.
Rumors :
Rumor claims he once dismantled an entire Wyrm-tainted operation in the region without the sept ever learning the full extent of what he did or how many were involved. By the time anyone asked questions, there was nothing left to find.
Others whisper of heroic last stands, of Wyrm servants turned against themselves through his cunning and violence. He never boasts. He never corrects the stories.
Some say Milos keeps meticulous mental records of every quiet task he has carried out for the sept — not as leverage, but as a burden he has chosen to carry alone. He keeps a remarkably low profile for an athro, for reason he does not seem willing to explain.