Knight-Confessor of the Order of the Phoenix, smuggled into Hazad — killed at the drop-off before he could be questioned.
What We Know
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Arrived by smuggler’s ship with Bren and Arnolf, plus chests containing Ari and coded papers. All three struck Haroun as disciplined, probably knights. One of the party’s fellow watchers recognized his name. (S1)
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Was Ari’s second master (after Knight-Confessor Adalberto). (S1)
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A surviving sailor claimed Gandolfini mind-controlled the ship’s crew until the captain broke free and arranged the ambush that killed him. (S1)
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Died in the fight at the drop-off point. (S1)
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He was the dean of the University of Krenau, and had been stationed in Morrschatten for a long time with a good reputation — per Madeline Foussard, a fellow knight-confessor who knew him by name. (S5)
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His university burned. In Fall 1731, while Owl knights were at the University of Krenau researching the sanctums, Prince Udo besieged the city, it fell unexpectedly quickly, a sack began, and a fire started at the university. (GM) Whether Gandolfini was dean then, what survived, and where he went afterward are all unknown. See Krenau and The Fall of the Order of the Owl.
Speculation
He may have been at Krenau when the Owl came asking about sanctums. A knight-confessor who is also a university dean, in the city the Owl visits to research sanctums, in the year the sanctums are first found — and eight years later he is the man the Order of the Phoenix chooses to carry the sanctum interrogation records out of the West. That is either a long career in one subject or a long assignment.
Speculation
The party killed their own scholar. They have spent two sessions hunting for a westerner who can read the star/leyline diagrams (S4) — and the man carrying those diagrams into Hazad ran a university. Whatever the Phoenix sent him to do, he was chosen because he could read the documents, not merely carry them. His faculty, papers, and correspondents at Krenau are now a live lead. See The Recovered Documents.
Speculation
Mind control is exactly the sort of Art the Phoenix exists to root out — a Knight-Confessor using it says either desperation, sanctioned dirty methods, or corruption inside the Phoenix itself (echoing what happened to the Order of the Owl). See Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad.