The thing the party couldn’t kill in the cellar of Kraus’s Folly — a knight-confessor of the Order of the Phoenix, imprisoned six years and remade into something that drinks blood. Now in her right mind, apologetic, and hunting. Her name is in the encrypted papers. (GM)
(Spelling: the GM’s own documents give Foussard; the session notes had “Fusard”. Per the wiki’s rule, GM/source spelling wins.)
What We Know (all S5, from her own account)
Who she was
- A knight-confessor of the Order of the Phoenix — the same rank as Gandolfini, whom she knows by reputation (stationed in Morrschatten a long time, well regarded).
- In Averoigne she oversaw the witchcraft case of Constanza Bethlen — and believed her innocent.
- Constanza escaped and four Phoenix knights were slain. Madeline traced her to Halwa, and a rumour from there to Kraus’s Folly.
- At the Folly she met a man of such martial skill that she was simply overwhelmed — tall, sandy blond, likely Averoigne; the best warrior she has ever seen, and she has seen the best. He captured her.
- Her gift lets her track people. She has lost Constanza’s trail and wants it back.
What was done to her
- A ritual performed on her — she frames it as a test of her faith. Her blood was drained, and she was fed new blood. She recovered.
- Now: hungers for blood and only blood; stronger and faster than she was; fire hurts her; lightning and normal weapons do very little; recovers very fast; hard to control herself.
- She wants to die and literally does not know how to — which is exactly what the party found in the cellar (S4).
- Imprisoned about six years (her own estimate). The GM dates her capture to ~Spring 1732, which makes it closer to seven — see below.
- Sister Alasia brought her back to her right mind after the party’s flight.
What the GM timeline adds (GM)
- She was tutor to Marie-Celeste de la Courcel — King Etienne de la Courcel’s illegitimate daughter, and, from Summer 1731, the designated heir to Averoigne. That is what a Phoenix knight-confessor was doing in Vyones.
- The witchcraft accusation against Constanza came from Matthias Melnich, Prince of Strelitz — Constanza’s own guardian — delivered to Vyones by his personal priest and several Phoenix Knights.
- Madeline took charge of the proceedings and declined to execute Constanza immediately, holding her instead under conditions designed to prevent sorcery. That decision is the reason there was a prisoner to escape.
- She lost both of them in the same night. Two weeks after the king’s deathbed designation, assassins killed Marie-Celeste, Marc Abayante, and numerous owl knights in the royal castle — and on that same night Constanza escaped and the four Phoenix knights guarding her died. See The Night in the Royal Castle.
- She has never mentioned Marie-Celeste to the party. Everything above came from the GM, not from her.
- She was captured around Spring 1732. (GM, asked directly) Not ~1733 as the wiki had extrapolated from her own “about six years” — she is a year out, which is forgivable in a cellar.
What the Capture Date Changes (GM)
Spring 1732. Constanza escaped in Summer 1731, so Madeline tracked her from Vyones to Halwa to Kraus’s Folly in six to nine months, not two years. Her gift is good.
And then she was out of the world for seven years. Everything she told the party about the West is from before mid-1732. Since her capture — and unless Sister Alasia has briefed her — she has missed:
- the plague (Weissbaden, Summer 1732)
- the Owl’s demon kill and On the Summoning of Guardian Spirits (Fall 1732)
- the Owl finding the sanctum at the Monastery of the Dawn (Summer 1733)
- Michel d’Envers’s death and Rincon’s accession (Fall 1733)
- the death of Boniface III and the election of Pious III (Winter 1733 / Summer 1734)
- Matthias Melnich’s murder (Spring 1734)
- the Owl/Eagle fight in Halwa (Fall 1734)
- the dissolution of the Order of the Owl and the execution of its members (Spring 1736)
- the fall of Touraine and the end of Averoigne’s civil war (Summer 1736)
She was a prisoner throughout the purge, so she was never interrogated in it; her name reached the papers some other way — most plausibly as the missing officer of record on the Constanza Bethlen file.
Speculation
Find out what she has been told, and by whom. A Phoenix knight-confessor who does not know her Order destroyed a sister order, or that there is a new Most Holy, is operating on a seven-year-old map. If Sister Alasia has filled her in, Alasia chose what to include. If nobody has, the party is holding news that would change what Madeline does next — and telling her is a decision, not a courtesy.
Speculation
The scholars she named are seven-year-old recommendations, from a woman whose last clear year was 1732. Some are dead, exiled, plague-struck, or purged. Get the names, then verify them before planning a voyage around them.
What the Owl Knights Add (S6)
From Visenne de Tarrand at the Citadel of Gazra, who remembers her:
- She was rumored to be the paramour of Marc Abayante — the Owl’s Knight Commander, murdered in the royal castle in Summer 1731.
- She was appointed Marie-Celeste’s tutor in anticipation of her being legitimized — before it happened, because it was coming. Marie-Celeste had been raised in a monastery until then. (GM, via Visenne)
Speculation
The appointment predates the heir. Madeline was not assigned to a princess; she was assigned to a girl who was about to be made one. Whoever placed her there had advance knowledge of Etienne’s deathbed intentions — and two weeks after the designation, the girl was murdered. This does not implicate Madeline, who lost everything that night. It does mean the Order of the Phoenix knew early, and the party should want to know how. See The Night in the Royal Castle.
So on the night of the assassinations she may have lost, in a few hours: her pupil, her lover, and her prisoner — and the four knights guarding that prisoner. She has told the party about none of it.
Speculation
The list of things Madeline has volunteered is short and operational: the folly, Constanza, the ritual, the swordsman, some scholars’ names. The list of things she has left out is her entire life before Spring 1732. Rumor is rumor — Visenne heard it secondhand and says so — but the shape is now unmistakable. Ask her about Marc Abayante and watch what happens, alongside the Marie-Celeste question the wiki has been holding since the GM drop.
What Uncle’s Men Did About Her (S6)
- Ismad doesn’t know what to make of her, and says plainly: it’s very bad.
- Uncle’s Men informed the Eagle Knights, who have not dispatched anyone — it looked too dangerous. Now that she has left Kraus’s Folly they may not bother.
- The decision is the Eagle’s, and Ismad will keep them updated.
Speculation
The party’s channel to Madeline runs through Sister Alasia, a western churchwoman in a free city. The party’s employer has now put Madeline’s existence in front of the Eyes of the Eagle — the institution that hunts exactly what she is. If the Eagle ever does move, Haroun’s information-sharing arrangement becomes a very awkward thing to have on the record.
Now
- She is the one killing Halwa’s gangsters. At least half a dozen gang members died across multiple clans during the party’s desert trip; gang leaders — the worst-reputation ones — began turning up dead afterward, though the rate was dropping by the time the party sailed. (S5)
- Intends to keep hunting Constanza.
- Agreed with Haroun to exchange information through Sister Alasia.
- Named several western scholars of astronomy and mathematics for the party, and revealed that Gandolfini was dean of the University of Krenau.
- Very apologetic about attacking the party.
Why She Matters
She is the party’s first inside source on the Order of the Phoenix who isn’t a corpse or a prisoner, the only witness to the lord of Kraus’s Folly, and a walking demonstration of what that lord does to people who come looking. She is also, functionally, a monster the party has chosen to work with.
Speculation
Blood drained, blood given, an unkillable hunger, weak to fire: whatever the Church would call this, the party has met an inquisitor turned into the thing inquisitors burn. If the ritual was a “test of faith,” the tester wasn’t testing hers — he was making something. Six years of it. Compare Iuz and the Corrupted.
Speculation
She was captured six years ago, which puts her arrival at the Folly at ~1733 — around the time of the sanctum expedition Mamud guided.Killed by the GM’s date. Capture was Spring 1732; the Owl expedition to the sanctum was Summer 1733. The swordsman was already at the Folly, already taking prisoners, fifteen months before the Owl arrived — so he did not inherit or capture their work. He got there first. See The Lord of Kraus’s Folly.
Speculation
She told the party the small half of her own story. Asked about the folly, she gave them Constanza, the swordsman, and the ritual — and left out that she was raising the heir to Averoigne, that the heir was murdered, and that her prisoner escaped the same night. That is either a woman who does not connect the two, or a woman deciding what a group of Hazadi strangers gets to know. Ask her about Marie-Celeste and watch what happens.
Speculation
A Phoenix knight-confessor as personal tutor to a king’s natural daughter is a placement, not a posting. The Order had someone inside the Averoigne succession before there was a succession crisis. That is worth holding next to Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad.
Speculation
Trust, carefully. Everything above is her account of herself, given to a man she recently tried to kill, brokered by a sister whose own priest is behaving strangely. She is also candid about being hard to control.
Relationships
- Sister Alasia — restored her mind; now the channel between her and Haroun. Alasia introduced her as an “old friend” (GM) — unexplained, and worth asking about from both ends.
- Haroun al-Affan — information-sharing arrangement.
- Constanza Bethlen — her case, her escape, her quarry.
- Marie-Celeste de la Courcel — her pupil, murdered Summer 1731. (GM; independently corroborated by Visenne de Tarrand, S6)
- Marc Abayante — rumored her paramour, murdered the same night. (S6, rumor)
- Matthias Melnich — sent the accusation that made Constanza her prisoner. (GM)
- The unnamed swordsman of Kraus’s Folly — captured and transformed her. See The Lord of Kraus’s Folly.