Valtor¶
"With Inwe's grace, may laborious pain and death come swiftly to the traitor Valtor!" — Zolnira, elder of the Raven Concord (S051)
Valtor is a warlock of Proturas, "well-known" as a warlock of the Raven Concord and secretly a member of the Circle of Eternity (S028, S061, S068). He betrayed the secret of Vixseranyol's prison to the Circle, bought the dragon's blood, and worked with the gangs and cultists of the Warrens to break the wards on her tomb. When the Warrens was annexed, he went over openly to the Warlocks of the Blue Flame, became Mayor of Claydun, and brought the Proturan state down on the order he had left (S051).
The traitor in the Circle¶
The Circle of Eternity, "a shadowy group of Nexa-Vinians obsessed with immortality" (S068), uses "Red Dragon blood and spirit of Vixseranyol as part of their immortality serum." It keeps a secret hall in the sealed upper reaches of the abandoned dwarf-hold above Proturas, where "Vixseranyol's spirit (and body) are trapped. They learned of this through a (traitor) Conclave Warlock: Valtor" (S028, S061). Its members as the notes list them are Galaphile, its leader; Valtor; and the high elf Kael'draes.
Valtor "was the original buyer/excavator for the blood" (S028). When the Blood of Vixseranyol, recovered by an expedition the Circle had organized, was stolen from a Spillwater warehouse at the request of the relic dealer Hobard, Hobard learned that the buyer had worked through the White Hand, "and their contact was Valtor. It was this prying that led the White Hand to him" (S061). Valtor was afterwards overheard speaking of a package, Hobard, being delivered to the Circle and of information being extracted from him (S061).
Allies in the Warrens¶
Valtor is the Circle's link to the city's underworld. The White Hand "have an agreement with a member of the Circle of Eternity (Valtor), and the Circle wants more influence with the underworld of Proturas. They know about Teneb'Urat but are confident they can keep a lid on it" (S028). He also works with the Dockside Cutters, "his allies," and coordinates with them from his mansion (S042). The notes sum up the arrangement: the Tenebrians "just want flesh to populate their city", "Valtor is working for Circle of Eternity", and the Cutters "are working for Circle (mercenaries + expansion?)" (S039).
The cult of Teneb'Urat behind the White Hand has found one of the runestones of Vixseranyol's prison under the Pale Pit, and "VALTOR is assisting them … as he thinks he is the one driving for the destruction of the Runestone (on behalf of the Circle)" (S038). The stone is also called the Wardstone (S040). He helped Dunstan, the Warrens crew boss through whom the Tenebrians hoped to take the slum, escape the city, and set his prized apprentice to helping Dunstan reach the Wardstone beneath the Pit (S039, S040). Lamystra, the lamia who leads the White Hand, can set Valtor to draw her enemies into an ambush by the Crimson Watch assassins (S038).
The Cradle¶
Valtor obtained the egg-stand that the wizard Severac had made to bring dragon eggs to maturity, the Dracius Cradle. "VALTOR modified it (added a large channeling crystal) and he (and the Circle) want to see if it's magic can be repurposed to focus energy from a primal's corpse. They used primal blood to test it." He then "took the egg holder with him" to his mansion, where it lay in his inner vault (S040, S041, S042).
The mansion¶
Valtor "inherited the place as part of his father's estate." His mansion is built against the rock of the Stairs and is "his sanctum … he does not invite people here, not even his apprentices" (S040). He first used it "to house and train his many apprentices. However, after several disastrous incidents (??) and as he acquired more and more power, his need for apprentices (and the troubles that came with them) waned, and the school/residence part of the place fell into disrepair. However, he reinforced the place as a Vault and Prison" (S042).
The house shows its master. The front door is left unlocked because "Valtor prefer intruders to come this way and be handled by the traps." Seven corpses sit at the dusty dining table, "used for training apprentices": two Concord warlocks, three thieves, a merchant and an assassin. A spectral librarian, "an entrapped Warlock with a carefully modified Veil", keeps the study and will describe intruders to Valtor. In the sitting room the ghost of a failed apprentice waits at a warlock's version of Nine Men's Morris, a game apprentices were made to play when they had "greatly displeased the master"; the loser died and took the ghost's place. A frost demon held in a pentagram served Valtor "primarily for information." The basement holds classrooms for spirit, dark and portal magic, and the lower basement a prison whose cells held the trapped spirits of a Concord master, a red kobold, and Hobard, and a starving high elf. Below that are a decoy outer vault and the true inner vault (S042). The balor-type demon Zexl'ummus was also held there (S068). Dwarven roads lead from the mansion down to the sewers of Spillwater and the Cutters' den (S042).
His craft is recorded in brief: "VALTOR's specializations are PORTALS, DISPEL, VOID, BLIGHT, SPIRIT and CONTRACT" (S040, S041). He has a teleportation circle at what the notes call "the VALTOR tower" (S042). Faced with the city watch and the Spellbreakers, who warned him that he would breach the Proturan Covenant and face the censure of the Wardens unless he dropped his wards, he "brushes them off" (S044).
Mayor of Claydun¶
When the Proturan Council declared war on the Boreal Elves, the Warrens "has been officially annexed by Proturas as the County of Claydun. The new Count, Count Galaphile is a blue flame warlock and has appointed Valtor as Mayor." Valtor "has officially become a member of the Warlocks of the Blue Flame" (S051).
He turned the change against the Concord. "The Military has seized Ravenhold … scattering the Concord Warlocks. Further, there is a standing order across Proturas to arrest and interrogate Concord Warlocks. Valtor provided 'evidence' of widespread corruption and anti-Proturan activities within the Concord" (S051). The Proturan Arbiters besieged the Concord's hall at Ravenhold on a warrant of Lord High Arbiter Nadlegade. The elder Grimbac took it for "a further betrayal from Valtor and his followers" whose aim "is a direct threat to your lives", and warned that members still loyal to Valtor carried the order's rings. During the siege "Valtor himself is in the vanguard of the Proturan forces"; the masters Ulster and Invariel were cut down as they helped Grimbac recover the Tear of Inwe, and Grimbac's voice was cut off. The elder Zolnira then told every member to take off the Ring of the Concord: "It has become apparent that Valtor is capable of using it to track down its users" (S051).
Valtor now occupies and operates out of Ravenhold, and he is digging for the Wardstone at the site of the Pale Pit, which is being torn down to make room for Claydun Hall and Courthouse (S051).
In Play¶
Valtor's dealings with the party of the Proturan campaign are told in the Proturan Campaign chronicle.
Gap
The sources give no description of Valtor's appearance or age, no name for his father or for his prized apprentice, and no account of how he came to know where Vixseranyol lay or why he betrayed the Concord. Whether "the VALTOR tower" is the mansion or a separate place is not said.