Cesadia Wrentz
Mental characteristics
Personal history
The founder of the Sleepless Agency, Cesadia Wrentz is a tall, fit woman approaching middle age. She has reddish-brown hair that she keeps trimmed short. Her eyes are big and inquisitive, and her pale skin is scattered with freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Cesadia dresses in a fashion more befitting a businesswoman than an adventurer, though she keeps a slim dagger and hand crossbow hidden beneath her coat in case her usual tactics of diplomacy and guile break down into violence.
Cesadia Wrentz grew up in a working-class family in the Chelish city of Remesiana. Her parents weren’t well off, but they also never worried where their next meal would come from. As she reached adulthood, Cesadia originally wanted to join up with the city’s dottari, but after looking into it further, she became disillusioned with that much rigid order and completely turned off by the simmering corruption. So, instead of going into official law enforcement, Cesadia began taking on cases of missing persons and lost possessions.
With each case the freelance investigator solved, her renown grew. Before long, minor nobles in town were summoning her to their villas for more involved (and sometimes unscrupulous) matters. The people of Remesiana are uncomfortable with the supernatural, but curses, ghosts, or inexplicable magic never discouraged Wrentz as it did some of her fellow citizens.
As tales of her successes grew, she was hired by one of the city’s nobles to go into his old estate, which some believed to be haunted, and find a silver locket—an heirloom that proved the family’s right to a foreign property. The rumors turned out to be true, and Cesadia barely survived her first foray into the crumbling manor just outside of town. Determined to fulfill her contract (and collect the reward), Cesadia returned to the manor after using her burgeoning detective skills to research the estate and the family’s past. Back inside, Cesadia encountered another investigator in the basement just as she retrieved the lost locket.
Hired by a rival family, this investigator acknowledged that she had “won the prize,” and that he had arrived just minutes too late to claim it. He then offered to purchase the locket from her. In the musty basement, the two negotiated. During the tense conversation, the pair realized that they had much in common, and that the other investigator, Dobrius Mathactar, was in fact commissioned to obtain the locket for the legitimate owner. Though Cesadia was reluctant to have a failure on her record, she didn’t like the idea of helping yet another greedy noble family in another underhanded scheme. Besides, Dobrius was offering her just as much money as the nobles who employed her.
As Cesadia mulled over this moral and financial dilemma, the ghost of the manor manifested once again. Angered by not one, but two intruders, the spirit flew into a frenzy. However, Cesadia and Dobrius were able to handily destroy the ghost by working together, seemingly anticipating each other’s actions. When the dust settled, Cesadia came to a conclusion: she agreed to part with the locket on the condition that Dobrius consented to becoming her business partner.
The two worked well together, quickly getting access to more important cases (and better commissions) all across the country. They continued on this path for a number of years, until an ongoing investigation ran up against House Thrune and threatened to become a death sentence. Dobrius suggested that they leave Cheliax and travel to his hometown of Thrushmoor in Ustalav, where he had inherited a small piece of property. Cesadia had been fostering ideas of expanding their partnership into a full-fledged organization, so she agreed.
Their dream was almost cut short when a pair of Thrune assassins caught up with them in Caliphas. Dobrius sacrificed himself in order to give Cesadia the upper hand in the fight. She dispatched one hired killer but sent the other one on his way (though missing an eye) to carry the message back to his masters that she wished to be left alone. House Thrune soon realized that it would be too costly to pursue its vendetta.
When she reached Thrushmoor, she founded the Sleepless Agency in honor of her deceased friend and began hiring other investigators. She has moved away from fieldwork and taken on more of a managerial role. Thorough to the end, she makes sure that her field agents are always fully prepared for the tasks she assigns them.
It has been almost a decade since Cesadia created the Sleepless Agency, and she continues to expand the range of the agency and the quality of cases they take. She keeps most of her agents out in the field, retaining barely half a dozen agents in the headquarters.
She has grown to actually enjoy living in Thrushmoor. Even though the place is always rainy and the people are superstitious, the size of the quaint town means that she and her agency are not often bothered by outsiders, and since gossip travels quickly through the town, she’s usually quickly aware of any new rumors.
