Vonthos of the Golden Bridge
The resplendent Vonthos of the Golden Bridge is the quintessential Starstone aspirant—charismatic, ambitious, and always just on the verge of crossing the Starstone Chasm after several years of making himself a public spectacle in the God’s Market. A frequent guest at high-society soirees and fancy bistros across the city, Vonthos is a beloved darling of Absalom’s upper class. For several years, he has poured several fortunes into his eponymous “Golden Bridge,” a hollow, bejeweled sphere which he claims will insulate him from the ordeals of the Test of the Starstone and protect him all the way to his apotheosis. Every time some hardship arises or the pleasures of the flesh tempt him to linger just a little while longer in the mortal realm, Vonthos chips a jewel off the Golden Bridge to buy a solution to the problem, then begs more wealth from his donors to continue. The common people of Absalom, incapable of providing even a tiny bauble to the underside of Vonthos’s magic orb, nonetheless appreciate the spectacle of his gaudy achievement whenever it is displayed. Absalom’s broadsheet publishers are considerably less appreciative, often publishing cartoons lampooning despised nobles or trademasters as blithe simpletons floating in outlandish “Golden Bridges” of their own as a symbol of the wasteful, idiotic spending and indulgent obsessions of the idle rich. The genuine Golden Bridge, indulgent as it may be, is nonetheless one of the most valuable objects in Absalom, and Vonthos must frequently rely on his impressive arcane might to deter any who would attempt to pry off a bit for themselves. This he does with great bombast and theatricality, often using crowd-pleasing lethal force to deter would be thieves. While such an overreaction is, strictly speaking, against the city’s laws regarding magic, something of the old viking spirit in Runewulf the Unbeliever appreciates how a flash of fantastic violence sometimes makes the most powerful statement, so the Graycloaks seldom make a fuss, considering the problem to have solved itself. Rumors abound that Vonthos makes frequent gifts of orb embellishments to the district watch’s patrol officers, which further explains his ability to seemingly flaunt the laws of Absalom. Each time Vonthos strikes down a would-be thief with extreme magic overkill his legend seems to spread.
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