Percival Vale

Human warlock, patron The Undead — Valis the Feeding. Played by robustussutsubor. Known in the Low Lanterns as "Mr. Vale".

He died in session 2, having asked to be shot to test the card called the Maiden — Gia fired — and made a deal with Valis as he went. What he is on the other side of that deal is unrecorded.

He carries the Veil, which opened a door in session 10. In session 13 he reversed the Feeding Mark to drain power out of Valis and into Liora, and saved her.

He also carries a vial that collects card dust, handed to him at the abandoned chapel by a lady speaking for the Congregation of the Hollow Star. She offered to help him be freed and would not say from what. The party knows none of it.

Percival Vale — Appearance

Appearance canon written from the reference art in this folder: percival-vale.webp, percival-vale-and-valis.webp, form-of-dread.webp, percival-vale-necromancy.webp.

Tall, and dressed to belong to another era entirely. A long black coat falls nearly to the ground, worn open over a buttoned waistcoat with a watch chain looped across it, a high-collared shirt, and a dark cravat knotted at the throat. The coat's collar stands up around his jaw. Black gloves. Polished boots. A stovepipe top hat adds to an already considerable height.

His cane is dark wood with a braided, twisted grip, held loosely at his side or tapping the cobblestones with the quiet authority of someone who has never needed to announce himself.

He is dark-haired — loose curls falling to the jaw beneath the hat brim — with a short beard and a level, unhurried expression. He tends to stand with one hand in a coat pocket, weight settled, looking somewhere off to the side of whoever is speaking to him. His face is difficult to read in any light. Shadows gather there even when they have no business doing so.

He does not look like a threat. He looks like the kind of man who already knows how this ends.

When the Power Surfaces

When the eldritch power at his core surfaces, it does not announce itself with warmth: veins of cold green and violet crawl up from the darkness around him like cracks in old stone, and the air takes on the quality of a city street just before a storm breaks. Crows go quiet. Candles pull toward him rather than away.

Form of Dread

The Undead patron's transformation — three times a long rest, a minute at a time. What the table sees when he takes it, and whether anyone in Briar Hollow or the Low Lanterns has seen it yet, is unrecorded.

With Valis

Percival and his patron together. The pact was made in session 2, as he died of the gunshot he asked for to test the Maiden — what he is on the other side of that deal has never been established at the table. See Valis the Feeding.

Percival Vale — Backstory

Player-written origin. Do not rewrite.

No one seems to remember when Percival Vale first arrived. Some say he stepped off a midnight carriage during a storm. Others insist he has always lived in the narrow house at the end of Lantern Row, where the curtains are never fully opened and the front brass knocker is polished every morning.

He is a tall human gentleman, always impeccably dressed in dark coats and a high hat, with a carved walking staff that taps softly against the cobblestones when he walks. Children are warned not to bother him, yet they quickly learn he is the one who returns lost toys to doorsteps before dawn. Shopkeepers find broken locks repaired overnight. Widows receive firewood they never ordered. Stray dogs somehow know his porch is safe.

Percival Vale speaks little of himself. He asks careful questions, remembers every answer, and notices things most others miss — the soot on a sleeve, the tremble in a voice, the footprint turned the wrong direction. He watches the city the way an owl watches a forest: patient, silent, aware of every movement.

Some believe he was once a magistrate. Others whisper he hunted criminals for the crown, or belonged to a vanished order of scholars. If asked directly, he only smiles and changes the subject.

Though mysterious, he is never cruel. When trouble comes, he appears exactly where needed: at the alley where a child is cornered, beside the merchant being cheated, outside the door of someone too afraid to ask for help. He never asks payment, only that kindness be passed onward.

Then, once the matter is settled, he is gone again into the mist, marked only by the fading echo of his staff on stone.

Allies: Elderly Lady Agnes Merrow, Explorer Ness, Old Building Enthusiast Red Hair Gia

Lantern's Row

Player-written.

Lantern's Row is a fog-heavy city built around constant lantern light, originally created to guide people through thick river mist. The city is split into districts, with The Heights sitting above the fog and home to the old noble families, and the Low Lanterns lying near the river, where the mist is thickest and life is poorer but tightly knit.

Percival Vale was born in The Heights, raised among the city's most influential families. Over time, he became aware of how the city's power structure sustains itself through subtle harm, debt, and carefully maintained imbalance. Rather than become part of it, he chose to work against it in quiet ways, aiming to reduce violence and instability by disrupting those underlying systems.

He still holds wealth and influence, but much of it is embedded into hidden mechanisms within the city's financial and social networks, allowing resources to be subtly redirected away from the noble families without them immediately noticing.

Now he lives in the Low Lanterns, moving among the people closer to the fog and the river, where he is known simply as "Mr. Vale." From there, he continues his quiet work, staying outside the direct center of power.

Recently, however, some noble families in The Heights have begun noticing irregular patterns in their wealth and influence. While they cannot fully prove what is happening, they are getting close to uncovering Percival's role in destabilizing their system. Because of this growing suspicion, he is now forced to leave the city for a time.

Briar Hollow

Player-written. His connection to the campaign's setting.

Percival Vale passes through Briar Hollow because it sits on a quiet but reliable trade corridor between Lantern's Row and the outer settlements.

He does not conduct trade within Briar Hollow itself. The settlement is only a passage point on routes he uses to move supplies, coin, and select goods between Lantern's Row and outlying areas.

He knows which routes through Briar Hollow remain stable across seasons, which ones draw attention too quickly, and which local handlers can be relied on to keep traffic moving without disruption.

Percival's Past — A Life With Valis

Player-written. What Percival now remembers, as of session 13. To restore the Knight he gave up, as the Echo, his knowledge of his own history — what he did for the Low Lanterns — and this childhood with Valis took its place. The backstory above is what actually happened; this is what he believes happened. See Session 13 — The Feeding, Reversed.

You grew up in a household where expectations mattered more than happiness.

Your parents had always been strict. There were rules for everything: how you should dress, how you should speak, who you could associate with, and even what you were allowed to read. They had a very particular idea of the person you were supposed to become, and anything that didn't fit that image was quickly discouraged.

You were never particularly rebellious as a young child. In fact, you spent much of your childhood trying to please them. You learned to stay quiet during dinner, to keep your opinions to yourself, and to apologize even when you didn't understand what you had done wrong.

Your parents called it discipline. You simply knew that home never felt like a place where you could truly be yourself.

You first met Valis when you were around eleven years old.

You had slipped away from home after an argument with your parents. It wasn't anything particularly unusual, but that day you had finally grown tired of being told what you could and couldn't do.

You found yourself sitting alone, far enough away that nobody would think to look for you.

That's when Valis appeared.

He was strange, even back then. There was something about him that you couldn't quite place. He spoke with a confidence that sometimes bordered on arrogance, and he seemed remarkably unconcerned with what anyone thought of him.

He sat beside you without asking permission.

At first, you didn't particularly like him. He asked too many questions, made jokes at inappropriate moments, and seemed determined to get a reaction out of you.

When you told him that your parents would be furious if they discovered where you were, he simply laughed.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing they aren't here."

You remember being shocked by how casually he said it.

You also remember laughing.

It was the beginning of a friendship that would change your life.

Over the following years, Valis became a constant presence.

You would meet whenever you could escape your parents' attention. Sometimes you wandered through the streets together, sometimes you sat for hours talking about nothing in particular, and sometimes Valis would take you somewhere you had never been before.

He had an unusual fascination with the world. He knew stories about places you had never heard of, spoke of ancient kingdoms as though he'd visited them himself, and occasionally used words you couldn't find in any book.

Whenever you questioned him, he would give you an infuriatingly vague answer.

"Perhaps you should read more."

Valis encouraged your curiosity. While your parents considered your questions inconvenient, Valis seemed to enjoy them. He would bring you books, challenge your opinions, and occasionally spend an entire afternoon arguing with you over something completely insignificant.

He also taught you something your parents never had, You were allowed to want things for yourself.

It started with small acts of rebellion.

Staying out later than you were supposed to. Sneaking into places you weren't allowed to visit. Wearing something your parents would disapprove of. Speaking your mind when you would normally have remained silent.

Valis found all of it incredibly entertaining.

Once, after you had finally stood up to your father during an argument, you rushed to tell Valis what had happened.

He listened with a smile before asking, "And did the world end?"

When you shook your head, he replied:

"How disappointing. I was expecting something spectacular."

You threw something at him. He laughed.

Unfortunately, your parents didn't respond well to your newfound independence.

At first, they tried to become stricter. They forbade you from leaving the house without permission, took away books they considered distracting, and demanded to know where you spent your afternoons.

But the more they tried to control you, the less willing you became to obey.

Eventually, something changed.

Your parents stopped arguing.

They stopped asking where you went, stopped questioning your decisions, and stopped trying to correct your behavior.

For a brief moment, you thought they had finally accepted that you were growing up.

Then you realized they had simply stopped acknowledging you.

At dinner, conversations continued as though you weren't sitting at the table. Your achievements went unnoticed. Your questions were ignored. Sometimes you would walk into a room, and neither of your parents would even look up.

It was a strange kind of punishment.

You had spent years wishing they would leave you alone.

You hadn't realized how much it would hurt when they finally did.

Valis noticed the change before you admitted it bothered you.

One evening, when you were unusually quiet, he asked what was wrong. You tried to dismiss it, but he continued pressing until you finally told him everything.

For once, he didn't make a joke.

He sat beside you for a long time before speaking.

"Percival, there is a difference between being alone and being made to feel unwanted."

You didn't answer.

Then he added, much more quietly:

"You shouldn't have to earn someone's attention by becoming the person they want you to be."

You remember that conversation more clearly than almost anything else from your childhood.

By the time you turned sixteen, your parents barely spoke to you.

You had become a stranger in your own home, and the only moments you genuinely looked forward to were those you spent with Valis.

You began spending entire days away, sometimes returning long after dark. Nobody questioned it.

Eventually, you stopped wondering whether they would notice if you didn't come home at all.

One evening, you mentioned the idea of leaving to Valis.

He didn't laugh or immediately encourage you. Instead, he asked whether you had somewhere to go.

You told him you didn't.

After a moment of thought, he suggested the Low Lanterns.

It was a rougher part of the city, full of narrow streets, crowded buildings, questionable establishments, and people who generally preferred not to ask too many questions.

You had been warned about the area throughout your childhood. Naturally, Valis seemed to love it.

He knew people there, or at least claimed to. He assured you that finding somewhere to stay wouldn't be difficult.

For several weeks, you quietly prepared.

You saved whatever money you could, collected the belongings you wanted to keep, and made sure you had everything you needed.

You remember standing in your bedroom on the night you finally left.

Your bag wasn't particularly heavy.

It was strange to realize how little of your life you actually wanted to take with you.

You considered leaving a letter. In the end, you decided against it.

You climbed out of your window and found Valis waiting for you outside.

He glanced at your bag.

"That's everything?"

You nodded.

"Good. I was beginning to worry you'd try to bring the furniture."

And just like that, you left.

Nobody came after you.

Your first few months in the Low Lanterns were nothing like the life you had grown up with.

The streets were loud, the buildings were old, and privacy was something you quickly learned not to expect.

You and Valis found a small place to live above an establishment that was rarely quiet, even in the middle of the night.

The room was cramped. The furniture didn't match, the windows let in cold air, and the floorboards creaked whenever someone walked across them.

You loved it.

For the first time in your life, you could decide when to wake up, what to eat, where to go, and how to spend your time.

Of course, freedom came with responsibilities you hadn't entirely considered.

Money was a constant concern. You took whatever honest work you could find, occasionally helping merchants with their records, running errands, or doing small jobs for people in the neighborhood.

Valis was remarkably good at talking his way into opportunities, although you quickly learned that his plans weren't always as sensible as he claimed.

He could be infuriating to live with.

He borrowed your belongings without asking, disappeared for hours without explaining where he'd gone, and had a habit of answering serious questions with riddles.

But he was also there when things went wrong.

When you struggled to find work, he helped. When you became ill, he stayed beside you. When you worried about money, he somehow found a way to make things work, even if he refused to explain how.

You developed small routines together.

Late-night conversations over cheap food. Arguments over books. Wandering the streets when neither of you could sleep. Occasionally sitting in comfortable silence, watching the city from your window.

You even started keeping a small collection of books, something Valis never stopped teasing you about.

"One day," he told you, "you're going to bury yourself beneath so many books that I'll have to dig you out."

You replied that at least the books were better company than him.

He seemed rather pleased with that answer.

As you grew older, the Low Lanterns became home.

You learned which streets to avoid after dark, which merchants could be trusted, and which taverns served food worth paying for.

You made acquaintances, found work, and gradually built a life that belonged entirely to you.

Valis remained your closest friend.

There were still things about him you didn't understand.

He rarely spoke about his own past. Sometimes he disappeared for days, returning with vague explanations and an expression that suggested he had seen something unpleasant.

Occasionally, he would recognize an ancient symbol or speak a language you had never heard before.

He never seemed particularly concerned about growing older, either.

Whenever you pointed out something strange, he usually found a way to change the subject.

But you trusted him. After all, he had been there through everything.

He had known you when you were a frightened child, watched you grow into someone willing to stand up for himself, and helped you build a life away from the people who had made you feel invisible.

You couldn't imagine your past without him.

There is one memory you return to more often than the others.

It was late at night, several years after you had moved to the Low Lanterns.

You and Valis were sitting together, watching the lights in the streets below.

You had been talking about your childhood, about the home you had left behind, and about whether your parents had ever tried to find you.

You wondered aloud whether things might have been different if you had never met Valis.

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said:

"Perhaps. But you did."

You asked him whether he thought the two of you would always remain friends.

Valis looked at you with an expression you couldn't quite understand.

"Always is a rather dangerous word, Percival."

You told him that wasn't an answer.

He smiled faintly.

"Very well. Then let me make you a promise."

He held out his hand.

"No matter how far you wander, no matter how much the world changes, if you ever find yourself lost..."

He paused.

"I'll find you."

You shook his hand. And for some reason, you believed him completely.

Valis was there when you were young. He was there when you left home. He was there when you had nothing, and he was there when you finally built a life of your own.

Whatever else has happened, whatever memories you may have lost along the way, there is one thing you know with absolute certainty.

Valis has always been there.

Percival Vale — Relations

Party

Nessa ("Ness")

Liora

Gia

Onyx

NPCs

Astor the Controlling

Lady Agnes Merrow

The tree warden

Local handlers in Briar Hollow

Lantern's Row

The Congregation of the Hollow Star

The noble families of The Heights

The Low Lanterns

Valis the Feeding

Percival Vale — Objectives

Active Objectives

• Liora and the Knight (sessions 12, 13). Valis, angry at being thrown toward the chains, forced the Feeding Mark through him onto Liora in session 12; he did not want it. He read the making of a Providence card onto her — Vessel, Spirit, Echo — and acted on it: drained Valis into her to save her, then gave an Echo of his own to restore the Knight. Whether the bond held is unrecorded.

• The lighthouse note (session 10). He decoded it; nothing has been done with it. Three conditions — the sea taking the shore, the flame going dark, the door without a handle — and a price: surrender the gift, to enter "the place where the First Ones fell". Working out what the gift is comes first. See The Lighthouse.

• The Congregation of the Hollow Star (sessions 5, 9). An offer to be "freed" with no answer as to from what, and a vial for collecting card dust that came with no explanation. He has not decided anything and has told the party nothing. See The Congregation of the Hollow Star.

• Onyx's blue light (session 10). He knows because his unseen servant was watching, and Onyx does not know he knows. What to do with it is open.

• The greater evil, the sickness. Named to him directly in the tavern in session 7, alongside the deities. The party already knew of it. See The Greater Evil / The Sickness.

• Recover the scene Astor took. A whole scene of session 7 is gone from everyone at the table.

• Stay out of Lantern's Row until the suspicion cools. The Heights are close to naming him. Leaving was the move; how long it has to last is unsettled. Update (sessions 5, 9): he has been back in the city twice since, running the corridor from the city end and meeting the Congregation at the chapel. Whether that cost him anything is unrecorded.

• Keep the mechanisms running from outside the city. The arrangements redirecting resources away from the noble families are embedded in Lantern's Row's financial and social networks. He is no longer there to tend them.

Unresolved Threads

• The Veil. Whether the door it opened in session 10 was its power or a use he put it to, and whether the party knows he holds it.

• What Liora spoiled into the stone, and how he already knew it. He helped her keep it.

• The fire he set in the forest. Admitted out loud in session 8, which is what turned the tree warden on him. When, where, why, and whether it is out is unrecorded.

• The three threads running out of the ritual site (session 8). None followed. See The Ritual Site and the Three Threads.

• The loop and the stone. Whether the secrets given to it are held anywhere, and by what. See The Loop.

• The cards. He was there when the party learned of the cards that hold magic (session 1). Details pending.

• The deal at his death (session 2). He died of the wound from testing the Maiden and made a deal with Valis. Terms, price, and what he is now are unrecorded — the largest open thread on the character.

• Stay aligned with Valis. Valis is friendly for as long as Percival stays aligned with him. What "aligned" covers, and what happens if he drifts, is untested.

• The pact. The patron is Valis the Feeding (Yellow). Whether the death-deal is a second agreement or the original one being called in is unrecorded. Whether any of it bears on the work in Lantern's Row is open.

• What the Maiden did. It reads "protects all"; he took a fatal wound to find out what that meant, and it did not read as protection for him. The answer has not been recorded.

• What he was before. Magistrate, crown's hunter, member of a vanished order — the backstory leaves the rumours open on purpose.

Old Objectives

None yet.

Percival Vale — Sheet

Class & Level: Warlock 5 (The Undead) — patron is Valis the Feeding, Yellow magic colour (Valis the Feeding) Species: Human Background: Pact Seeker Alignment: Neutral Player: robustussutsubor

Full character sheet PDF: percival-vale-character-sheet.pdf.

Stats

• HP: 63 | AC: 18 | Initiative: +3 | Speed: 30 ft.
• Proficiency Bonus: +3 | Hit Dice: 5d8
• Spell Save DC: 16 | Spell Attack: +8 (CHA)
• Passive Perception: 16 | Passive Insight: 13 | Passive Investigation: 17
• Senses: Darkvision 60 ft.

Resistances: Fire, Poison Immunities: Frightened

Proficiencies

• Armor: Light Armor
• Weapons: Simple Weapons
• Tools: Calligrapher's Supplies
• Languages: Common, Common Sign Language, Elvish
• Skills: Arcana +7, Deception +8, History +7, Investigation +7, Perception +6, Persuasion +8

Attacks

Eldritch Invocations

• Agonizing Blast — add CHA modifier to Eldritch Blast damage
• Devil's Sight — see normally in magical and nonmagical darkness, 120 ft.
• Eldritch Mind — Advantage on CON saves to maintain Concentration
• Fiendish Vigor — cast False Life without a spell slot (always highest result)
• Lessons of the First Ones — one Origin feat of choice

Spells

Cantrips (at will): Eldritch Blast, Prestidigitation, Minor Illusion, Tyrant's Grasp, Green-Flame Blade

1st Level: Unseen Servant [Ritual], Hellish Rebuke (DEX 16), False Life, Unseen Servant (Magic Initiate) Always Prepared (Infernal Bulwark): Armor of Agathys (deals Fire damage, cast as level 2 for free 1/LR)

2nd Level: Darkness, Armor of Agathys

3rd Level (2 Pact Magic slots): Summon Undead, Summon Shadowspawn, Summon Lesser Demons

Features & Feats

Form of Dread (3/Long Rest — Bonus Action): Transform for 1 minute. Gain 1d10+5 temp HP. Each turn, force a creature to make WIS DC 16 save or be frightened until end of your next turn. Immune to frightened condition.

Vengeful Surge (3/Long Rest — Reaction): When a creature within 60 ft. forces you to make a saving throw and you succeed, deal 1d10 Fire damage to it.

Infernal Bulwark: Resistance to Fire and Poison. Darkvision 60 ft. Proficiency in Deception. Always prepared: Armor of Agathys (Fire damage version, free cast 1/LR at level 2+).

Tough: HP maximum +10, +2 per level gained.

Magic Initiate (Wizard): Tyrant's Grasp, Green-Flame Blade (cantrips); Unseen Servant (1/LR free, CHA spellcasting).

Human — Resourceful: Gain Heroic Inspiration on every Long Rest.

Equipment

• Cloak of Many Fashions
• Veteran's Cane
• Backpack
• Rations ×5

Notes from play

• Comprehend Languages — used in session 10 to read the note Astor handed over at the lighthouse. It is not in the spell list above; how he had it is unrecorded.
• The Veil — the card he carries (The Veil). Not a listed item; it opened a door in session 10.
• The Feeding Mark (reversed) — 1st-level enchantment, bonus action, 30 ft., CON 13, concentration up to 1 hour; one extra target per 2 slot levels from 2nd. Cast as written, the mark reduces damage the target takes by his proficiency bonus, he gains that much temporary HP, and Valis feeds on a fragment of its pain. In session 13 he turned it the other way and drained power out of Valis into Liora.
• The card dust vial — carried since session 9 (The Card Dust Vial). Empty as far as anything recorded.

What Percival keeps from the party

• He was born in The Heights, raised among Lantern's Row's most influential families. To the Low Lanterns he is only "Mr. Vale."

• He has spent years working against the city's power structure — redirecting resources away from the noble families through hidden mechanisms inside Lantern's Row's financial and social networks.

• He still holds significant wealth and influence, embedded in those networks rather than carried on him.

• He is not travelling by choice. The Heights have noticed the irregularities and are getting close to him. Briar Hollow is where being elsewhere has put him.

• Valis is in the room. Percival is the only one who can see him. Nobody else knows that a deity is lounging against the furniture, lying in the air, or kicking his legs while they talk.

• He was in Lantern's Row in sessions 5 and 9. The notes he left the party said he was attending to business; the business is only half of it. He met the Congregation of the Hollow Star at the abandoned chapel, was offered freedom from something unnamed, and was handed the card dust vial, which he carries. None of this has been told to the party.

• He set an unseen servant to watch the party in the loop (session 10) and learned Onyx's secret — the blue light, and Onyx saying he shouldn't be able to do this. Onyx does not know he was seen, and nobody knows the servant was there.

• He knows what Liora spoiled into the stone (session 10) and helped her keep it. By the look of it he already knew before she said it.

• He whispered into the stone that he actually likes Gia, in a friendly sense — the same day he destroyed her sandcastle. Whether anything spoken into the stone stays private is unrecorded.

Whether any of this has actually come up at the table is unrecorded — mark items here as they become known.

His death in session 2 was not a secret — the party watched it. What the deal cost is a separate question and is unrecorded.

Percival Vale — Narrative Arc

Dramatic question: He has spent years dismantling the system he was born into, quietly enough that no one could name him for it. Now they nearly can, and he has been pushed out of the city he was working on. What is he when he is away from the work — and what does he do when quiet stops being an option?

The shape of it

Born in The Heights, above the fog, among the families whose wealth runs on debt and maintained imbalance. He understood the machine from inside it and chose neither to join it nor to break it openly — he went down to the Low Lanterns, became "Mr. Vale," and started redirecting the machine's own resources away from it without leaving a name on anything.

The method has a cost built into it. Working invisibly means no one can be told, no one can help, and nothing he has done can be claimed or defended. It also means that when the noble families finally sense the pattern, there is nobody standing between him and it. That point has now arrived: they have the irregularities, not the proof, and he has left rather than be there when the two meet.

Briar Hollow is where the exile has taken him — a passage point on his own trade corridor, a village with something in it that has nothing to do with Lantern's Row.

Update (as of session 2)

He died. He asked to be shot to test a card and the wound took him, and what came out of that was a deal with Valis rather than a grave.

The man who spent years arranging things so that nothing could be traced back to him spent his own life on an experiment, in front of witnesses. Whatever the deal costs, it is a debt he did not structure, hide, or control — the opposite of how he has operated in Lantern's Row. What that does to the arc depends on the terms, which are unrecorded.

Update (as of sessions 5 and 9)

Twice he left the table and went back into the city he is supposed to be staying out of, both times leaving the party a note that said only that he was attending to business. The work is still his: in session 5 he was running the corridor from the city end.

Session 9 put a proposition against the whole arc. The Congregation of the Hollow Star offered to free him — of his deity, of this life, of the responsibility for his city — and named all three without separating them. The responsibility for the city is what he has organised his life around; the deity is a debt he took on dying; this life is the shape those two have made. Someone has looked at him and read all of it as something he is carrying rather than something he chose. He asked what they meant and got nothing, and left with a vial for collecting card dust.

What resolution looks like

Open. The starting tensions to pull on: whether the quiet method survives a situation that demands he act in the open; whether the party ever learns who he is and what he holds; and whether he goes back to Lantern's Row at all, or the work continues without him and stops being his.

Update (as of session 10)

The method came back with him. In the loop he gave the stone something true and small — that he actually likes Gia — and set an unseen servant to collect what everyone else gave up, which is the same shape as the work in Lantern's Row: contribute the minimum, hold the ledger, be the only one who knows what is on it. He came out of it holding Onyx's secret, Liora's secret, and two sessions of his own that the party has not been told about.

The note at the lighthouse asks for the opposite. It puts a price on entry — surrender the gift — and he does not yet know what the gift is or whether it is his to give.

Update (as of session 13)

He gave something away. To save Liora he reversed the Feeding Mark and drained Valis into her; to restore the Knight he left an Echo — his knowledge of his own history, what he did for the Low Lanterns. The man whose whole method was to hold the ledger and be the only one who knew what was on it gave up the ledger itself.

What replaced it is a childhood with Valis: strict parents, a friend at eleven, a window climbed out of at sixteen, a small room in the Low Lanterns, and a promise — "I'll find you." He believes it completely. The dramatic question now has a second layer: the work in Lantern's Row is still running and the Heights are still closing in, and the man they are closing in on no longer knows what he did. Meanwhile the one constant in his remembered life is the patron he just drained.

Percival Vale — Secrets

Things Percival knows and the rest of the table does not, plus things kept from him. Player-side file, not DM prep.

Out in the Open

• The fire. He said out loud in session 8 that he set a small fire in the forest before. The party heard it and so did the tree warden, which slammed him against a tree for it. Not a secret any more; the details of it — when, where, why — have still never been recorded.

What Percival does not know

• What "the gift" is in the note he decoded at the lighthouse, or what the Beneath is. He read the words; nothing beyond them was explained.
• What the Congregation meant by "freed", and what card dust is.
• What the Veil actually does. It opened a door in session 10; that is the whole record.
• His own history (since session 13). He gave up knowing what he did for the Low Lanterns as the Echo to restore the Knight. He now remembers a childhood with Valis instead (see Percival's Past — A Life With Valis). The Lantern's Row backstory, the mechanisms, and the reason the Heights are after him are things the file knows and he does not. The items under What Percival keeps from the party that rest on that history are now kept from him too.