The Astrodia Campaign

Archibald

4 min read

Archibald is the butler of the Nor family, serving at their vacation beach house in Lathen. Impeccably composed and endlessly capable, he is — on the surface — the perfect household servant. Beneath that, the party suspects he is something closer to a fixer and bodyguard: an unusually powerful spellcaster quietly providing “additional services” to a wealthy merchant family.

More Than a Butler

  • Casts Teleport. Archibald is the one who ferries the S.A.T.O. between their campuses and teleported The Fallen to Quandrix College. Teleport is a high-level wizard spell (confirmed by the party’s Arcana check) — extraordinary for a “butler,” and he deflects questions about where he learned it (“butler school”).
  • Uses Unseen Servant. He served an elaborate twelve-person dinner nearly single-handed, with plates and courses floating themselves to and from the kitchen (Leif recognized the spell).
  • Reads as a fixer. Úlfr’s Insight put him as genuinely competent at everything — the kind of retainer who doubles as protection.
  • Knows what happens under the roof. He eavesdrops as a matter of professional duty — “It’s my job to know what takes place under this roof” — but stays discreet about the Nor family’s private business. He vouches for Myrna as “a good soul, with a strong will and a good head on her shoulders.”

What He Told the Party

On the White Forest, Archibald offered the session’s most useful lead: there was research into the forest’s history before the Academy banned the subject, and the party should seek out a scholar or professor who studied it prior to the restriction. On reaching Pentamarone, he advised traveling by ship up the river that runs the Endymion Empire–Artmegia border.

Session 9 Developments

Summoned by Myrna (via Sending Stones and a successful Satyr roll) to the roof of Morgana’s Tower in Freedale, where The Fallen had copied a teleportation circle’s runes and sent them along.

He stepped through onto a dead witch’s rooftop entirely unruffled — “Hello, adventurers. My master, Myrna, informed me that you needed teleportation somewhere” — established that the Nephthys temple has no permanent circle, borrowed Drolta’s plume as an associated object, and cast Teleportation Circle on the spot. The roll came within a hair of scattering the party across the map and landed dead on target.

His parting offer stands as an ongoing party resource: “Should you need me again, just ask Myrna” — provided there’s a teleportation circle to post to.

(Another data point on how far past “butler” he actually is: casting Teleportation Circle to a location he has never visited, off a borrowed feather, on request.)

Session 10 — The Miss (August 26, 2026)

The teleport he cast at the end of Session 9 did not land where it was supposed to.

The Fallen stepped out of the circle not at the Nephthys temple but at a crossroads in unfamiliar woods inside Endymion Empire territory, several hours’ walk north of Pentamarone — a different continent’s worth of wrong from where they intended to be. Archibald himself did not come through; he opened the circle, let the party pass, and went home to Lathen.

Whether he botched the casting off Drolta’s borrowed plume, or something redirected them, is unresolved. The party’s competing theories were divine misdirection and demonic misdirection; the DM offered no answer.

Worth noting either way: the man previously established as improbably competent at everything has now, on the record, either made a serious mistake or been overruled by something. His standing offer — “should you need me again, just ask Myrna” — is unchanged, and the party has not yet contacted him about it.

First Appeared

Session 7 (July 15, 2026), at the Nor family beach house in Lathen, where he prepared dinner and, at session’s end, teleported The Fallen to the Quandrix College campus.

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