Backstory

Governor Pipkin "Pip" Allo is the publicly celebrated leader of Rueside, a city trying to pull itself out of the mire of Coia's violent history. Born to a family of minor textile merchants in the Silk District, Pip never aspired to rule. However, his unthreatening demeanor and malleable nature caught the eye of the ambitious Lord Tyrell during the political reshuffling that followed the Dragonbone Vanguard's dissolution. Tyrell maneuvered Pip into the governorship, seeing him as the perfect figurehead: likable enough to placate the commoners, yet spineless enough to obey orders without question.

For over a decade, Pip has worn the heavy chain of office, signing decrees he barely reads and hosting banquets he doesn't enjoy. Publicly, he is known as a fair, if somewhat ineffectual, administrator who favors bright, cheerful cloaks and loud, untroubled laughter—a carefully constructed mask to hide his crippling anxiety. Privately, Pip is consumed by "The Coward's Guilt." He knows Tyrell's shadow operations in the city are ruthless, potentially connected to the dark remnants of the House of Silk, but Pip is too terrified to intervene. He keeps a hand-drawn map of the old sewer smugglers' routes beneath his floorboards, adding to it obsessively, fantasizing about an escape he knows he will never have the courage to attempt. He is a man trapped in velvet, resenting the strings that make him dance but fearing the fall if they are cut.