Auric Vintel

ATC Board of Directors Portrait of Auric Vintel circa. 372 A.U.

**Auric Vintel** was an Aeldman elvish aristocrat, naval dropout, emigre to the Margravate of Tarim, navigator of the Celestial Passage Expedition and founder of the Aeldrum Celestial Trade Company. His controlling interest in the ACTC and the prodigious growth of the company made him a darling of the Aeldrum stock exchange and one of the richest men in the Grand Duchy, as well as a possible outside candidate for the role of Serene Doge.

## Personality

Vintel was a deeply paranoid man, and while not personally prone to violence he was entirely willing to have others kill his rivals, most often by dispatching his business partner, the psychopathic Cassander Crowley. Vintel's tastes were aristocratic, but so were his fears; he rarely drank, lest his enemies poison him, and more than one servant was "given a visit from Crowley" for gossip that Vintel felt threatened the security of his fortified palace on the Aeldrum core world of Sivella. The ACTC Chairman would leave the security of his fortified compound primarily to attend shareholder meetings of the ATC within the halls of the Aeldrum Parliament; while on Aeldrum, he spent vast sums to secure entire blocs around himself as he moved to and from Parliament and bought a complex of townhomes on three levels of the Aeldrum Spire to ensure that none could blast through the spire's thick basalt walls to get to him.

One satirical newsprint of Vintel surrounded by bodyguards quipped: "Margravate Privateer Crew Breach Aeldrum Parliament." Within two days, Vintel had bought and liquidated the newspaper at fire-sale prices. Two months later, the author of the article was evicted from his home and found dead in an alley. The matter was ruled a tragic suicide.

## History

After being educated mostly by private tutors on Aeldrum, Auric deferred a naval commission to study Etherics at the Academy of Saldan, becoming a gifted navigator.

Following his adventures, he founded his own company, along with his newfound partner, Cassander Crowley.

## Rumors

There are no shortage of rumors floating around concerning many of Vintel's many parties, and their particularly exclusive nature, which implies no shortages of forbidden fruit on display...

Vintel was rumored to have betrayed the Knights Mercantile, perhaps explaining his severe paranoia. Combined with rumors about the KM affiliations of the Count of Lidenia, several "in the know" concluded that Vintel and the Count's political rivalry was an elaborate proxy for Vintel's constant battle with the phantoms of his own past.

## Politics

Vintel's ambitions were not merely monetary but also political, and while Vintel quickly became a member of the ATC Board of Directors, he was also rumored as a possible self-funded candidate for the position of Serene Doge. While of noble birth, Vintel did not belong to any of the great dynasties of Aeldrum, and rumors around his candidacy were met with scorn from some in the upper echelons but strong enthusiasm from many in the gentry and lower nobility.

Politically, Vintel was an expansionist and aggressive promoter of trade and clientelism: "Aeldrum's prosperity is in being the broker of the cosmos. Foreign states do not always realize they need a broker, and it is the function of the Aeldrum Trade Company and His Excellency's Dragoons to impress on them that necessity."

Vintel was at first horrified on his return to Imperial Space to learn that Aeldrum had recognized Irish independence. However, he recognized the need for alliances and spoke frequently against outright imperialist ambition as a misallocation of resources, reasoning that "a client, even unwilling, is always cheaper than a subject." Vintel was frequently at odds with the Count of Lidenia and his Reform Party, because while he preferred clients, he still emphasized a more muscular foreign policy, particularly against possible rival trade powers.

Vintel's political opponents, including rival ATC Director Claude Farandole, labeled his adventurist approach "The Russian School" after the disastrous ATC failure in Russia a century before. Vintel was quick to make the distinction between states ready for clientelism and unruly backwaters that required forcible extraction, because they lacked the economic surplus to trade freely. He was among those who sounded the alarm at the loss of Singe to rebel forces, and many in Aeldrum's higher circles believed that he took a personal hand in trying to salvage the situation.

## Trivia

Vintel kept an anti-psychotic in a false tooth throughout the Celestial Corsairs Campaign, so that he could withstand cosmic horrors if need be.