Season One Summary

See below for the cast and summary of Season One of the Knights Chasseur plot. For all other synopses, please see the general Plot Synopsis.

## Dramatis Personae

### **Vilette Laurent**

* A halfbreed knight and commoner who was commissioned to muster and lead the Knights Chasseur. Young and emotionally scarred, her leadership is marred with crippling self-doubt, despite her analytic and charismatic presence.

### **Hilda Alarias d’Emmerent**

* A halfbreed Ishgardian who was born abroad, and became Dragoon after the Dragonsong War. Hilda is a proud daughter of the noble House Emmerent, whose hot-headed pursuit of justice fuels her very raison d’etre.

### **Fiona Delaine**

* Once an Inquisitor of the Holy See, Fiona had done the unthinkable when she imbibed the blood of dragons, forever snatching her from the world of Man. She, for reasons yet known, is one of the few who have undergone the Metamorphosis who retains sapience, and can transform back into her mortal form at will.

### **Ramona Zale**

* A hyur knight who once served House Haillenarte. Disciplined, professional, and responsible, this Ishgardian is — on the surface — a spitting image of chivalric virtue. Despite her position as the chief quartermaster in the Chasseurs, she is a shot without equal in the company’s ranks.

### **Cassiopeia d’Argent**

* A halfbreed noble of the House Argent, who enlisted in the Knights Chasseur as a squire to study the art of leadership beneath Vilette, as her brother had before her. Naturally curious, and a gifted investigator, Cassiopeia lives in perpetual pursuit of the truth.

### **Domeric Fleshcroft**

* A noble from the much-sneered-at Southern Lowlands of Coerthas, Domeric is the heir apparent to the House of Fleshcroft. Rejected from multiple Temple Knight companies for his Lowlander heritage, he finally found an uneasy home among the Knights Chasseur. Despite his calm, calculating persona and dread-filling family reputation, there are hints of a caring, noble soul in his words and actions.

### **Aelion Hannitangur**

* A childhood friend and fellow noble peer of Domeric. Aelion is a Hannitangur, a family with a long and storied history deemed inconvenient and potentially heretical to the previous Ishgardian regime. Also rejected from multiple companies for his heritage and reputation, Aelion found his whimsical, fiery self among other Coerthan misfits in the Knights Chasseur.

### **Nivaar Swann**

* A bastard hyur who grew up an orphan in Ishgard. Optimistic, principled, and justice-seeking, this young man will stop at nothing to prevent others from growing up as he did. Yet still, the scars of his past as a child soldier may have left a shadow of pure darkness in the depths of his heart.

### **Blade Henge**

* An Abalathian mountain man and once-mercenary who had served with Vilette in the Alliance. For reasons yet known — perhaps the official recognition of his peoples within Ishgard’s borders; or simple loyalty — he has joined the Knights Chasseur as a foreign auxiliary. Large, imposing, and wise; Henge is feared and respected by even the most traditional of Ishgardians.

### **Khidyr Ugund**

* A Xaelic nomad who, in the past, served with Vilette. The two share a life-pact, and Khidyr is Vilette’s most trusted confidant. Stoic and laconic, few words come from this foreign warrior; but the few that do are most usually threats.

## Plot Summary "The Knights Chasseur"

To keep up with the evolution of modern warfare, Ishgard’s new Republic commissions a new company of soldiers, to serve as an experimental, rapid responding Grand Company, the Knights Chasseur. Ser Vilette Laurent, former commander of the decommissioned Alliance-chartered special task force, the Ironclaws, is brought in to lead them; under the guidance and supervision of the renowned Commander Halinard Lesol.

Of course, the Temple Knights are not too pleased with the potential of being replaced.

Barely out of training, the Chasseurs (stationed in Falcon’s Nest alongside House Durendaire) are handed a mission in the frigid, icy, western highlands. Unrest in the countryside calls the Chasseurs to the small village of Hemlock — a newly re-settled hamlet terrorised by supposed bandits. Upon reaching the village, the Chasseurs soon discover that the bandits are none other than the Sons of Halone, religious Ishgardian extremists who seek to restore the Holy See. In a fiery battle — where the Chasseurs’ Fiona Delaine revealed her ability to transform into a dragon — the Chasseurs rout the Sons and liberate Hemlock, but not without taking one of the leaders, Father Lambert, in for questioning! Before leaving, on the corpse of one of the extremists’ slain leaders, Cassiopeia d’Argent discovers a ring belonging to Lord Jandel Chantain, suggesting that the Sons of Halone are composed of commoners and nobles alike. Vilette remarks that it is strange that the Sons of Halone would reveal themselves with such a pointless and suicidal attack.

Father Lambert’s interrogation leads the Chasseurs to investigate a dig site in the highlands, owned by the wealthy entrepreneur and House of Commons MP, Suidbert Ilaine. A covert operation goes awry when the knights are spotted, and they engage and defeat a curious warmachine known as the Consecrator, a magitek juggernaut powered by ceruleum. How did the Sons of Halone come into this Garlean technology and what were they digging for?

The Chasseurs return to investigate, and discover otherworldly ruins and the remains of the investigative team before them. What’s more, a mysterious sarcophagus is found, already opened, supposedly once belonging to the ‘*real’* Halone. Whatever was in there had since been smuggled out of Coerthas.

Meanwhile, Cassiopeia and Domeric Fleshcroft investigate Lord Chantain further, leading them to House Lendel, the House in which his sister, Maria Chantain, married into. After a short meeting with Lady Maria, Cassi and Domeric determined that there were curious circumstances surrounding the house and their rapid rise to power. It seemed as if the Lendels were recently marrying off family members to struggling Houses, hoping to inherit their titles. In fact, it seemed as if their ‘next big catch’ was to be that of House Riveaux; given that the Lendels were to wed Lady Maria’s daughter (Marianne Lendel) to Lord Henri de Riveaux.

Cassi begins to look deeper into this marriage arrangement, and soon discovers that Marianne was forcefully pulled from her studies and boyfriend in Sharlayan for this engagement. She also heard from her sources that Marianne was being trained in the use of poisons — something which she didn’t like very much.

Before more investigation can be done, the Chasseurs catch a lead on Suidbert, who is attempting to flee Eorzea. The Chasseurs are given another covert operation to prevent Suidbert from leaving and detain him for questioning without alerting any interested parties. The Chasseurs encounter a squad of mysteriously well-equipped, Garlean soldiers (later revealed to be *‘Reclaimers’*, supersoldiers equipped with Allagan technology), and the operation leads to a shootout in Horizon, where Suidbert is injured in the fray, shot by the very Imperials who were to be his escape. Vilette recognises that these *‘Reclaimers’* were once led by her chief antagonist during her time with the Ironclaws (an Eorzean Alliance Task Force), ‘Acastus nan Rolt’. With luck (and Cassiopeia’s healing), Suidbert survives and is detained for questioning.

Ser Hilda Alarias d’Emmerent leads the interrogation, and Suidbert reveals that he was press-ganged into helping the Sons of Halone in exchange for the safety of his captive daughters (held by the Sons of Halone). He revealed he was in contact with a Garlean agent known as ‘Albus’, who promised to rescue his daughters in exchange for the body of ‘Halone’. He also revealed that the Sons of Halone were led by a man known only as ‘the Bishop’. He refused to give further details until his daughters were rescued. However, a detail that Suidbert revealed would, for a long time, mystify the Chasseurs: he revealed that Lord Jandel Chantain had acted against ‘the Bishop’s’ orders, and gone rogue to attack Hemlock. The Chasseurs suit up again, but this time, for a rescue mission.

The daughters were held in the town of Houx, located in the remote ‘Whitemere Valley’, in the region of *Whitemere;* east of Hemlock; of which the path had since been snowed in for a decade. A secret path leading into the regions’ Vigil (The White Vigil), however, was still in use by the Sons, and the Chasseurs went to secure it.

The Chasseurs then pressed on, into the White Vigil, with the intent of  splitting up into two teams. The first would remain in the Vigil, and work on disabling the Sons’ anti-air, so that Temple Knight airships could swoop in and evacuate the team later; and the other was to work on locating and rescuing the hostages.

There, the Chasseurs learned that the Sons were experiencing some form of internal strife — and that one faction was planning on summoning Halone. They seemed to have been siphoning the blood of children who ‘had special properties’ — of which Suidbert’s daughters (Rene and Clarisse) possessed — in order to do so. Clarisse was discovered hooked up to a magitek device that was siphoning her blood; while her sister was being held in a home. In order to rescue the girls, the Chasseurs engaged the cultists, and while they initially tried to not kill the villagers — swiftly found that impractical. Ultimately, Ser Aelion of House Hannitangur unleashed his fire magicks on the town, burning it to the ground, much to the shock of the other Chasseurs. In the ensuing fire, Nivaar Swann (another Chasseur) rescues another kidnapped child — Hariette — from a burning house, taking her into his care.

Meanwhile, Cassiopeia and Blade Henge (another Chasseur) clear the chapel in which Clarisse was having her blood drained, and went to disconnect her from the device. She came out of it unconscious — and hearing commotion in another room, they went to investigate. The Cultists had innocent villagers held hostage, and were threatening to kill them. They were also surrounded by a crystal stockpile. The pair managed to rescue a few hostages, before returning to find that Clarisse had awoken. However, unbeknownst to the Chasseurs, that was *no longer Clarisse*; for a black-robed being had seemingly possessed her. Not knowing this, the pair took her with them, and the Chasseurs rescued the two girls!

In the White Vigil, a fierce battle over a magitechnially enhanced (mobile) Dragonkiller cannon erupted, in which Fiona once again revealed her dragon form to the Chasseurs and the Cultists alike, setting flame to and exploding the entire Vigil courtyard.

This cleared the skies to allow for both teams to evacuate via airship while the Temple Knights’ 8th Heavy Infantry and the Black Riders of Durendaire began their full assault on Whitemere, wiping out the cult’s stronghold.

And so, the Chasseurs returned the girls to their father, who was overjoyed. Unwilling to interrupt their reunion, the Chasseurs backed off from questioning Suidbert for the moment, and went to enjoy a well-deserved break.

However, with no witnesses other than Rene, the possessed Clarisse killed her father.