Cosomio Barbieri

Portrait of Cosomio upon his induction as a Dragoon, CE 895

**Cosomio Barbieri** is the Inquisitor General for the Papetral Pontifect, a former statesman and one of the scions to the House of Barbieri. He is one of the view carry-overs in the Papet after the death of the High Pontiff, and helped maintain the order of the Pontifect in the ensuing chaos after the Niocletian coup d'etat. He is a polyglot and calligrapher, as well as a civil-law notary.

Previously serving as an Inquisitor himself and rooting out a Cult of Orcus within the higher levels of the Papet, he was anointed as Inquisitor General without having served as a Cardinal or Bishop first, making him only one of a handful of such Inquisitor Generals to do so. He was also one of the original two hundred knights that were called upon during the War of the Dragons to defend Prace during the Battle of Widow's Womb in CE 895.

## Early life

Cosomio Barbieri was born as an only son to the artist Giuseppe, a low gentry to the House of Barbieri. Giuseppe was patronized by the House of Falchio to paint the murals of their new catacombs; thus he was born in a small manor in the Ascadi Castle estate.

Though he grew up around aristocrats, Cosomio's family did not grow into the wealth of either their patrons nor their family name. Cosomio originally received training in neo-Hellastian styles with his father and was to become an artist like his father.

## Education

In his teens, there were concerns over the growing power of the House of Darcedon following the War of the Bloody Vigil. Cosomio chose to pursue a career as a civil-law notary in his early teens in order to accompany the stewards passing from Ascadi Castle. Having spent most of his life in a single location, he wanted to travel with them to the far reaches of the Pontifect, to Tyrrhos. He attended a university in Cyravest and learned Elvish, Dwarvish, Draconic, and various dialects of Common. He had completed his studies by CE 893, only six years after he began his studies.

At eighteen, he became marshaled and accompanied the Falchion Archduke as one of the official notaries of the House of Falchio. At the time, Falchio was losing ground in the Pontifect and invested in legalists to supply the inner workings of the Papet, unwittingly making them an enemy of the Niocletians.

## Tethryndor gentry

### Service as a Dragoon

Archduke Juan di Mago, under instruction of Crown Prince Phillip III, attacked the Widow's Womb canyon in southern Tethryndor at the onset of the War of the Dragons. This action dragged Prace into the conflict. Ascadi Castle was one of only two castles in the canyon, and thus they were completely ill-equipped to defend against the sudden siege. Cosomio helped defend the Falchion Archduke and his wife as they escaped, and was one of the two hundred men of fighting age capable of combating the Kasmirian army. Even though he survived and was knighted for his courage, the ensuing fire at the Ascadi castle led to the death of his father and mother.

Cosomio served as a knight throughout the Kasmirian invasion, and when the House of Falchio found refuge with the Twilight Elves, Cosomio served as a Dragoon, a special class of cavalry equipped with a fire-arm. He was one of the knights responsible for preventing further Laconian incursion into Tethryndor.

At the conclusion of the war, Cosomio was formally recognized as a Baronet and was bequeathed a small estate in Tethryndor for his defense of the kingdom, Young Meadow. He also wed a twilight elf, Shavani of Fallen Oaks, whose father he had befriended during the war.

### Imprisonment

Cosomio gained prominence thanks to his service in the War of the Dragons, and with the distaste for the rule of Tethryndor under the House of Nimiro, Cosomio had attention drawn to him as a candidate to supersede Nimiran rule. Nimiro had been systematically eliminating threats to their rule in this time, and fabricated counterfeiting charges against Cosomio. He was sent to a Paptral dungeon in Ludor. In that time, his estate was forfeited to Nimiro and his wife was forced to return to her father's estate in Fallen Oaks. He was in captivity for five years.

Because of his previous status, Cosomio was afforded many rights while in prison in exchange for performing services such as translation and record-keeping. Ultimately, his imprisonment was more of a formality and perhaps a boon to his career, as he became acquainted with both the High Pontiff and his peers in the Palace of Dragons.

A middling plague in parts of Tethryndor resulted in Cosomio's father-in-law dying of fever, and once again deteriorated the rule of law in the region. The Council of Forty-Eight, the rulers of Tethryndor, unanimously agreed to remove the Nimiran king from power. Tethryndor was now left without a tribune to officiate any matters with the Papet, and Cosomio was an attractive option for handling legal matters (given his studies and name recognition). His charges were rescinded, and once approved by the High Pontiff, he returned and was named tribune in CE 901.

### Tribune to the Twilight Elves

Though he was not born a magnate nor a Twilight Elf and thus could not serve as king, Cosomio held a degree of power as a prominent barrister and legalist for the Twilight Elves. He even secured the lands lost in the War of the Dragons from Laconia in CE 903. Cosomio frequented Ludor and Arendor, and held a friendship with the High Pontiff over the years.

Tethryndor, still without a king, encountered an internal revolt led by the Cult of Vulcan who wanted to install the fell angel as their god-king. This of course led to the Council of Forty-Eight inviting the crusaders from the ill-fated Black Crusade to deal with this problem, and ultimately the Council was devastated and the capitol was sacked. Cosomio, in defense of the city, was struck with such force to his head that he will still occasionally have absence headaches to this day.

Once Tethryndor was incorporated into Cyravest, the High Pontiff ruled that the region needed a Grand Inquisitor; with the official title of *tribune* meaning nothing once Cyravest installed their own rulers, Cosomio's relationship with the High Pontiff earned him a position as the Grand Inquisitor in April CE 906.

## Grand Inquisitor of Tethryndor

### Initial inquiries

Cosomio led a number of inquiries throughout his first two decades of service; at one point, he was to bring forth the Barbieri prince as a conspirator in a Jade death cult, but the prince committed suicide and in his will named Cosomio as his heir; this action made it so that Cosomio was officially a scion of the Barbieri family, and prevented further inquiries into the family.

An attempt by the November Brotherhood to kill the Delphan was also thwarted by Cosomio's inquisitors, and for that he was given a commendation by the High Pontiff.

### Cult of Orcus indictments

Though not in his jurisdiction, Cosomio became alarmed on one visit to Arendor when he uncovered evidence that there were practicing cultists of Orcus within the Papet itself. Cosomio organized a cloak-and-dagger task force in August CE 936 to investigate and acquire all the names of the cult members. When he uncovered the location of the cult's activities within the Palace of Dragons, he attempted to arrest the guilty party; however, this was ill-fated and he was captured himself.

Cosomio was locked into a dungeon containing a horrific demon and left for dead. However, his task force aware of his whereabouts within the palace uncovered his location and rescued him. he approached the High Pontiff about the dungeon and the cult's activities. This led to the imprisonment of eleven high-ranking officials within the Pontifect, including the previous Inquisitor General. For his investigation into this conspiracy, Cosomio was named the next Inquisitor General in CE 937.

## Inquisitor General

### Niocletian coup d'etat

Cosomio relocated to the Palace of Dragons in Arendor and served in an official capacity in the investigation of subversive and potentially violent cult activity across the Old World. While effective, Cosomio failed to launch internal inquiries of the Papet for the growing Niocletian presence, as such a task was relegated to a different office at this point.

Unbeknownst to him, Cosomio had endeared himself to the Niocletian cause by rooting out the Cult of Orcus and was seen as a valuable asset in preventing other influences from entering the Pontifect's higher offices. By the time they killed Velzar in CE 969, his service as Inquisitor General was too important and he was spared from the purging of multiple offices, being one of only thirty people to not be executed or imprisoned.

Cosomio, though not necessarily thrilled with the Niocletian takeover, respected his duties to serve as Inquisitor General and maintain peace and is one of the main reasons for the lack of systemic chaos after the usurping of the Pontiff position.

### Current life

Cosomio lost his wife on 4 June CE 975 when her carriage was overturned crossing the Bulletti river in Tethryndor and she drowned, along with one of his daughters; he still has two sons who survived the tragedy. He remarried on 19 October CE 977 to his sister-in-law Lai of Fallen Oaks, and they had two more daughters. Cosomio, as one of the scions to the Barbieri name, has inherited land in both Tethryndor and Baredor, which includes his former estate at Young Meadow. His primary residence is at Bulletrun, on the border of Baredor and Tethryndor.

In addition to overseeing the wide number of inquiries launched at the provincial level, Cosomio has personally launched inquiries into Tyrrhosi barons involved in death cults, tackling the cults of Orcus in Cascadia, and investigating ties between Darcedonian patricians and black magic sorcery.