Andreas Maler

* Act 1
* Act 2
* Act 3

August Maler (son)

**Andreas Maler** is the protagonist of *Pentiment*. Andreas is the main character of the story. You, the player, determine his skills and background, which directly affects how he will navigate the treacherous conspiracy awaiting him in Tassing.

## Background

Andreas is a journeyman artist with an university education. His father used his connections with the rector of the University of Erfurt to get him in higher education, something that was not common for middle-class families. Although Andreas never completed the university degree he has chosen, he has learned valuable skills and knowledge that will come in handy while unearthing the dark secrets of a little town in Bavaria...

### Act 1

In 1518, Andreas is a 26-year-old journeyman artist from Nuremberg working as a limner at the abbey in Tassing, Andreas has been working at the Kiersau Abbey's scriptorium to complete his work on a book of hours (a type of illuminated manuscript that contains an abbreviated form of the prayers for the Divine Office in addition to other religious texts) commissioned by the monks. The endeavour doubles as part of his master's certification at Nürnberg: It's a masterpiece necessary to demonstrate his skill as an artist. Once he completes it, he can return to his home city, marry (with Sabine, an arranged marriage) and lead a long and prosperous career.

Problem is, he gets entangled in a grisly murder mystery when Baron Lorenz Rothvogel meets his end in the abbey's Chapter House. In his investigations, he gets pulled into a vast conspiracy orchestrated by the Thread-Puller, all tied to the very origins of the city of Tassing.

### Act 2

Seven years later, in 1525, Andreas is an established painter famous across Europe, able to work at any royal court he chooses, from Aragon and England to the far-flung Poland. Unfortunately, he is also a man buckling under the strain of medieval life. His pursuit of art is contaminated by wealthy patrons seeing it purely as a manifestation of their obscene riches and vanity project. His personal life is faring even worse, as his love for Sabine was buried in the same grave as their son, August Maler, taken by the plague.

Andreas deliberately chose to work at far-flung courts of royalty and nobility, to stay away from his wife and the empty house left behind, haunted by the night of his son's death. He never heard a return good night, standing in the doorway for God-knows how long until it sunk in. He sees his son in his nightmares, in the Perfect City of his own mind, now ruined and ruled over by Melancholia.

Tassing is a stop on his way back, another diversion to avoid returning home. This time, he once again gets embroiled in a murder investigation. Except it's not a nobleman, but a popular tribune killed, and Andreas is called upon to investigate the deed before the townsfolk kill the abbot - the presumed instigator and murderer - and raise the fury of the Bavarian dukes.

### Act 3

Andreas identifies the killer to the best of his ability, stopping the peasants from lynching the monks *en masse*. However, push comes to shove and the abbey is set alight just as the Bavarian mercenaries and soldiers arrive. The situation escalates and becomes forever known as the Peasants' Rebellion of 1525, with the sight of the flaming abbey etched in everyone's memory together with their loved ones slaughtered by the ducal troops.

Maler himself is presumed dead after rushing into the burning library to save as many books as he could. Two years later, he is declared legally dead by Nuremberg courts, and his widow free of covering the costs of compensating Andreas' clients, as his death is ruled an act of God.

Nearly everyone remembers Andreas at Tassing, for better or worse, but his memory slowly fades over the next 18 years. It is then that Magdalene Druckeryn embarks on completing her father's mural at the Rathaus, after an ill-advised nighttime attack that left him disabled and dying. She completes Andreas' work on identifying the Thread-Puller, and finds out in the process that Andreas survived the night of the rebellion. By 1543, he's a hermit hiding out in the burned-out abbey, reliving his failures and subsisting on what he can steal from the townsfolk and the Poor Clares that replaced the Benedictine order at the convent. Ultimately, the two reveal the truth and make a choice about the future of Tassing...