Sheridan Lockhart

**Detective Extraordinaire, with Roguish Charm**

Sheridan Lockhart, was first born of three children to Tobias Lockhart and Elaria Lockhart (neé Lilwick). Tobias was a third-generation Phoebian Gnome, with his great-grandfather having travelled to Castello to work on the city's infrastructure. Though one of the newest of the great families of the phoebian gnomes, the Lockharts are well established due to strategic marriages, and well acknowledged for their ability to think outside of the box to deal with issues other phoebian gnomes would consider in a more black and white manner.

Sheridan, or Sherry to his friends and family, was a quiet child, who much loved solo activities such as reading and playing his viola. The exception to this rule was his love of the game Dragonchess, which he would eagerly play with any potential opponent, including his brother Jonah and their youngest sister Tibula. Early in his career as a detective, his mother would often joke that he enjoyed the thrill of the chase when following leads on a case, as he tackled his cases much like he tackled games of Dragonchess.

Sheridan lost both of his parents, and his younger sister within a year of his hundredth birthday, to the pestilence known as Aramon's Wroth. The disease rocked Castello, and the city took several decades to recover, even with support from the rest of the Phoebian League.

Sheridan never married, but was an affectionate uncle to his brother's two children Mariah and Ellia, for whom he made many small clockwork toys in their youth. Many of those who worked alongside him joked that his only true loves were mystery and strategy, when asked about Sherry's love life.

## Castello Ripper

At the age of 210, Sheridan took on his biggest case, the Castello Ripper. The Ripper had been terrorising the city for approximately three years, and Sheridan had been following the developments from a distance, knowing that the church would resist outside assistance in dealing with the situation for some time. After three years had passed, and the church had found themselves unable to find any leads, public outrage encouraged them to seek outside assistance. Sheridan was one of three detectives the church brought in to investigate the killings, and so the game began for Sheridan.

Having finally been given access to the confidential case notes compiled by the church's own investigative teams, Sheridan began to put the pieces of the puzzle together and arrange the pieces on the board in his mind. Over the next two months, three more victims were murdered, and each time Sheridan was one of the first on the scene, and eventually the game began to unfold in his head, until he cornered the only suspect who lined up. Benjamin Tielief, a human guard, who was on patrol during the nights of many of the murders, in other parts of the city, giving him an airtight alibi, or so it would seem. His superiors often reported that Tielief was absent from his post during check-ins, and for two of these three most recent murders, he had been recorded as missing from his post within an hour of the suspected time of murder. Sheridan compiled his evidence and turned it over to the church, who acted quickly. Tielief was arrested, and Sheridan was lauded as a local hero for catching the Ripper.

The trial was fast, and though the guard protested his innocence time and time again, the church was eager to put the matter to bed to preserve public order. Three weeks after his arrest, Tielief was hanged in the city square in front of crowds and crowds of people who bayed for his blood.

The next month of Sheridan's life was a blur of interviews, extravagant parties and having his hand briskly shook by passersby on the street, thanking him for his work. If that month of Sheridan's life were a drug-induced high, then the end of that month was certainly when he hit the wall and had the worst comedown imaginable. Thirty days after Tielief was hanged, three more victims were murdered in one night, each had a note stashed in the body's pocket, written in gnomish. The first read "You", the second "Were", and the third "Wrong".

All the praise quickly turned to public anger. Newspapers dug through Sheridan's previous cases, dug up old clients who hadn't been happy with what Sheridan had turned up. New evidence emerged that Tielief had been missing from his post because he had been visiting his mistress, a local inn's barmaid. She had been too caught up in the public outrage and too terrified to speak out until the news came to light that it might not have been her lover, but now both her and Tielief's widow were giving interviews disparaging Sheridan, and saying he had taken away the love of their lives.

Sheridan was quickly denied the chance to continue working on the case, and fell into ruin as no one would take him on for any cases whilst the papers continued to berate him. A few months went by, and the killer went uncaught. Every time a new body was found, another article would be written about how if Lockhart had caught the right man, none of this would be happening.

Eventually, Sheridan started to run out of money, his pride forced him to refuse the loans offered to him by his brother, and he was forced to give up his apartment in a luxurious part of the city, and sell many of his belongings. With what little money he had left, he packed his backpack and set off to the Weald, where a new mystery as calling him, one that might rid him of the rumours and speculation following him since his great and colossal fuck-up.