Lord Emil Gabel

Tall and tidy is an easy way to sum this middle-aged man up at a glance. His gray eyes have small lines at the corners, although whether it's from squinting or smiling, it's hard to tell. Both, perhaps, as he often wears a pair of spectacles for reading and studying details of the world around him. His pale blond hair, pale eyes, and the skin of a man who spends too much time indoors in an office does give him a somewhat washed out appearance, but his smile is quick and ready, and his body language is lively and engaged in the world around him; rarely languid, often tapping a finger or a toe as he listens.

His clothing, like the man himself, is tidy, favoring dark colors touched with red with the golden horse rampant of House Gabel as subtle decoration on buttons and the like. He is meticulously groomed, clean-shaven, and his skin touched with pleasantly scented oils.

Emil, the younger brother of Duke Bernd Gabel, was generally expected as a youth to ultimately take up an administrative office. He did in fact do so, and was fastidious about his work, but over time drifted more and more into collecting information, mostly relating to matters within Southreach, but occasionally also farther afield. Becoming a de facto spymaster was not exactly his original intention, but he proved to be rather good at it.

With the accession of his brother to rule of the duchy in 630 and with the issues that persist in Southreach, Emil has his hands consistently full. Trouble threatens beyond the imperial borders, not that far from House Gabel's home. Emil sees it as his purpose to remain aware of all of it, however obscure. Emil is not necessarily the one to act on whatever it might be he learns. Much of it, he simply passes to others within the house to do with what they will.

Emil is scrupulous in all he does. No detail, however small, goes missed. He collects, collates and analyses from every possible direction. That is in his duties for House Gabel, at least, although he does not always separate those very well from his day-to-day life. A casual acquaintance in Sanctuary might find themselves being asked all sorts of questions - it's not usually to the point of awkwardness, because Emil is at least rather aware of what he is doing, but it's certainly a quirk.

Emil finds what he does to be entirely in line with the precepts of noble behaviour. It is all in the name of proper rulership, by his brother, by others in the House, and indeed by others in the empire. Emil does not necessarily hoard information. He contemplates what he learns, and shares it as appropriate.

Emil is an adept spymaster and has some reasonable related capacity in understanding politics and the requirements of rulership.