The Tyrant Philosophers/Varatsin

The Varatsins are an ancient Duke family of Ilmar whose bloodline was mingled with demons and entities from beyond the Wood, and whose reign predates the current Armiger houses. The Armiger families who unseated and exterminated them left no living heirs and authored the only surviving account of their rule, making the Varatsins a dynasty known exclusively through the record of their overthrow. Their most enduring legacy is not a lineage but a phenomenon: the Reproach, colloquially "madness-town," a haunted displacement surrounding the ruined ducal estate where old illusions overlay real ruin, time passes differently, and victims are drawn into an endless courtly masquerade.

In City of Last Chances, the Varatsin Duke manifests as the last scion of the family-an elegant Armiger-shaped composite of rats, bones, and earth wearing a diadem that matches the heraldic record-and presides over the Reproach's revels as though they were the curse's head and its court. His arc in the novel traces a seduction of living victims into the masquerade, a violent confrontation that temporarily breaks his form, and a final audience with the Indwellers that severs the old covenant marriage between the Varatsin seat and the Wood. Disintegrated into vermin and reconstituted in a wooden mask fitted to another's empty body, the Duke's animating force persists, and the text leaves explicitly open whether he will exploit a future threat to the city. The arc is therefore one of apparent final defeat shadowed by an unresolved threat: the family is exterminated, its knowledge of the Indwellers lost, its covenant broken, yet its last agent remains unredeemed and uncontained.

The Group

Composition

The Varatsins were a single Duke family ruling from the ducal seat on the far side of the river in Ilmar's deep past. - ch 17 No living heirs survive the usurpation that exterminated their line. - ch 17 Within the Reproach, the family's "court" materialises as a spectral collective: minstrels, jousters, lords and ladies in antique finery, mad descendants, and undead or possessed wraiths in uniform. - ch 17, ch 47 The Varatsin Duke himself is not a true body but a composite puppet of vermin-rats, bones, and earth-and functions as the head of this court. - ch 18 The only individually named Varatsin in the text is Tatiana Eleretsin, a dead sorceress of the Varatsin court who loved music, held lovers thrall, and was burned; her ghost now acts as a vector of the curse outside the Reproach's physical borders. - ch 45 The usurpation scattered the family's adherents among the other Armiger households, some of whom were later sent into the grounds to prostrate and confess. - ch 17

Purpose & Method

The Varatsins "trafficked with things beyond the Wood" and the Kings Below, mingling their blood with demons and entities from outside the known world. - ch 18 This practice gave them knowledge of the Indwellers that perished entirely with their extermination, after which the Ilmari fell back on rumour and superstition. - ch 40 The Reproach operates as a haunted displacement: old illusions overlay real ruin, time passes differently within its boundaries, and its borders may be growing. - ch 17 The Duke's method is seduction toward dancing and dissolution; he addresses victims as "my lord, my lady," incorporating them into the court's fantasy and drawing them into the endless masquerade. - ch 18 Tatiana Eleretsin's ghost extends this method outward, compelling a living victim to dance toward the Reproach and overlaying her perception with "gauzy finery" of the Varatsin era. - ch 45

Standing

The Varatsins ruled from the ducal seat on the far side of the river in an era before the current Armiger houses rose to power. - ch 17 They were cast down, exterminated, and dispossessed by the other Armiger families in the usurpation; the Palleseen seat of government now occupies a structure that is "a mere shadow" of the Varatsin ducal palace, which still stands within the Reproach. - ch 17 The Varatsins held an old symbolic marriage to the Wood under the old covenant, a practice in which the keeper of the Anchorage officiated; this bond died with the family itself, and the Indwellers' refusal of the Duke's entry to the Wood confirms its final severance. - ch 47 The Reproach stands held before the Wood by a single sigil on a stick. - ch 47 Outside the Reproach, the Varatsins' influence reaches through Tatiana Eleretsin's ghost into the living streets of Ilmar. - ch 45

Known members

• Tatiana Eleretsin - sorceress

History

City of Last Chances

The Varatsins are an ancient Duke family of Ilmar who, in the histories recorded before the city's current Armiger houses rose to power, ruled from the ducal seat on the far side of the river. They "trafficked with things beyond the Wood" and the Kings Below, mingling their blood with demons and entities from outside the known world - "trafficked with things beyond the Wood" - ch 18. Their reign is known only through accounts written by the Armiger families who unseated them, a history authored by the victors - ch 47. Their knowledge of the Indwellers perished entirely with their extermination: "But the city's own knowledge of them had died with the Varatsin Dukes, and after that, the Ilmari had fallen back on rumour and superstition and increasingly unlikely stories." - ch 40. The Varatsin coat of arms survives as a fragment of heraldic memory, referenced "all the way back to when they'd lived on the other side of the river" - ch 40, but the family itself leaves no living heirs.

The usurpation of the Varatsins saw the other Armiger families cast down the Varatsin Dukes, exterminate their line, scatter their adherents, and seize their palace and grounds; heads of household were later sent into the grounds to prostrate and confess - ch 17. This extermination did not end the Varatsins' influence. Their curse persists as the Reproach, formally "Varatsin's Reproach," a haunted displacement surrounding the ruined ducal estate where old illusions overlay real ruin, where time passes differently, and where victims are drawn into an endless court masquerade - ch 18. Colloquially called "madness-town," the district is full of mad descendants, illusions of Varatsin grandeur, and undying courtly revels; its boundaries may be growing - ch 17. The current Palleseen seat of government is "a mere shadow" of the Varatsin ducal palace, which still stands within the Reproach - ch 17.

Within the Reproach, the Varatsin Duke manifests as the last scion of the family: an elegant Armiger-shaped figure made of rats, bones, and earth, wearing a diadem that matches the heraldic record in Blackmane's books - ch 18. He is not a true body but a composite puppet of vermin - ch 18. He is the Reproach, or its head; the curse is his court and his dancing - ch 47. In chapter 17, the full illusion of the Varatsin court materialises - minstrels, jousters, lords and ladies in antique finery - as Lemya and Ruslav perceive the overlay and fight against it; Grymme, who had seen the Varatsin revels on a solo ruin-diving trip and was changed by it, fully succumbs mid-chapter, joining the court's dance - ch 17. The Varatsins had spoken to Grymme earlier, implanting a whisper in his mind; the words he carried were: "He's going home." - ch 17. In chapter 18, the Duke seduces Ruslav toward dancing and dissolution, addresses Nasely and Ruslav as "my lord, my lady," incorporating them into the court's fantasy, but Hellgram - "Something that neither would nor could belong to the Reproach" - cuts the Duke in half; the Duke reforms and reclines on a rat-throne - ch 18. Ruslav resists the Duke's enticement by recalling a painting's lesson about the dark - ch 18.

The Reproach's supernatural pressure reaches beyond its physical borders. In chapter 45, the ghost of Tatiana Eleretsin, a dead sorceress of the Varatsin court who loved music, held lovers thrall, and was burned, is growing inside Lemya, compelling her to dance toward the Reproach; the streets seem draped in "gauzy finery" of the Varatsin era as the ghost's vision overlays Lemya's perception - ch 45. The Varatsin curse is named alongside Tatiana Eleretsin's ghost as a unified affliction - ch 45.

By chapter 47, the Reproach stands held before the Wood by a single sigil on a stick, and Langrice surveys the scene - an endless dancing court of undead, possessed, and uniformed wraiths led by the Varatsin Duke - with Blackmane, who calmly reports the dead and conscripted among the dancers - ch 47. A dozen Indwellers arrive for reparations; they judge Fleance's body and refuse the Varatsin Duke entry to the Wood - ch 47. The Duke kneels and begs. An Indweller throws a piece of dead wood at his feet. The Duke disintegrates into rats, which bury the wood and scatter - some into the Wood, some toward the city - ch 47. The rats leave behind a wooden mask, a caricature of a human face chewed into shape by the Duke's rat-bodies; Langrice fits it to Fleance's empty body to house the Duke's animating force - ch 47. The Varatsin Duke kneels before the Indwellers, disintegrates into vermin, and is reconstituted in the wooden mask - ch 47. His old symbolic marriage to the Wood under the old covenant - a practice in which the keeper of the Anchorage officiated - died with the Varatsins themselves, and the Indwellers' refusal of his entry confirms that bond is finally severed - ch 47. The final observation left hanging is that "the old Varatsin won't let it rest" and will exploit a future threat to the city - ch 47.

Relationships

• The Varatsin Duke - the living embodiment of the family's curse; he is not a person but the Reproach's head and its dancing, a composite puppet of vermin who presides over the masquerade and seduces the living into it. - ch 18, ch 47
• Tatiana Eleretsin - a dead sorceress of the Varatsin court whose ghost is a vector of the curse outside the Reproach, compelling a living victim to dance toward the estate and overlaying perception with Varatsin-era illusions. - ch 45
• Lemya - perceives the Varatsin overlay during the court's materialisation and fights against it; later, Tatiana Eleretsin's ghost grows inside her, drawing her toward the Reproach. - ch 17, ch 45
• Ruslav - seduced by the Duke toward dancing and dissolution, resists by recalling a painting's lesson about the dark. - ch 17, ch 18
• Hellgram - "Something that neither would nor could belong to the Reproach," who cuts the Duke in half, disrupting the masquerade's hold. - ch 18
• Grymme - had seen the Varatsin revels on a solo ruin-diving trip and was changed by it; the Varatsins implanted a whisper in his mind, and he fully succumbs mid-chapter, joining the court's dance. - ch 17
• Blackmane - holds the heraldic records against which the Duke's diadem is identified, and calmly reports the dead and conscripted among the dancers. - ch 18, ch 47
• Langrice - surveys the final scene of the Reproach and fits the wooden mask to Fleance's empty body to house the Duke's animating force. - ch 47
• Fleance - his body is judged by the Indwellers and used as a vessel for the Duke's reconstituted animating force. - ch 47
• Nasely - addressed by the Duke as "my lady," incorporated into the court's fantasy during the seduction sequence. - ch 18
• The Indwellers - arrive for reparations, judge Fleance's body, refuse the Duke entry to the Wood, and preside over his disintegration; their appearance confirms the final severance of the Varatsin-Wood covenant. - ch 47

Notable Quotes

"He's going home." - the Varatsins, whispering to Grymme, City of Last Chances, ch 17

"Something that neither would nor could belong to the Reproach" - City of Last Chances, ch 18, on Hellgram

"But the city's own knowledge of them had died with the Varatsin Dukes, and after that, the Ilmari had fallen back on rumour and superstition and increasingly unlikely stories." - City of Last Chances, ch 40

"the old Varatsin won't let it rest" - City of Last Chances, ch 47

Tags

1. noble-family · #armiger · #cursed · #pre-palleseen