Charles Duval

Physical Description A broad-shouldered man of thirty-eight with sun-darkened skin, a heavy jaw, and calloused hands that have spent more years on reins than off them. His brown hair is cropped short

Physical Description

A broad-shouldered man of thirty-eight with sun-darkened skin, a heavy jaw, and calloused hands that have spent more years on reins than off them. His brown hair is cropped short and usually hidden under a wide-brimmed coachman’s hat. A scar runs along his left forearm from a carriage accident years ago — the horses bolted on a mountain pass and Charles held the team. He dresses in practical dark wool, a heavy greatcoat in cold weather, and keeps his boots waxed to a soldier’s standard. His face is weathered but not unkind; he has the patient, watchful expression of a man accustomed to waiting in the dark for his employer’s signal.

Personality

Charles is steady, silent, and loyal to the bone. He has served the Montferrand household since before Adrien’s Pyrenees expedition and considers the Viscount’s safety a personal obligation. He does not volunteer opinions, does not gossip, and does not startle easily — though the screaming crowds and police whistles outside Palais_Lobkowitz in Session 9 pushed him closer to panic than anything in his twenty years of service. He recovers quickly. He follows orders. He does not ask what is in the packages he carries or why his master’s friends are bleeding.

Key Traits:

Unshakeable under normal pressure; rattled only by the genuinely supernatural
Physically brave — will put himself between his master and a threat without thinking
Laconic; speaks only when addressed or when something needs saying
Fiercely protective of François, who is younger and less experienced

Voice

Charles speaks French natively and German with a heavy accent and limited vocabulary. His English is worse — a handful of phrases picked up from the party. He addresses Adrien as “Monsieur le Vicomte” or simply “Monsieur”, and refers to the English ladies collectively as “les dames”. When stressed, he reverts entirely to French. His speech is clipped, factual, and delivered in a low voice that carries no further than the person he is addressing.

“The horses are ready, Monsieur. I brought the dark pair — they do not spook.”

“There is blood on the step. I will clean it before morning.”

“I do not understand what I saw tonight, Monsieur. I do not ask. The carriage is where you need it.”

Background

Born to a tenant farmer on the Montferrand estate in the Auvergne, Charles entered service as a stable boy at fourteen and earned his way to senior coachman by competence and reliability. He accompanied Adrien through the Pyrenees expedition as driver and camp manager — he did not enter the abbey, but he heard the screaming from the mountain and he saw what Adrien looked like when he came back. He has never spoken of it. He does not need to understand what his master fights; he only needs to know where to bring the carriage.

Charles is unmarried. His family — a widowed mother and two younger sisters — remain on the Montferrand estate in France. He sends money when he can.

Statistics

Occupation: Driver (Carriage) — Regency Cthulhu Band 1 (Labourer/Servant)

Skill Point Formula: EDU × 2 + DEX × 2 = (45 × 2) + (60 × 2) = 210 occupation points + INT × 2 = 100 personal interest points

Stat	Value
STR	65
CON	70
SIZ	70
DEX	60
INT	50
POW	55
APP	40
EDU	45
HP	14
SAN	55
MOV	7
DB	+1D4
Build	1
Luck	50

Derived:

HP = (CON 70 + SIZ 70) / 10 = 14
MOV: age 38, STR+DEX > SIZ → MOV 8, but age 35–49 reduces by 1 → MOV 7

Skills

Occupation Skills:

Drive Carriage/Cart 75% — twenty years behind the reins; can manage a four-horse team at speed through narrow streets at night
Animal Handling 65% — knows horses the way a surgeon knows anatomy; can calm a spooked team, shoe a horse, treat colic
Navigate 45% — knows the roads of southern France intimately; has learned Vienna’s street layout since arriving in August
Spot Hidden 50% — a coachman watches the road, the crowd, and the dark; trained by years of night driving
Listen 45% — hears approaching riders before they are visible; useful in the dark
Fighting (Brawl) 45% — not trained, but strong and experienced in the kind of violence that happens around stables and coaching inns
Mechanical Repair 40% — keeps the carriage in working order; can fix an axle, replace a spoke, mend harness leather
Ride 55% — competent horseman, though he prefers the box seat; dispatched on horseback to fetch Harcourt in Session 6

Personal Interest Skills:

First Aid 35% — practical knowledge from horse injuries and road accidents
Stealth 30% — can move quietly when needed; a coachman learns to be unobtrusive around his betters
Intimidate 35% — his size and silence are their own kind of authority; useful at customs gates
French (Native) 90%
German 25% — enough to ask directions, buy feed, and argue with customs officials

Combat

Charles is not a trained fighter, but he is a large, strong man who will not back down when his master or the household is threatened. He carries no weapons as a matter of course — a coachman’s whip is his tool, not his weapon — but he can pick up whatever is to hand.

Weapons:

Fist/Brawl: 45%, 1D3 + 1D4 DB
Coachman’s whip (improvised): 35%, 1D3 (entangle on Extreme success, 3-yard reach)
Knife (if armed): 45%, 1D4+2 + 1D4 DB
Improvised weapon (chair leg, bottle, iron bar): 35%, 1D6 + 1D4 DB

Session Appearances

Session 1 — Arrival in Vienna

Charles and François resisted the customs inspection at Vienna’s gate when officials attempted to confiscate the party’s firearms. Both later hauled luggage to the suites at Palais_Kinsky.

Session 5 — Trautmannsdorff Delivery

François drove the carriage that delivered Count von Trautmannsdorff to Lord Harcourt at Palais_Modena under Adrien’s orders. Charles’s role in Session 5 is not specified in the play notes.

Session 6 — Nightgaunt Aftermath

Adrien dispatched Charles on horseback to fetch Lord Harcourt immediately after the Nightgaunt attack at Palais_Kinsky. Charles also assisted the wounded Varrio into the building. This is the first time Charles was personally trusted with a critical solo errand — and he completed it without hesitation.

Session 7 — White Ox Inn

Both coachmen stationed in the sitting room of the party’s new quarters as a first line of defence.

Session 9 — The Masquerade Escape

Charles waited with the carriage outside Palais_Lobkowitz during the masquerade. Varrio navigated the palace gardens to locate him — Charles was alarmed by the screaming crowds and police whistles but held his ground. He drove the entire party (including Nikolai, Sasha, a bound Adler, and a catatonic Fräulein Lindqvist) hard for the Josefstadt district, reaching Thaliastraße 12 in roughly ten minutes.

After the party settled at the safehouse, Charles was dispatched with an urgent note to Honoria to report the situation and request medical aid.

Current Status (dawn, 9 August 1814)

En route to or returned from delivering the note to Honoria. Honoria’s response determines the morning’s first scene of Session 10.

Connections

Adrien_de_Montferrand — master, twenty years of service
François Barbier — fellow coachman, younger, treated as a protégé
Lady_Honoria_Lyndhurst — dispatched with urgent message, Session 9

Relationships

Serves Adrien de Montferrand — Personal coachman and household retainer; unfailing loyalty to Lord Montferrand
Friend of Francois Barbier — Fellow coachman in the Montferrand household; they work as a pair
Knows Lady Honoria Lyndhurst — Dispatched with urgent note to Honoria after Session 9 masquerade