High-ups in Queen Abby’s: your capo and his crew
You’re aware that Queen Abby’s is essentially a big pyramid: the Queen herself at the top, her Privy Cabinet under her, and the various Dukes and Counts under them. Your Duke is Duke Stands-On-The-Mountain, who has a small estate at the edge of the Lady’s Ward (some people would say it’s on the edge of the Clerk’s Ward, but those people are mistaken and need gentle correction). The Duke’s got many concerns, and enterprising young upwardly mobile cutters like yourselves can go far under him. He’s also got rivals and contemporaries and theoretically he answers to one of Cabinet (although a, the details of that are need-to-know on account of some rivals are more serious than others, and b, what the Cabinet doesn’t know won’t hurt him).
Duke Stands-On-The-Mountain: businessman, assimar, and priest of the twisted god that lies beneath the world. You know he’s able to cast discern lies, and for all you know he can cast true resurrection. You swore an oath of loyalty to him, and he signs your checks. He’s tall and trim and better-looking than anyone has a right to be – he’s played by Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago.
The Duke’s bodyguard is Elaine the Knife, a halfelven woman (from some boring backwater Prime world, they say) who has some wicky shiv whereby she makes a sword out of the power of her mind, or somesuch. She keeps to herself, and you’ve never seen her do anything especially impressive (other than create a sword out of brainpower) but since the Duke trusts her with his personal security, she’s probably fairly badass. She usually near the Duke, but as a show of power he doesn’t make a point of sticking close to her.
Elaine the Knife is played by Anne Bancroft in the Graduate.
The Duke’s chief advisor, his consigliore, Lady Tall, would be a renowned mathematician or economist or planar geographer or diviner or all of them, if she had the ability to carry on a conversation for any length of time. She suffers from some illness of the mind which causes her to unleash a nearly endless torrent of profanity and insult at irregular intervals. Or rather, the times when she’s not doing her best to provoke you into attacking (or at least silencing) her – those times of tranquility come at short and irregular intervals. The most impressive spell you’ve ever seen her cast is dispel magic, but she’s often threatened to crush your soul with phantasmal killer.
Lady Tall is played by Vanessa Redgrave circa 1966.
Kettle Bill manages the Compleat Orthodoxy, the Duke’s club and your base of operations. The Compleat Orthodoxy has a sort of cathederal-meets-tiki theme to it.
Kettle probably doesn’t count as your superior, since you’ve never seen him do much more than boss around busboys. In fact, you could probably get away with ordering him around. He’s a bariaur, and genial. Michael Caine in Alfie, plus Terry Gilliam-ish makeup.
The Compleat Orthodoxy’s house band is Honest Avery and the Peaceables. They are played by the Squirrel Nut Zippers.