MARCUS FABIUS CORVINUS

Senator Princeps · Chair of the Comitia Externa · Leader of the Conservative Faction

“Corvinus and I have disagreed in print on three separate occasions. He once described my scholarship as 'admirably energetic and epistemologically reckless,' which I consider the finest review I have ever received. We are not friends. We have a relationship of mutual professional respect that neither of us would ever admit to.”Marcus Fabius Corvinus is ninety-one years old, has been in the Senate for sixty-four of them, and has outlasted four emperors, a constitutional crisis, two attempted coups, and at least one assassination attempt he still declines to discuss. He is not cruel — he is simply operating on a timescale that makes short-term cruelty seem inefficient. He believes the Empire's greatest threat is not the orcs, not the Rift, but internal dissolution, and he has spent six decades preventing it.

— G.C.P.S.A., Dramatis Personae, 1200 A.P.

He chairs the Comitia Externa, which means that if the goblin treaty reaches the Senate it comes to him first. He knows something is coming. He has been gathering evidence for six months. He does not yet have enough to move, but he is close, and the Emperor knows he is close, and both men are now in a race whose prize is the Senate's response to whatever breaks open first.

Ancient, paper-thin, and possessed of a quality of attention that makes younger men feel they are being evaluated for a position they did not apply for. He has not left Nova Romae in thirty years. He does not need to. Everything that matters comes to his breakfast table eventually.

Alignment

Lawful Neutral, in the specific sense that the law is the Roman constitutional tradition and he has spent sixty-four years being its most reliable practitioner

Current Status

Sixty-four years in the Senate; Chair of the Comitia Externa for thirty-one of them; leader of the conservative faction for twenty-two

Current Location

NOVA ROMAE

Species

Roman

Ethnicity

patrician class

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Senator Princeps (the informal title of the Senate's senior member, not constitutionally formal but universally recognised)

Chair of the Comitia Externa (the committee that controls foreign policy, treaty ratification, and diplomatic missions)

Year of Birth

1109 A.P. 91 Years old

Family

The Fabii Corvini family

Current Residence

The Domus Corvini, one of the oldest private residences still in use in Nova Romae; furnished with the aggressive simplicity of a man who considers conspicuous display a character flaw in others

Sex

Male

Eyes

The colour of old parchment, Plinius notes, which is either an observation about their pigmentation or about the quality of attention they carry, and may be both; they move very slowly and miss nothing

Hair

White, thinning; close to gone but not quite; he has not made any accommodation to this and continues to wear it as though it were still the dark hair of his thirties, which is either vanity or indifference and may be both

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Paper-thin and pale, the skin of someone who has not been outdoors for thirty years except in transit between buildings; the veins visible at the temples in strong light; ancient in a way that does not read as diminished

Height

1.71 m

Quotes & Catchphrases

“Admirably energetic and epistemologically reckless.”

— His description of Plinius's scholarship

“The frontier has been stable for forty years. That is not an accident. That is policy. You do not replace policy that is working with an experiment because someone has decided the experiment is interesting.”

— Attributed to Corvinus; Comitia Externa session, date unrecorded

Belief/Deity

The Roman state religion

Aligned Organization

The Senate of Aethermarch

Other Affiliations

• The conservative faction
• Via Obscura

Known Languages

Latin exclusively, in the classical register that has been his working mode for sixty-four years and that younger senators find either admirable or exhausting depending on their relationship with classical precedent

Ruled Locations

• DOMUS CORVINI

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• REGIO SENATUS