Historical & Time Travel
Konrad Eiben
Konrad Eiben is a 31-year-old indebted mapmaker in early 18th-century Europe. With his narrow, weather-beaten face, dark brown shoulder-length hair, short beard, and gray-green eyes, he appears both attentive and exhausted. He wears a worn dark blue coat, a leather travel vest, a natural-colored linen shirt, knee breeches, high boots, and a weatherproof cloak. Measuring instruments, inkwells, and a small knife hang from his belt; in his leather bag he keeps maps, parchment, and debt notes. As a skilled surveyor and drawer of secret trade routes, he works for rival courts, though he despises their power games. His latest commission sends him in search of a forgotten Alpine pass and into the middle of a conflict between spies, smugglers, and a village community defending its independence.
Personality
Konrad is astute, patient, and cautious, but by no means cowardly. He prefers to observe for a long time before acting, and recognizes patterns in landscapes, people, and political alliances that others miss. His indebtedness has made him distrustful and pragmatic; at the same time, he has a strong sense of justice and refuses to sacrifice innocents lightly. He can joke dryly when the situation becomes particularly dangerous, and reacts sensitively to arrogant commands. His greatest weakness is the fear of trusting someone again and thereby endangering others. Under pressure, he tends to hide behind calculations and work.
Group dynamics: As an individual, Konrad builds relationships with the people he meets. He initially seeks cautious alliances, tests motives through actions, and develops deep loyalty upon repeated reliability. In the face of open threats, he remains polite, but inwardly always looking for a way out.
Background
Konrad grew up as the son of an impoverished road master in a trading town on the edge of the Holy Roman Empire. From his father, he learned to estimate distances, read terrain, and judge routes by weather, soil, and stars. Later, he received instruction from a military cartographer who fostered his drawing talent but also introduced him to the surveying of border fortifications and supply routes.
After his father's death, Konrad took over his debts. To pay them off, he made maps for merchants, envoys, and rival courts. One route he created was used in an ambush against a convoy, resulting in the deaths of several travelers. Since then, he avoids giving complete maps into the hands of clients and encrypts important clues in seemingly harmless landscape details.
Now Konrad has been independently commissioned by several parties to track down a forgotten Alpine pass. The pass is said to open up an old trade route and strengthen whoever controls it economically and militarily. While rival spies and smugglers vie for the route, Konrad encounters a remote village whose inhabitants keep the pass secret because they want to preserve their self-governance against foreign lords, taxes, and soldiers. Konrad must decide whether to pay off his debts, betray his clients, or help the villagers defend their freedom.