Umbralite

A renowned archeologist and medievalist, he stumbled upon the fact of League’s existence while pursuing his pet project, namely, the Holy Grail. The League was impressed by his natural talent and asked him to join; in return, they offered what information they had about Lord Couch’s involvement in that ancient quest. It was through his tracing of League history that the good doctor finally found the Grail, but it is for his later discoveries that he is honored by the greater portion of the Umbralites.

He is most remembered for his discovery of the so-called “Swan Crypt,” an incalculably ancient, subterranean, burial structure. Within, he found the preserved bodies of over seventy individuals, apparently hailing from before the Middle Ages. The crypt was found to be the final resting place for all those who had fallowed Lobelia Sackville-Baggins in the years before the League. These tombs housed many items of great historical import including the Umbrella of Westerness itself. Furthermore, a detailed study of the bodies showed that Lobelia was not among them; this was hailed as sufficient evidence to validify the idea that the Sixth Istar was indeed still alive.

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Perhaps the most powerful and mysterious umbralite in history, she simply breezed in one day and assumed leadership of the League. She bested the dire parrot Phooter and imprisoned his soul within her umbrella, bringing the psittacines back into their old alliances. She addressed the deteriorating power of governesses by instituting the Order of the Nannies to combat the spread of demon children. Her list of exploits, both confirmed and rumored, is truly vast.

Her origins are the source of endless contention and debate within scholarly circles, with varying degrees of productiveness. The notion that she is, in fact, the Sixth Istar returned in another form, was met with much discussion, but quickly deteriorated into a five-month long argument over whether or not Lobelia could actually do that.

A detailed analysis of her powers and abilities has lead to the tentatively accepted theory that she was a duel apprentice; the product of an alliance between Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and John Uskglass, sent to take leadership of the League in the Istar’s place and safeguard England.

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Her real name is unknown, as are her origins. She was called “St. Paul’s Sentinel” by the local washerwomen, and “the Heart of London” by the vagrantory element. The only name she gave the League was “The Bird Woman.” In respect to all of which, the Avatar is recorded as remarking, “They all work in their own way, though the official version is more to the point. The first merely implies that she sits on the cathedral steps all day doing nothing in particular, which she does but that’s not the point. The second is a technically accurate, but misleading, metaphor. Unless, of course, it was made by someone with a separate circulatory system for their platelets, which they might, you never can tell.”

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His unaccountable fixation with the principals of extra-aerodynamic flight resulted in many raised eyebrows over the years. For the most part considered a harmless eccentric by his colleagues at Oxford, he was mostly ignored by the scholarly world, which had learned early on that getting into technical conversations was injurious to one’s mental balance.

His research led him to be one of the few individuals to discover the League under their own power. Having found a community that not only found him to be a rather normal addition to the scenery, but also took for granted many of the principles his work advocated, his productivity escalated. Within a year he had successfully modified a small schooner with airborne capabilities. In two years, he took charge of the League’s maritime collection and founded his own company. Work at Darling Shipyards continues to this day.

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More often referred to as “the deacon’s wife;” an accomplished organist, dove breeder, chemist, and haberdasher, she was known chiefly by her reputation within her congregation. No one ever really bothered to remember her actual name; the one given to posterity is, in fact, a chimera formed out of people’s best guesses.

Perhaps the most prolific destroyer of the undead since Edna Weatherspindle, her habit of donning her spectral, flaming Pentecost bonnet and stalking the London streets in search of vampires was well known. “Our churchyards are untidy enough as it is,” was her most common remark on the subject, though she was also a firm believer in the practice of running through anyone you caught climbing through young ladies’ bedroom windows.

Though most of her exploits are now forgotten by the world at large, her mutant, flame-resistant, incendiary doves live on in ecclesiastical artwork to this day.

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Something of an enigma, she exists more as a popular legend than a historical personage in the minds of the greater populace. In fact, many scholars insist that the lady never actually existed at all, but was, instead, only a metaphor for something or other, and later, a fabrication for the purposes of lending credence to the “Lost Dauphin” theories.

Even among the myriad of stories, very little is definitively known. Starting some time about the year 1791 a mysterious woman calling herself “Haberdasher” was reported all over Europe in connection with peculiar circumstances and odd happenstance. She apparently traveled extensively pursuing undisclosed ends with little regard for things such as distance and necessary transit time. The man known as the Scarlet Pimpernel reportedly took direction from such a lady at times, and it was under her orders that he removed Louis XVII from the Temple prison. It was also, apparently, in her company that the Dauphin vanished for the last time, though what she wanted with the young aristocrat no one seems to know. Most tales revolve around the epic, ballroom, fan duel where she struck down her archenemy Madam Guillotine. Though, where this actually took place or who attended this ball, no one seems to know.

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Originally an informer and naval insurgent of Beatrice Emberlane’s, instrumental in the capture of the H.M.S. Rosings. He was subsequently killed during his mission to draw the insidious leader of the East India Trading Company out of the shadows, but was brought back to life by a time-traveling sorceress possessed of a heated personal rivalry with a local deity.

He was inducted into the League on his return to England and proved of great value due to his tactical knowledge of both sea monsters and the undead. Not to mention, highly effective in neutralizing such, given his complete loss of patience with either category.

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With the onset of his career as a blood-thirsty marauder, Patrick Guthwine, being keenly aware of his own deficiencies in the areas of personal prowess, tactics, and general seamanship, commissioned his mother to make a flag which would set him apart from the other sundry pirates and communicate by sheer nastiness of visage general thoughts of surrender and suchlike things to the minds of those unfortunate enough to gaze upon said bit of cloth on the high seas. His mother was only to happy to lend any amount of aid to her son’s financial endeavors being of the opinion that as Patrick had already failed in every other career he had ever gotten himself into, he would need as much aid as he could get. So, on the eve of her son’s maiden voyage Jemima Guthwine proudly presented him with the flag he had requested and sent him on his way, apparently unaware of the mental anguish which this gift had cast over Patrick.

Scholars generally agree that the dark image, which Patrick Guthwine had intended as the outer face of his persona had almost certainly been a black scorpion, but either because Jemima was unfamiliar with scorpions or that she disagreed with her son artistically, the flag he flew on his first voyage, bore the image of a black silverfish. “It may even have been miscommunication,” says one such scholar, “In a moment of mental abstraction, Patrick may very well have just waved his hand vaguely and said, ‘Oh, you know, those arthropods with tails.’”

At any rate, when Captain Guthwine reentered port two days later to pick up the powder kegs he had inadvertently left behind, he made the mistake of patronizing the local tavern. The other clientele, his fellow sea captains, felt it necessary to enlighten Patrick as to the extent to which he was entertaining the local populace. They made it perfectly clear that to be symbolized by what was essentially an upper class cockroach was not at all lacking in the humorous. Patrick Guthwine tragically died in the brawl that fallowed and his already disillusioned crew abandoned the ship and scattered to the winds.

When Jemima Guthwine was informed of the event and circumstances of her son’s death she rounded up her younger relations and, livid over the insult to her handiwork which she found to be quite well up in the viciousness department, set out in her son’s ship to track down those responsible.

The slaughters that fallowed were purportedly ghastly to behold. Within the space of three weeks Jemima Guthwine had sent four ships to the bottom. Thus obtaining a fondness for life at sea Jemima continued on, carving herself a place as the thirteenth most feared pirate of that time. This number, though, was no accurate depiction of the woman’s tenacity and bloodthirstiness which was well above that of any other pirate captain. She was, as one historian puts it, “a knitter.” In fact, the only reason Jemima did not attain the status of other less dangerous men was that the rampant destruction and death that marked her pirating exploits were only sporadic, accruing only when the orchestrator of such events was running low on wool.

But even if it was slowly, hampered by infrequency and the short life expectancy of eyewitnesses, news was spreading. In a letter to the family taxidermist Jemima’s nephew Archibald describes his aunt, “The old lady would set into battle with a glee bordering on the infernal.” And soon whispers and only half-believed tails of the Black Silverfish, Demon Granny of the Caribbean were heard in taverns the world over.

The ultimate fate of Jemima Guthwine remains clouded in mystery and though her involvement in the Lady Katherine affair is probable, the details concerning that event are known only to few.

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One of the most impactful members of the League of Umbrellas during the late 17th century, she spearheaded the expansion of League influence out of England and across the sea.

After delivering her famous And Who Knows What Shenanigans They’re Getting Up To In the Colonies address, she gathered the more flighty of her compatriots and formed the element of the League known as the Abroad. Their purpose was to roam across the oceans, keeping unseemliness at bay in the rougher corners of the Empire and generally have a good time. It was mainly due to the nomadic nature of their existence that they came to be referred to, among the local maritime community, as “sea turtles.” They even came to be regarded as bringers of good luck by said community, though this is not necessarily a good indication of the Abroad’s actual social impact. As one scholar wrote, “When you wake up on the high seas to find a pair of strange old women in the forecastle, pouring over maps and comparing the shopping opportunities in the nearest ports, how else are you going to deal with it?”

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One of the first recorded “umbrella warriors”, not much is known about Edna apart from what is described in the famous volume, Tales of Edna Weatherspindle, which focuses particularly on her life-long battle with the necromancer Dalsfveg.

She apparently took up the umbrella at quite a young age, and was instrumental in the defense of her town from a roving band of undead poultry. This event solidified the fame of both her and her umbrella “Sleetbane”, and probably marks the origin of her surname. Afterward, Edna essentially took on the duties of a knight errant, wandering the land and delivering swift and spiteful justice as needed. In fact, age seemed not to dampen her fortitude, but instead intensified the aforementioned swiftness and spitefulness until there were scant few evildoers who would not run screaming at the sight of a flowing pink nightgown and raised tangerine umbrella.

Attempts to place Edna within the context of the greater historical timeline are never conclusive, but most scholars believe we can at least target the Middle Ages with a decent amount of certainty. (The fact that the “black plague” is mentioned multiple times is less helpful than it sounds, as this was probably just a reference to the exploits of the Crowmonger during Edna’s childhood.)

Of course, a Medieval timeframe begs the question, was Edna the lost second apprentice of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, and if so, was she aware of Lord Couch and his more official branch of the art? Unfortunately, we may never know.

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