Von Veylor-Schloss Family

1. Summary

The Von Veylor-Schloss family is an exceptionally wealthy, traditional household secluded on a Victorian estate in Patagonia. It is made of the twins Edmund and Lorraine, their longtime butler Hamish, a discreet domestic staff with domestic robots, a professional private security detail, and a family office with legal and financial representatives and a network of external contacts.

The household, the children's isolated upbringing and education, the financial privacy and the inheritance all originate from decisions Friedrich made before entering stasis.

2. Organization

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2.1 The Family and Its Succession

The family members are Friedrich, officially dead and in truth alive in stasis beneath the estate; Alice, the twins' mother, who died shortly after their birth; and the twins Edmund and Lorraine Sinclair von Veylor-Schloss. Hamish, the butler, was Friedrich's closest friend and became the twins' paternal figure. See: Characters › Friedrich. See: Characters › Alice. See: Characters › Edmund. See: Characters › Lorraine. See: Characters › Hamish.

After Friedrich's official death, Hamish administered the family estate; when Edmund reaches adulthood, the authority passes to him in accordance with Friedrich's instructions, and Edmund formally assumes control of the designated family assets. See: Characters › Hamish.

Edmund is the principal recipient of the designated control rights, following the traditional family structure established by Friedrich. Lorraine's position in that structure is in See: Characters › Lorraine.

2.2 Household Staff

The estate is inhabited by the two siblings, their longtime butler, and a discreet domestic staff. Household maintenance is performed by both human employees and domestic robots.

Robots also support household maintenance. Employees move through different routines as time passes. How the staff appear in the mansion's everyday life is described with the place. See: Places › Mansion.

Household staff attend to the twins' needs without requiring them to request every service; a household employee places Edmund's breakfast in his bedroom before he wakes, an ordinary occurrence in his life. The staff know where Hamish is and when a visitor has arrived to meet with the family.

The estate's employees are accustomed to performing their duties professionally. On the morning of departure for Brazil, household employees carry the luggage toward the family's vehicles.

Morgana is a member of the domestic staff. See: Characters › Morgana.

2.3 Private Security Detail

The family relies on professional private security personnel.

For travel, the family's transportation consists of approximately five luxury vehicles:

• Two security vehicles in front.
• The principal vehicle transporting Edmund, Lorraine, and Hamish.
• Two security vehicles behind.

The convoy is accompanied by professional private security personnel. This arrangement visibly communicates the extent of the family's wealth and its habitual reliance upon personal protection. The security officers address Edmund as "Master Edmund."

The detail is led by a head of security who coordinates the vehicles over the radio. See: Characters › The Security Chief.

The private force has limits. Before a comparatively modest deployment of government military personnel, it appears vulnerable: the family's financial power does not make it immune to state authority. See: Campaign › 3. A Flight To Nowhere.

2.4 Private Aviation

The family owns a private jet. Its journeys are not commercial flights, which reinforces the family's financial status and its ability to organize international travel through private infrastructure. On arrival the family uses private aviation facilities, professional ground services, and vehicles arranged in advance, a luxury that is completely normal from Edmund's perspective.

2.5 Wealth and Its Privacy

The family's estimated wealth is between USD 1.6 billion and USD 2.3 billion. The fortune consists of a diversified combination of:

• Corporate ownership and equity interests.
• Real estate holdings.
• Financial investments.
• Investment funds.
• Private business interests.
• Other family-controlled assets.

The figure represents estimated family wealth, not immediately available cash. A significant proportion of the fortune is tied to assets that cannot necessarily be liquidated quickly without economic consequences.

Friedrich instructed the family's legal and financial representatives to maintain a high degree of privacy concerning the family's wealth. The patrimony has been distributed among multiple companies, holding structures, investment vehicles, and other arrangements intended to reduce public visibility. The family does not wish to appear prominently in public billionaire rankings or attract unnecessary attention from the press. The family's representatives have successfully maintained substantial discretion around the true size and structure of its fortune.

This privacy is a normal characteristic of the family's financial administration, and it creates a difference between the family's public image and its actual economic influence.

2.5.1 Growth During Friedrich's Absence

During the childhood and adolescence of Edmund and his sister, Friedrich's investments continued to appreciate.

Hamish supervised the family's financial interests with assistance from professional investment managers, legal advisers, and other qualified personnel.

The portfolio benefited from long-term equity appreciation, reinvestment, real estate holdings, and the growth of certain private investments.

By the beginning of the game, the family's estate was valued at approximately US$2.3 billion, as explained by the family's lawyer.

Friedrich created the financial foundation. The estate became worth billions during his absence.

2.6 The Family Office

The family maintains a professional financial administration structure that receives, consolidates, and manages cash flows generated by its businesses, investments, funds, and other assets.

Some resources originate from dividends, investment distributions, interest, corporate settlements, accumulated reserves, and comparable sources.

These underlying revenues do not need to occur daily.

Instead, the family office arranges transfers of available funds to the mission account during the preparation period. The rest of the family fortune remains under its existing management arrangements. The mission account and its transfers: See: Systems › Strategic Preparation.

2.7 Legal Representatives

The family's legal and financial representatives administer the arrangements established by Friedrich many years earlier. Its Argentine legal representative is the lawyer Alejandro Valdés, who formalizes the transfer of control on the twins' eighteenth birthday. See: Characters › Alejandro Valdés.

2.8 External Contacts and Intermediaries

Edmund exercises the family's power indirectly, through this network. How he authorizes operations, and how far their execution stays from him, is described with the system. See: Systems › Strategic Preparation.

The network includes external investigators, intermediaries, financial contacts, and other personnel who may perform narrowly defined activities outside Schwarzwald during the preparation phase. Hamish has access to the intermediaries needed to arrange agreements, and the family's intermediaries can discover the vulnerabilities of individuals inside institutions.

The family also deals with individuals outside respectable legal and social institutions. See: Characters › The Helicopter Pilot.

Contacts known individually:

• Hamish's contact in Brazil, who arranges the journey and sets the departure deadline. See: Characters › The Contact In Brazil.
• Hamish's intelligence contact, who identifies military casualties. See: Characters › The Intelligence Contact.
• The helicopter pilot, the Brazilian Army captain and the river yacht owner, the three possible extraction contacts. See: Characters › The Helicopter Pilot. See: Characters › The Army Captain. See: Characters › The River Yacht Owner.

How the network is used in play: See: Systems › Strategic Preparation.

3. History

The source of Friedrich's wealth is described on his page. See: Characters › Friedrich. The twins were born in New York on October 17, 2003, and spent their earliest years in an apartment in New York City; their mother died shortly after the birth.

Around 2007 Friedrich bought an existing Victorian estate in Patagonia and moved the children there with Hamish. Around 2010 Friedrich entered stasis and was officially declared dead in an accident; Hamish then administered the estate.

On the twins' eighteenth birthday, October 17, 2021, control of the designated family assets passed to Edmund. Within the following 28 days the family left the estate for Brazil.

Each person's own history is on their character page, and every date lives in the timeline. See: Timeline › Master Timeline.

4. Territory and Presence

The household lives on the family estate in a remote region of Patagonia, Argentina. See: Places › Mansion.

The twins were raised there in deliberate isolation, with carefully arranged contact with selected visiting families, household employees, instructors, guards, and family acquaintances. See: Characters › Edmund.

The family's assets are distributed among companies and holding structures, and its representatives and contacts act in Argentina and Brazil. The private jet carries the family from Argentina to São Roque and on to Manaus.

No outsider from the household or the network accompanies the twins into Schwarzwald. Friedrich's instruction behind this: See: Systems › Strategic Preparation.

5. Relationships

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5.1 Project Schwarzwald

Friedrich worked at the installation, and the mission he left his children takes them there. See: Factions › Project Schwarzwald.

5.2 Brazilian Armed Forces

The family's contacts may reach into Brazilian military structures through the chain of command, and one extraction plan relies on an Army captain. The family's convoy, in turn, attracted the attention of Brazilian military intelligence at the lieutenant colonel's property. See: Factions › Brazilian Armed Forces.

5.3 Former Associates of Friedrich

The retired lieutenant colonel who worked with Friedrich at Schwarzwald knows Hamish and receives the family at his rural property. See: Characters › The Lieutenant Colonel.

6. Role in the Game

The household is the world of Chapters One and Two: its staff and routines fill the mansion, and its wealth, representatives and contacts become the player's means of influence during the preparation for the mission. Its contacts and arrangements also determine which strategic interventions Hamish can attempt later in Schwarzwald. See: Campaign › 1. Dimension. See: Campaign › 2. Now I Am Finally A Man. See: Systems › Strategic Preparation.

In Chapter Three the private jet, the convoy and the security detail carry the family to Brazil, until the comforts and protections of wealth are left behind at the edge of the rainforest. See: Campaign › 3. A Flight To Nowhere.

7. Open Questions

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