Balthasar Gelt

Balthasar Gelt took the Supreme Patriarchate the only way it can be taken: by defeating the incumbent, the fiery Thyrus Gormann of the Bright Order, in a formal duel of magics that Altdorf still talks about. It was a shocking upset (the Gold Order's scholarly alchemists were never supposed to outfight the pyromancers), and it was very Gelt: meticulous, patient, and decided before his opponent understood the game being played. He has worn the Patriarch's mantle, and carried the Staff of Volans, ever since.

No one has seen his face. The golden mask never comes off, and rumor fills the vacuum: an alchemical experiment gone wrong, a transmutation that worked too well, a past in distant counting houses that ended in coins less golden than they appeared. Gelt lets every rumor stand. Aloft on his pegasus Quicksilver he is worth a regiment, turning enemy blades brittle as ice and gilding charging champions into statuary mid-stride; in the Empire's councils he is worth more, for the Lore of Metal is also the lore of coin, cannon, and currency, and Gelt understands all three better than any man living.

The Colleges whisper that alchemy's true goal was never gold but transformation, and that Gelt's masterpiece is Gelt. Whoever he was before the mask, he has transmuted himself into one of the most powerful men in the Empire, indispensable to an Emperor who trusts his results if not his silences. Base metal into gold; unknown man into Supreme Patriarch. The formula, whatever it is, works.