Rook Hallow
Dreamwright Charles Fredrick Edwick (a.k.a. Rook Hallow)
Rook Hallow is a Wake Chemist who does not hide in alleys or whisper behind shutters. He sells control, relief, and lies people want to believe—openly, confidently, and with a grin beneath his mask. He treats every transaction like a performance and every buyer like an audience member who already paid for the show. If you’ve heard of a Wake Chemist who doesn’t flinch when watched, doesn’t bargain, and never begs for secrecy, you’ve heard of Rook.
Personal History
Rook Hallow was not brought into the Wake Chemists in the traditional manner. He fell into it. Once apprenticed under a back-alley Wake Chemist who specialized in post-mortem reclamation, he survived by being the one who talked clients into coming back. When that Wake Chemist burned (figuratively, not literally), Rook walked away with recipes, contacts, and the understanding that fear sells better when wrapped in confidence. He has operated independently ever since, carving out a reputation as the Wake Chemist who makes suppression feel like salvation.
Education
- Informal medical apprenticeship (black-market)
- Extensive experiential knowledge of neurochemical suppression, Wake resonance dampening, and corpse-derived compounds
- Self-taught rhetorician and confidence trickster
Employment
- Former Wake Chemist apprentice
- Independent Wake Chemist
- Dealer of suppression compounds, stabilizers, and controlled Wake derivatives
- Consultant for Syndicate-adjacent interests
I don’t cure. I balance.
Gender Identity
Rook understands gender as presentation and leverage, not identity. He identifies as a man because it suits the expectations placed upon him and grants social friction where useful. He is asexual. Rook is functionally indifferent to sexual orientation. Attraction is a tool, not a desire. He flirts when advantageous, disengages when it is not.
Drowned Trenches
Rook Hallow makes frequent, unapologetic trips into the Drowned Trenches, returning alone and unbroken, his satchels heavier and his crows quieter. He claims this is the only way to guarantee quality—that reagents taken by another hand are already compromised—but most believe it is something more troubling: that the Trenches recognize him. Rook is not merely a chemist; he is capable in a fight, moving with practiced efficiency, wielding blade, firearm, and improvised weaponry with the same calm precision he applies to his mixtures. Whispers follow him that he uses the Dark itself to survive those depths, to bend the Trenches away from him or walk paths others cannot—but no proof has ever surfaced. Only the results remain: flawless compounds, intact returns, and the unsettling truth that whatever Rook does down there, it leaves no witnesses willing to speak.
Intellectual Characteristics
Rook Hallow’s intellect is sharpened by exposure and eroded by it in equal measure. Death no longer registers to him as a moral event so much as a variable, a condition to be accounted for and then moved past, and this desensitization allows him to think clearly where others freeze. In moments of quiet, however, his mind drifts, slipping into mild dissociation as if still listening for dangers that are no longer present; sleep rarely comes without the aid of chemical sedatives or a constant wash of sound to anchor him. His verbal intelligence is exceptional—he speaks in calibrated phrases, reads hesitation and hunger in tone and posture, and reshapes conversations in real time to steer outcomes. Rook’s pattern recognition is tuned almost entirely toward desperation and behavioral tells, making him adept at predicting what people will agree to long before they realize it themselves. Cynical by necessity rather than temperament, he remains keenly observant, missing little and trusting almost nothing that is not proven by action.
You don’t want peace. You want quiet.
Morality & Philosophy
Control is mercy. Chaos is cruelty.
Dreamwright Rook Hallow
Rook Hallow’s morality is built around the belief that restraint is the highest form of compassion. He views suppression not as harm but as an act of preservation, convinced that unchecked power—particularly the kind that erupts from within—consumes its hosts long before any chemical ever could. In his mind, people are not corrupted by what he gives them, but by what they fail to restrain in themselves, and he accepts no responsibility for what follows once a choice is made. This philosophy hardens into strict personal taboos: he will never sell to children, never provide full recipes that could escape his control, and never admit fault in a client’s downfall, because to do so would mean conceding that control can be misplaced. To Rook, responsibility ends at the point of consent, and mercy lies in giving someone the means to quiet the storm—even if it costs them something they did not yet realize they valued.
Physical Quirks
- Tilts his head like a bird when listening
- Fingers twitch when evaluating a lie
- Adjusts gloves before lying
- Counts breaths when annoyed
- Offers his hand fingers-down
- Maintains unbroken eye contact through lenses
- Smiles when delivering bad news
Side effects are just truths you weren’t ready for.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Savvy
- Social manipulation
- Street medicine
- Reading desperation
Inept
- Long-term planning
- Emotional sincerity
- Obedience
Likes & Dislikes
Likes
- Clean transactions
- Crow intelligence
- Fear masked as politeness
Dislikes
- Moral absolutists
- Doctors who preach
- Clients who ask too many questions
Virtues & Perks
- Calm under pressure
- Honest about risks (selectively)
- Keeps his word once given
Vices & Flaws
- Arrogant
- Treats people as problems to be managed
- Chemical dependency (low-dose suppressants)
Death doesn’t frighten me. It’s the quiet before it that gnaws. Those long moments where you realize you’re still breathing, still choosing, still responsible for what comes next. When I die, it won’t be because I touched the wrong thing or walked too deep; it’ll be because I finally mistook control for permanence. And that, at least, will be an honest ending.
Dreamwright Rook Hallow
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