Galen Min
- Role: Western Magistrate of Valentia, based in the neutral city of Duarn.
- Description: A contemporary of Lucien's late mentor, Vellorien. He represents the Crown's interests at the border and facilitates the party's movement toward Dagoneth.
As Western Magistrate, Galen Min holds one of the more thankless posts in the Valentian administration. Duarn is the single point where Valentia and Dagoneth meet as equals, and the magistrate's job is to keep that equilibrium intact while still advancing the Crown's interests. He works the joint-tariff system, the riverside customs houses, and the manifest logs of the dock district, the unglamorous machinery that lets two rival nations trade without going to war over a grain convoy.
His connection to Vellorien gives him a particular relationship with Lucien. He knew the man who trained the mediator now passing through his jurisdiction, and that history buys Lucien a measure of cooperation that the paperwork alone would not. Galen Min is the figure who smooths the party's passage across the border, and his casework shows a man who understands that at a crossing like Duarn, the difference between order and incident is usually a single contested manifest.
He is a Crown servant first. His courtesy is real, but it is the courtesy of an official who has read the ledgers and knows exactly how much latitude he can afford to extend before it becomes a problem someone above him has to answer for.
Further Reading
- The Duarn Crossing — Galen Min's casebook entry on a customs impasse as a Dagonethian grain convoy tests the joint-tariff system.