The rich minor nobleman Michel d’Envers put in charge of the Order of the Owl two weeks after its commander was assassinated — and the last man to hold the office before the order was destroyed. Nothing in the record says what happened to him. But in Fall 1734 he used his order’s last mission to smuggle his own daughter out of the West, and she is alive in a Hazadi fortress.
Naming
The S6 session notes render him “Jehan Dalet.” Aaron confirms this is the same man as the GM’s Jehanne d’Allais; the wiki keeps the GM’s spelling and carries “Jehan Dalet” as an alias. His daughter’s page is filed under the session’s form, Isabel d’Allais — the only form on record for her.
What We Know (all GM)
- Late Summer 1731: nominated by d’Envers, acting as king of Averoigne, as head of the Order of the Owl, replacing the murdered Marc Abayante.
- A nobleman of a minor house notable for its wealth — money, not lineage or martial reputation.
- Fall 1731: confirmed by the Most Holy (Boniface III) as knight commander.
- Winter 1731: pours his personal resources into the Order, and is still met with suspicion by the ranks, who see him as a creature of d’Envers.
- He held the Owl’s seat on the Divine Council at the Spring 1734 convocation that elected Baldessare Malipiero Most Holy.
- Spring 1736: the Order is dissolved and its members questioned and executed. His fate is not recorded.
The Daughter (S6)
Everything below comes from the two Owl knights at the Citadel of Gazra.
- He has a daughter, Isabel d’Allais, born ~1721.
- Her gift is the gift of beasts — she can speak with animals and boost them — and that gift is considered heretical in the West.
- In Fall 1734 he sent her to Hazad to hide her, escorted by Jean-Marie, the knight closest to him personally, with Marin of Clan Aggadum, Elysant Peppin and Visenne de Tarrand. This was the entire purpose of the Owl’s second visit to Halwa. The escort ran into Eagle Knights, three of them died, and the two women have been noble hostages ever since.
- Visenne de Tarrand’s private verdict: she respected him and all he did to restore the order — but hiding his daughter from the Church was itself somewhat heretical.
- Isabel insists her father could not have been a heretic, and says so in the present tense.
Why He Matters
If the Owl was destroyed by a conspiracy, d’Allais is either the instrument or the first casualty — and the difference is a single fact the party does not have. He is also the most obviously purchasable figure in the whole story: a man from a minor house who bought his way into a seat on the council that elects the head of the Western Church.
And now there is a second reading. In the last year of the order’s life, the bought placeman used it to run a personal errand: sending his daughter to Hazad in the hope she would find refuge there, out of the reach of a Church that called her gift heresy. That is not the behaviour of d’Envers’s creature. It is the behaviour of a father who had concluded the Church was coming.
And he was right. Sister Alia has since confirmed that the Eastern Church does not consider Isabel’s gift heretical (GM, S6). Whatever else d’Allais was, his read on the doctrine was correct: Hazad was the one jurisdiction where his daughter would be lawful. See Magic and Casting Traditions.
Speculation
That makes the failure purely operational. The plan was sound and the destination was right; what went wrong was that his hand-picked escort ran into Eagle Knights in Halwa and three of them died. He was not a fool about the law. He was unlucky, or betrayed, about the road.
Speculation
Did he know what was coming in 1736? He moved his daughter out of reach eighteen months before the Order of the Phoenix dissolved his order and executed its members. Either he was extraordinarily lucky, or he saw the shape of it and got the one thing he cared about across the sea first. That reframes “creature of d’Envers” considerably — and makes his own fate the more urgent question, not the less.
Speculation
He spent four years and a fortune failing to win the ranks over, and then spent the order’s credibility on his child. Visenne — who was on that mission and lost five years to it — still says he restored the order. The knights distrusted the man and respected the work. Those can both be true, and the Phoenix’s version of him allows neither.
Speculation
The order’s own knights read him correctly enough to distrust him from the first day, and he spent four years and a fortune failing to change their minds. A man who buys a religious order and then can’t command it is a man with a reason for buying it that has nothing to do with commanding it.
Speculation
Find out whether he was executed. If Jehanne d’Allais is alive and comfortable somewhere, the Spring 1736 dissolution was not an inquisition — it was a cleanup, and he was in on it. Isabel d’Allais is the person to ask — she is his daughter, she has been out of the West since 1734, and she still speaks of him as a man accused rather than a man executed. Either nobody has told her, or there is nothing to tell.
Relationships
- Isabel d’Allais — his daughter; hidden in Hazad since Fall 1734, now at the Citadel of Gazra. (S6)
- Jean-Marie — the knight closest to him; led Isabel’s escort and died in Halwa. (S6)
- Michel d’Envers — his patron; nominated him.
- Marc Abayante — the man he replaced.
- Boniface III — confirmed him.
- Order of the Owl — commanded, and was never trusted by it.