Alistair Diomedes Friedrich Marlowe

Lord Alistair Diomedes Friedrich Marlowe is the Archon of Meidua Prefecture on Delos, Lord of Devil's Rest, and the Butcher of Linon -- a title earned by annihilating House Orin for refusing tribute. He is nearing three centuries in age, lean and hard with an aquiline face and violet eyes, maintained through fugue and longevity treatments.

Alistair is wholly consumed by his office and the reputation of House Marlowe. He governed his household through surveillance, secrecy, and fear, favoring Crispin while excluding Hadrian from his counsel. When Hadrian defied him, Alistair punished the tutor Gibson as a proxy -- having always known Hadrian was behind the escape attempt but unable to act against his own son -- struck Hadrian in the face, and did not come to see him depart. He later co-signed a writ of disavowal cutting Hadrian from the family entirely.

Gibson reveals that Alistair was shaped by the murder of his father Lord Timon, by the demands of his office, by a mother who retreated to her tower and a wife who never wanted him. He has spent his life afraid of becoming his father and had no friends. Gibson insists that Crispin was never truly Alistair's heir by temperament -- Hadrian carried the same fearful self-awareness at his core. Over the centuries of their estrangement, Hadrian's hatred of his father has cooled from white-hot coal to something oily and dead. Alistair himself remains alive, preserved by fugue trips to the Consortium offices at Arcturus. His seat will eventually pass to Sabine Doryssa Marlowe.