Lofwyr has a number of human manifestations— possibly including Hans Brackhaus, given the fellow’s magical impenetrability in Dead Air and Lofwyr’s habit of micromanagement. The one that the PC’s have seen is the one that turned up in Worlds Without End: human, male, with long iron-grey hair, and almond-shaped eyes of a peculiar golden color. Patty’s flashing of her business card in the metaplanes led to the run against Silk Flame, the decker with the copyright infringement problem.
Knight, I suspect, knows about the Horrors, and found out about them from Dunkelzahn. He has a very practical view toward such matters: if he can make Ares Macrotechnology into a potent force for defeating major magical threats, he’ll be one step ahead of the competition. To this end, he’s been supporting a lot of research into weapons that will defeat magical threats: to him, the Bugs are just a convenient source of R&D testing. (Having the Bugs and the Horrors shows that there’s an interesting metaplanar ecology out there...) When the Horrors strike, Knight intends to step in as a fair-haired hero to save the Earth’s collective rear end.
Governmental operations are not going to trickle down to the level of the player characters very often, because governments are much less likely to go outside their own black ops teams (which they can recruit from military service) than the megacorps. If you can control your own justice system, it’s much easier to make your assets deniable.
Eh'he'ran, also known as Ehran the Scribe, who I’m keeping with the white-haired, clean-shaven look despite all the beards in the Tir Tairngire sourcebook. Stick with a tenor voice, cultured accent (precise pronunciation, but keep it American). His Free Spirit servant Ariel, who goes by Ariel Nasir, is described in Harlequin (import that). He is certainly a fifteenth circle Lightbearer, though he may not take his duties seriously any more. He’s probably at least a fifteenth circle Adept in a fighting Discipline (given his duels with Harlequin) and some wizardly ones. Ehran is obsessed with Elven superiority, and is striving for the elves to rule the world; he is one of the major architects behind the Great Ward, which will keep the Horrors out of Tir Tairngire and put Tir Tairngire in the position of Thera when it becomes safe to go out again. The only beings he truly respects are Elves and Great Dragons, though he can put on a good enough show of politeness that no one will be able to tell. (It’s not like they can penetrate his masking...) He is not inhumane; he simply considers Elves the natural rulers of the rest of metahumanity, and can see no reason why a properly (Elven) run society would not prosper to a degree that all other sentients would find their rulership benevolent. (He has lots of rhetoric for this: Elves with their long lives are naturally suited to long-term planning, vegetarians have calmer tempers and smaller requirements than meat-eaters...) He would love to be a persuasive writer, but he lacks the proper creative spark to truly stir metahuman souls, and instead relies on rhetorical tricks that have been polished over millennia, leading to various schlocky books that can easily capture the hearts of those who don’t like to think deeply. His beliefs are strong enough that those interacting with him can easily pick up the spirit. While Ehran can act as a muse, he does not consider that to be an appropriate post for one such as himself.
Sean Laverty is the organizational and financial mastermind behind Tir Tairngire, even as Ehran the Scribe is the demagogue. Laverty is primarily responsible for the failure of archaeologists to publicise any discoveries they made of the previous era of magic. He is a relatively benevolent individual, and one of the richest of the immortal elves, as well as one of the most stable. His control over archaeological discoveries came from the fact that he was a regular backer on expeditions to areas he knew well; the archaeologists who found things that were too sensitive were paid very good money to give up all the extraordinary evidence, and many expeditions into sensitive areas were redirected toward major finds that wouldn't turn up anything special. (Even the limited magicks available to him in the down cycle made it possible to verify a person’s veracity.) Lacking any decent proof, no reputable archaeologists attempted to show off the more unusual artifacts they turned up. Laverty has a very secure warehouse in Paris, packed to the gills with unusual skeletons and broken relics. His own delight is in planning: setting up systems that can function well without his intervention, hiding secrets where no one else can find them, and thwarting an opponent’s moves at every turn by anticipating every one of them are all pleasures for him. He can be lured out by getting close to the innermost defenses of one of his most complex webs, as he relishes the sight of someone being thwarted by the very impressive final stages of his plans. He is not a good loser, though...
Aithne Oakforest is a former Blood Elf; he went mad fairly early as immortal elves go, when his thorns went away and the already-crazed state required to survive the thorns proved useless. He has spent centuries as a drunken warrior, doing his best to forget his own glories; he began pulling himself together sometime around the Renaissance. His furious temper can still get the better of him, as in the case of his wife putting in rosebushes at their home.
Urdli is an aboriginal immortal who has become obsessed with extinguishing magical threats over the long millennia.
Liam O’Connor is another interesting figure that we don’t have much data on; the Tir Tairngire sourcebook has many more leads than Tír na nÓg. I have him getting fed up with the whole thing and walking the Path of Lords into complete obscurity. He is a spike baby, over three hundred years old, and is not interested in immortality.
Alachia is still around— apparently since the Second Age, the Age of Dragons, according to Anjo Verde on the ShadowRN list, who has read the translations of Scars and Little Treasures. She is the mentor for Brane Deigh, and the secret Prince of the Tir Tairngire council, Sosan Naerain.
His aliases include Harlequin, Quinn Harley, ...
He may be forced into revealing a few secrets if it becomes evident that the world may need more Lightbearers.
He may have been Richard the Lion-Hearted, in which case he may have been Ehran’s lover at some point in the past.
Jane Foster is his apprentice, another new immortal elf (like Brane Deigh).
Name: Shasta Lodge
Type: Dedicated (working for Hestaby)
Members:
Limitations: Shamans only.
Strictures: Limited Membership. Oath. Material Link. Belief.
Exclusive Ritual. Fraternity. Obediance (to Hestaby).
Resources/Dues: Luxury. No dues.
Patron: Hestaby.
Customs: Some of them travel around Northern California as healers
(using homeopathic techniques as well as magic).