> **CANON UPDATE — cover blown.** The Hierophant persona described below is a **cover**. Vezra Gearbloom is a **[[House of Suits Overview|House of Suits]] agent** serving the [[Campaign Premise|ley-line conspiracy]], and the party has **exposed** it (see [[Vezra's Room]] in [[Brefield]]). Read the public-facing sections as the mask he wore; the truth is in **The Truth (Exposed)** at the bottom.

### Details:

**Name**: Vezra Gearbloom ("The Voice of the Forge")  
**Race**: [[Gnomes|Gnome]]  
**Age**: 128  
**Gender**: Male  
**Core personality**: Passionate mystic, fiery zealot, eccentric visionary.  
**Location**: [[Voxiu]], [[Obsidian Archives]] Cogwright Enclave

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### Appearance:

- **Build & Stature:** Short, wiry, wild-haired.
- **Hair:** Silver-white sticking up like straw.
- **Eyes:** Bright amber, glinting feverishly.
- **Skin:** Dusky brown, with tattooed spiral cogs etched down his jaw.
- **Apparel:** Patchwork robes, metallic threads stitched into seams.
- **Distinguishing Features:** Tiny automaton sparrow often perched on his shoulder, chirping sermons alongside him.

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### Voice & Speech:

- **Tone & Pitch:** High-pitched, rapid-fire.
- **Mannerisms:** Points skyward constantly; claps hands mid-sentence; speaks in rhythmic, almost sermon-like bursts.

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### Motivations & Goals:

- **Primary motivation:** Spread Cogwright theology: [[Automatons]] are “holy children of the primordial machine.”
- **Fears / Dangers:** That automatons will be annihilated before society sees their divinity.
- **Personal Secrets:** Fervently believes he hears the voice of the Ancients through the sparrow automaton — but it may just be hallucination.
- **The real secret (now exposed):** the Hierophant is a cover. He is a [[House of Suits Overview|House of Suits]] agent in the [[Campaign Premise|ley-line conspiracy]] — the "mine-safety assessor" who surveilled the party from inside [[The Splintered Snake]] in [[Brefield]].

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### Background:

- **Origin:** Born in [[The Weald]]; early member of Cogwrights Collective, migrated to Voxiu Archive enclave.
- **History:** A notorious debater and street orator often escorted out of political debates.
- **Current Occupation:** Itinerant preacher-scholar holding constant “sermons” in Obsidian Archives forums.

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### Associations:

- **Allegiances & Factions:** Cogwrights Collective.
- **Allies & Friends:** Automatons, radical machine-rights activists.
- **Rivals & Enemies:** [[Belter Overview|Belter]] agitators like [[Yanna Blackreed - Obsidian Archives|Yanna]]; skeptical [[Arcane Concord]] scholars.
- **Contacts & Networks:** Maintains connections to Cogwright enclaves across [[Jessergate]].

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## The Truth (Exposed)

- **The Hierophant is a mask.** Vezra serves the [[House of Suits Overview|House of Suits]] and the [[Campaign Premise|conspiracy to seal the ley lines]] — the same scheme that means to *enslave* the automatons he publicly preaches are "holy children." His machine-rights zealotry doubled as cover: it endeared him to sympathizers, flushed out true believers, and gave him reason to travel and preach wherever the conspiracy wanted eyes.
- **What the party found** (in [[Vezra's Room]], [[Brefield]], under his "mine-safety assessor" cover): a disguise kit, a field map to [[The Collapsed Reach|the Reach]], a letter signed "—T.", and a [[Decoded Ledger|coded ledger]] of Suits payments — plus a dossier proving he'd shadowed the party since Voxiu.
- **Open question (DM):** a true Cogwright believer who was *turned/blackmailed*, or a cold operative who built the faith as a tool from the start? It changes how the Cogwrights — and any PC who admired him — take the reveal.
- **Ripples to address:** the [[Cogwrights Collective Overview|Cogwrights Collective]] and figures like [[Yanna Blackreed - Obsidian Archives|Yanna]] likely don't yet know their Hierophant was a Suits plant — a reveal that could fracture the movement.

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### Notes & Flavor

- Shouts: “The gears are the gospel! The spark is the soul!”
- Talks to the sparrow as if it were divine. May ask the PCs if _they_ can hear its voice.