Ganley de Vries

Ganley de Vries is the youngest of Saul de Vries’ sons and, at twenty-two, the least settled into the future his family has planned for him. Unlike Matin and Erdmun, Ganley never particularly wanted a career in trade. Given the choice, he would have joined the Church of the Mother.

As a child, Ganley was the sibling most drawn to the temples, ceremonies and charitable work of the Church. He was fascinated by its scholars and clerics and by the idea that wealth could have a purpose beyond simply creating more wealth. In another family, his interest might easily have developed into a religious vocation.

Being born a de Vries made matters more complicated.

Saul expected his sons to understand the machinery that had made their family wealthy, and Ganley grew up receiving the same education in contracts, valuation, negotiation and commerce as his brothers. When his bardic ability became apparent, the obvious path was the Dealmaker tradition that had already served the family so well.

Ganley resisted for longer than was convenient.

Eventually, parental expectation, family obligation and the uncomfortable knowledge that everyone around him considered his future perfectly obvious wore him down. He agreed to begin formal training, though at present he remains an apprentice rather than a true Dealmaker. His tutors regard him as intelligent and capable. Ganley regards their confidence in his eventual success with considerably less enthusiasm.

The irony is that he may actually become very good at it.

Ganley listens carefully, remembers details and has an instinctive interest in what people genuinely need from an agreement. Where Matin naturally thinks about structure and Erdmun about pressure, Ganley tends to notice the people sitting across the table. He is particularly uncomfortable with deals that are technically sound while leaving one party badly exposed, and he has already developed a habit of asking inconvenient questions about what happens after everyone signs.

Saul considers this softness that experience will correct.

Ganley is less certain.

His interest in the Church has never disappeared. He attends services more frequently than business requires, knows several clerics personally and occasionally finds excuses to spend time around charitable houses and Church institutions. He is especially interested in the Aranthaen belief that honest creation, useful labour and the building of prosperity can themselves be sacred acts. It offers him a way to reconcile the world he was born into with the one he once imagined joining.

Whether that reconciliation will be enough remains an open question.

Ganley has a complicated relationship with Emlyn. He admires her enormously, though her decision to leave also unsettles him because it demonstrates that refusing Saul is possible. Emlyn has never encouraged him to copy her choices, which may be one reason he trusts her. She understands better than most that independence only means something when the decision is genuinely your own.

Erdmun is perhaps the brother Ganley talks to most easily. Erdmun’s own doubts about the family business make him considerably more sympathetic than Matin when Ganley questions whether he belongs in it. Unfortunately for Ganley, Erdmun ultimately stayed, which gives Saul an extremely convenient example whenever the subject arises.

Matin treats his youngest brother with genuine affection and an almost inexhaustible supply of advice. Ganley knows that much of it is excellent. This does not make receiving it any less irritating.

Despite his uncertainty, Ganley is no miserable prisoner of his family. He enjoys the comforts in which he was raised, loves his siblings and understands how extraordinarily fortunate his life has been. He simply cannot shake the suspicion that being good at something does not necessarily mean it is what he should spend his life doing.

He is well educated, courteous and somewhat more reserved than his brothers. Ganley lacks Matin’s commanding certainty and Erdmun’s easy sociability, though when discussing something he genuinely cares about his hesitancy disappears quickly. His humour tends toward the dry and understated, often surfacing several seconds after everyone assumes he has nothing to add.

Like his brothers, Ganley dresses extremely well. His green and gold clothing is unmistakably expensive, though his taste is somewhat less formal and he wears the family colours because they are expected rather than because he particularly cares about displaying them. A small symbol of the Mother is often tucked somewhere among the costly tailoring, easy to overlook unless someone knows to look for it.

For now, Ganley remains where Saul expects him to be: learning the family trade, studying the Dealmaker tradition and preparing for a future everyone has described to him since childhood.

Whether he eventually decides that future is his remains to be seen.