Peter Aylen
he/him · Antagonist · first appears in Bytown, episode 1
Contents (4)
The man Bytown defers to. He walks the works and the streets like a patron — generous with favours, unfailingly courteous, remembering everybody’s name — and the people who greet him stoop a little as they do it. The charm and the threat are the same gesture, and nobody in town can afford to tell them apart.
No kit released for Peter Aylen yet — this entry is currently a description only. The text above is already yours to use under the licence below.
Named in
- Bytown 962 mentions
And 10 blog posts — the archive is where most of the talking about these people happens.
What the archive says
Every line below is drawn from Bytown · 2020.
How he seems
- How he is greeted
-
People stoop. Mrs McKenzie ages thirty years in half a second at the sight of him, and calls him sir twice in one breath.
the line it comes from
then she stopped cold, eyes wide, and stooped herself like she'd aged thirty years in half a second.
- Manner
-
Charming, every time — and no less so the tenth time than the first.
the line it comes from
Aylen was just as charming as the first time she’d met him.
How he rules
- How he holds the town
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By walking it. He hands out favours, remembers every name, and treats even the chancers well enough that they keep coming back.
the line it comes from
Even the scoundrels who came for one too many hand-outs were treated well on Aylen's walks: "Come now, Charlie, any more tales and one might think you're not an honest man."
- What he decides
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Who gets to work. A project continues, or it does not, depending on how the conversation goes.
the line it comes from
"You're lucky you can do *any* projects at all, after the trouble you’ve caused," said Aylen, carefully adjusting his gloves.
- Office
-
Spoils Bytown — show anyway
Elected chair of the town council, and past the reach of the magistrate.
the line it comes from
He swallowed slowly as he thought, and then said: “‘Newly-elected council Chair Peter Aylen made a triumphant visit down Wellington Street, where he was greeted with the jubilation he so rightly deserved.’”
What you notice
- The knife
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He talks with one in his hands, turning it over like the weight of it is familiar.
the line it comes from
"Ah, yes," said Aylen, flicking the knife around his fingers like he knew the weight of it intimately.
- His hands
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Not a gentleman's. He lights another family's hearth with expert precision, without being asked and without ceremony.
the line it comes from
He got to the hearth first, cracking the flint with expert precision and stoking the flames until the room started to feel a little less awful.
Alongside them
Using Peter Aylen
Released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Draw them, write them, animate them, put them in your game. Credit me, don't sell it, and license what you make the same way.
Attribution — copy this:
“Peter Aylen” from Bytown by MCM (2020), https://mcm.1889.ca/commons/peter-aylen — licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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