"But what other choice do I have? I have spent a lifetime expanding the realm and fortune of the de Chegneys, I shall not see it fail for want of an heir! We shall pay these vermin ten times what they ask, but I will have my grandson returned!"
- —The Comte to Elodore Pleasant, Augustine de Chegney’s oldest and closest crony[1a]
Viscount Augustine de Chegney is a Bretonnian nobleman famous for his cruelty and tyranny as well as his ambition and ruthlessness. In recent years he has begun to extend his lands by taking them from other nobles, and living close to the border with the Empire, this is not limited only to his neighbors in Bretonnia.[1a]
De Chegney is completely from the image that is usually had of the noblemen and knights of Bretonnia. He is a ruthless and unscrupulous person, and anything goes if he achieves his plans with them. Some have no qualms about employing the most despicable methods if it makes them profitable, from acts of treason and ambushes to dealing with outlawed sorcerers who elsewhere would have burned at the stake; and unlike many of his peers, he does not have the prejudices that characterize Bretonnian knights against firearms.[1a]
One of his most famous examples of his vile methods was when he defeated his great enemy Baron Von Drakenburg with the help of his treacherous seneschal. For many years, De Chegney was at war with his neighbor in Reikland, until by means of a false peace treaty he was able to defeat and definitively dispose of his enemy and keep a good part of his land, which included the Iron Pass, a narrow path that crosses a gap in the Grey Mountains and allows communication between the Empire and Bretonnia. Currently he has set his eyes on the domains of the Marquis Le Gaires, and although they are currently in a truce, many believe that it will not last.[1a]
Yet despite the questionable systems he employs to defeat those who oppose him, Augustine de Chegney is a man skilled in the art of combat. His body is not tall but he is strong, with limbs turned by powerful muscles, sheer brute force that stands out even underneath his silk robes.[1a]
After the butchered of his son, Claudan de Chegeny and his wife Mirella de Chegney along with their sons. His only alive heir remained one of his grandsons, believed dead after his kidnap by Ursio and his group of Tilean mercenaries, after they were cheated by the Comte. The truth is that he was saved by Brunner the Bounty Hunter, but the grisly man never decided to send him back home.[1a]