ER:Cardinal Inquisitor
From The Heretic Knowledge Vault
An NPC in the Errant Road on-line free-form role-playing game. Churches and Cardinal Inquisitors being what they are, it's not impossible that some comparable figure exists in the Veracian Church in the world of Errant Story itself, but presumably it's not this guy.
This fearsome personage has never actually been seen in the game, but his mere existence, and the threat of him taking an interest in things involving player characters, has been sufficient to set quite a few plot points in motion. As one might expect, he is a high-ranking official of the Veracian Church, Errant-Road-style, whose job is to sniff out and deal with heresy, sacrilege, heterodoxy, and so on. The events of Errant Road certainly make it clear that there's plenty of that floating around, starting with all the weirdness that breaks out at the mission in Kiyoka at the beginning of the game. The Inquisitor decides to pay that outpost of the Church a little visit to see what's going on, prompting the hasty departure of, among others, PC Sister Rose, whose membership in a rather "liberal" branch of the Veracian Church, combined with a most un-nun-like tendency to stick her neck out and use advanced magic, might make her a target for the man's inquiries in ways that she and the other Kiyokans might find ... uncomfortable. And that's not even to mention the kind of reaction he might have when he finds out that the mission has engaged an infidel like Argus to do some investigations of their own. Fortunately, Argus and Brother Miguel, no tower of Veracian orthodoxy himself, have decamped for Saus by the time the Inquisitor shows up.
While in town for his investigations, he apparently crosses swords with the menacing Captain Kitaura, so perhaps he's not all bad. Furthermore, later, the threat of the Cardinal Inquisitor works in the Good Guys' favor (sort of), as they fall afoul of a corrupt cleric in the small town of Mazantzel, whose iniquities seem like just the kind of thing a Cardinal Inquisitor might take an interest in. So maybe he does serve a useful, positive purpose ... at least relatively speaking. Rose, Miguel, etc., are still perfectly happy not to run into him.
As Rose relates, he doesn't particularly like to travel, particularly to places not having the extreme spiritual orthodoxy of the most conservative parts of the church. Accordingly, when events near Gervasiel lead to the kind of messiness that an Inquisitor might take an interest in, he declines to go there himself, but instead, dispatches Father Gaetan and the disagreeable Sister Bree to take "testimony" from Rose, Argus, etc., as to exactly what happened. Stay tuned; the last shoe surely hasn't dropped on this one.
His name is apparently "Cardinal Cosmo," but "Inquisitor" will do just fine, thank you.
