If ever noble blood ran in the veins of the Lowls family, its richness spoiled long before the birth of Haserton IV. The fourth consecutive Count Haserton Lowls to rule Versex, the middle-aged count was long known for a near-crippling social awkwardness that he transformed into arrogant introversion. Having ruled Versex for 14 years, he finds governance tedious, leaving most of his responsibilities in the hands of grasping mayors and magistrates.

From his family’s Thrushmoor estate of Iris Hill, Haserton used to apply himself to a rigorous but erratic curriculum of history, theology, antiquarianism, philology, poetry, and occultism. Refusing to tolerate tutors—considering such instruction beneath his grand intellect—he spent hours daily corresponding with peers and rivals at the University of Lepidstadt, Korvosa’s Academae, the Sincomakti School of Sciences, and Absalom’s Forae Logos. Considering himself an expert on many matters above the minds of lesser scholars, Haserton penned numerous rambling treatises extrapolating upon dubious and under-researched theses.

His “Minds of the Azlanti,” “A History of the History of Versex,” and “The Stars Are Not Among Us: An Undeniable Refutation of the Works of the Doomsaying Pseudo-Scholar Dr. Henri Meirtmane” (the latter ending his tempestuous relationship with the Sincomakti School), can be found at many centers of scholarship in Ustalav, but more due to the count’s generous patronage than scholarly merit. Although his combination of sophomoric erudition and social ineptitude painted Count Lowls as a fool to be ignored, indulged, or exploited, in recent years a shocking change has transformed the physically and ostentatiously bloated academic.