Brought together by Velare Ambrosi in their collective grief over losing a loved one to the inevitable fate of a Puella Magi, the Conductors initially sought to devise ways of protecting people from Witches without engaging with the Incubators, yet were torn apart by ambition, bad decision making and bloody feuds — in particular with a organized crime syndicate called the Family. After disbanding, the former Conductors continued their schemes on their own before being ultimately thwarted or redeemed in coming across the Puella Magi marked by their legacy.
As a keepsake of their lost loved ones, each Conductor carried with him an Artifact, a memento that continues to contain the awesome power of the Puella Magi it used to belong to. While an Artifact can grant its wielder incredible powers without affecting the soul, only the person it’s been bound to can use it, and only its previous user can consciously pass it on to a new one.
For the full history of the Conductors, read “The Conductors’ Omnibus”.
Velare Ambrosi
| Age | 46 (upon death) |
| Occupation | Opera house proprietor, philanthropist, criminal |
| Likes | Designer glasses, expensive Italian spirits, opera |
| Dislikes | The Incubators, impatience, baristas who serve cappuccinos after 11 am |
| Pastimes | Hosting fancy parties, organized crime |
| @MaestroVelare |
Velare Ambrosi is the flamboyant and enigmatic founder of the Conductors, also known as the “Maestro”. Upon losing his beloved sister Cecilia, Velare left his homeland of Italy, travelled the world and gathered like-minded souls under the banner of fighting Witches without the Incubators’ help. Ending up in Mitakihara, in search for answers as to why the Incubators recruited so intensively in this particular city, Velare managed to buy up an abandoned opera house for a pittance, using the many extravagant parties and performances it hosted as a front for his less honorable activities, all while amassing a significant fortune for himself in the process.
Following the Conductors’ downfall, Velare is the only one amongst their ranks to continue pursuing their initial goal. Yet the things he did as a Conductor have changed him. Striking a deal with his former arch-nemesis — Garou Arashi of the Family — to train his granddaughter Yui as the first of a generation able to fight Witches without making a contract, he eventually pays the price for his continued abuse and manipulation when Yui strikes him down. As a final favour to an old friend, the fellow Conductor Nebbia absorbs Velare’s dying soul into his Dreamscape, where it continues to provide any willing (and unwilling) soul with cryptic advice. After helping Niko and Shinju to take down part of the amalgamate Puella Malefica Kae, Velare is presumed well and truly gone for a while, only to show up again when Niko begins to lose control over the Dreamscape, showing that his days of scheming are not quite over.
Velare’s Artifact was the Maestro’s Watch, a pocket watch that allowed him to use his sister’s powers of observing anyone anywhere in the world. Following his death, the Watch was acquired by Yui, yet lost its magical properties after Cecilia’s soul was made whole again.
Cecilia Ambrosi
| Age | 19 (upon death) |
| Occupation | / |
| Likes | Classic literature, floral tea, otherworldly-looking creatures |
| Dislikes | Taking care of a physical body, large crowds |
| Pastimes | Dreaming of travelling and seeing the world |
| @CeciliaAmbrosi |
Cecilia Ambrosi is Velare’s younger sister, who was granted supernatural sight when she wished for an incubator to show her the world. The overwhelming power this wish gave her, however, corrupted her soul as it was being turned into a Soul Gem, turning her into the first case of what would later be known as a Puella Malefica. Shortly after, Cecilia died under mysterious circumstances, but rather than fading away, her heavily unstable soul was scattered into various pieces. One of these pieces latched onto a pocket watch and created Velare’s Artifact, which, years later, allowed Velare’s ward Yui to bring her back to life. through a contract of her own. With no body to return to, Cecilia’s soul took up residence in Yui’s body, granting Yui access to her powers and Cecilia herself a second chance at life to try and right the wrongs of her brother and his associates.
With some help from René’s Soul Lantern, Yui eventually manages to fully resurrect Cecilia into the body of a recently passed ally, granting Cecilia more independence in her attempts to save the world from an evil the Conductors sealed away years ago. Taking up the mantle of the “Oracle”, Cecilia starts to serve as a mentor figure to both Yui and the younger generation of Puellae Magi in Mitakihara, albeit not one without an agenda of her own. When her past as a Puella Malefica is revealed, however, Cecilia is forced to disappear from the city, eventually ending up in a mysterious town named Kamihata, where she is currently learning to master a new power, all while reckoning with her past.
Though the bodies she has inhabited since her resurrection appear young, matching her age when she passed, Cecilia is a wise and considerate woman who generally does not let emotions cloud her judgements or her actions. Though calm and observant, she has a tendency to keep secrets to her chest and, like her brother and the other Conductors, speak in vague, flowery riddles, which she attributes to her lacking proficiency in Japanese. As a Puella Magi, she has limited fighting capabilities, but her true strength lies in her ability to observe anything and anyone, a power implied to be able to even transcend space and time. Nevertheless, it does not render her entirely impervious, as Cecilia often struggles to use her abilities on irregular beings such as Shinobu Nagano or the matron of the Coven of Kamihata.
René Colère
| Age | 43 |
| Occupation | Consultant to the 6th Bureau, criminal (formerly) |
| Likes | Classic rock, tattoos, whiskey |
| Dislikes | Learning kanji, kinesiotherapy |
| Pastimes | Playing the guitar, getting into fights with Kaito Arashi |
| @ReneColere |
René Colère, who grew up in a banlieue of Paris, France, is most reasonable and noble member of the Conductors, also know as the “Virtuoso”. Throughout the Conductors’ short-lived but tumultuous existence, René mostly served as the team’s muscle, which often left him with the task of dealing with the enforcers Naota’s enemies sent his way. During one of his fights, he killed Goro Arashi’s daughter-in-law, Yuma, in self-defense, leading him to become Yuma’s husband’s number one enemy. Kaito Arashi’s vendetta against the Virtuoso would continue to persist — even after the latter ended up in a coma following a particularly ferocious battle that took place during the Walpurgisnacht attack four years ago. Like Velare’s, René’s soul was absorbed into the Dreamscape, while his body remained comatose in the waking world.
Upon formally passing on his Artifact to Yui, René is killed in the Dreamscape by an infuriated Kaito, causing him to wake up from his coma, where he is recruited by the 6th Bureau. Now the sole survivor of the original Conductors, René has taken it onto himself to prevent anyone from ever making the same mistakes he and his friends once did.
René’s Artifact is the Virtuoso’s Lantern, a mysterious object that contains a fragment of his dead wife’s soul and allows the Virtuoso to separate soul from body or transfer a soul from one vessel to another. Much coveted by both Kaito and Yui, the Lantern eventually found its way into the latter’s hands, after which René mysteriously awoke from his slumber and returned to the realm of the living.
Nebbia Piccolo
| Age | 39 (upon death) |
| Occupation | Criminal |
| Likes | Theatre, especially the old-timey kind; black coffee, fortune telling |
| Dislikes | Birds, the Catholic Church |
| Pastimes | Sleeping |
| @AndMayItBurn |
Nebbia Piccolo was the youngest and most unpredictable of the Conductors, who called himself the “Troubadour”. Once a street rat in Naples, Italy, Nebbia became acquainted with Velare at a young age and eventually tracked him down to Japan, where he tried to prove his place Velare’s organization by assassinating the priest overseeing the wedding of Kaito and Yuma Arashi. After his wife became a part of the amalgamate Puella Malefica, Kae, Nebbia used a fragment of her soul to create his Artifact, which he dubs the Troubadour’s Masque, and sealed Kae within. Sacrificing himself to prevent Kae from escaping, Nebbia eventually retreated into the cellar of Velare’s opera house in Mitakihara and fell into a deep slumber, creating the Dreamscape in the process.
Later, Nebbia unconsciously pulls a wandering Niko Segawa into the Dreamscape and begins to train her, first as an unwitting assistant in the waking world, and later as his successor. When the 6th Bureau raids the ruins of the opera house and discovers the hidden cellar, Nebbia is awakened once more, setting Kae loose upon the world. Nebbia is arrested by the 6th Bureau, who eventually allow him to negotiate with Kae once she starts rampaging through the city. Descending into the Dreamscape once more, Nebbia confronts both halves of Kae — who exist as separate entities in this realm — and reveals that he is, to a certain degree, also a part of the amalgamate Puella Malefica. Ultimately, he is run through by his sister-in-law Katherine and dies, passing on the Troubadour’s Masque to Niko.
Nebbia’s Artifact is the Troubadour’s Masque, which allows the wearer to control Kae’s barrier, known as the Dreamscape. Under Nebbia’s control, the Dreamscape not only served as Kae’s prison, but also as a safe haven for damaged souls or souls with no body to return to. It allows the Troubadour to absorb souls in their immediate vicinity into the barrier in their moment of need, giving them the opportunity to heal or even live on without a body. While those souls that have no body to go back to wander the Dreamscape endlessly, those who were merely pulled in to recover can only access it when their bodies are asleep in the waking world. Following Kae’s reawakening, the Dreamscape is left in an embryonic state, eventually beginning to expand again and pulling in the souls that could once access it yet again. With its former master in custody, however, the realm becomes a wasteland, directly under the amalgamate Puella Malefica’s control, until it is reconquered by Niko Segawa, the new owner of the Masque.
While the Dreamscape is unlimited in its size, most of the souls which reside within occupy their own space within it, which shapes itself according to their memories, and rarely venture outside of it. All memories of those residing within are part of a collective consciousness, which can physically manifest particularly strong memories when prompted and can be tapped into by whoever is wearing the Masque, essentially allowing both Nebbia and Niko to read the minds of whoever calls the Dreamscape home. Niko later discovers that when souls return to their bodies after a long period of being separate, such as in the case of René Colère or Hikari Shirahara, some memories can get left behind in the Dreamscape and need to be returned to their proper owner in some way.
Naota Yasuda
| Age | 63 (upon death) |
| Occupation | Chairman of the Yasuda Conglomerate, criminal |
| Likes | Money, power, bonsai trees |
| Dislikes | Modern art and architecture, uppity punks |
| Pastimes | Calligraphy, judo, money laundering |
| N/A |
Naota Yasuda was the oldest member of the Conductors, also known as the “Chairman”. He was recruited by Velare after his wife was killed in a turf war between Puellae Magi. As the chairman of a powerful business conglomerate, Naota was able to bankroll the Conductors’ ambitions, but his greed eventually ended up being their undoing. Becoming obsessed with using the powers granted by his Artifact, the Chairman’s Baton, to acquire more money for the Conductors’ operations, Naota eventually transformed the group into an organized crime syndicate of sorts, which caused it to be targeted by Mitakihara’s ruling crime cartel at the time. The bloody feud between the Conductors and the Family eventually led to the former’s disbandment, after which Naota returned to running both his company and the remains of his criminal empire, eventually dying of unknown causes not long after passing on his Artifact to his grandniece, Alice Rinju.
Naota’s Artifact was the Chairman’s Baton, which was formerly used by his Puella Magi daughter. The Baton allows its user to create elaborate illusions, misleading any the wielder chooses to subject to their manipulations. The Baton is currently in the possession of Alice, who regularly uses it to assist her Puella Magi friends.
Kae
| Age | 36 (Katherine), 39 (Melania) (upon death) |
| Occupation | Criminal (formerly) |
| Likes | Nothing |
| Dislikes | The Conductors, the Family |
| Pastimes | Trying to destroy the world |
| @AndMayItBurn |
Kae, short for Katherine Agnes Esposito, was a hybrid Puella Malefica created when Nebbia’s wife Melania and her sister Katherine merged their corrupted souls into one. As a creature driven by pure hatred, she tried using the powerset of a Puella Malefica in conjunction with her destructive pyromancy in order to burn the entire world into oblivion out of a desire for revenge against the warring factions that created her. Though she all but succeeded in decimating both the Conductors and the Family, she was ultimately defeated by their successors — Yui Arashi and Niko Segawa — and their allies.
Before there was Kae, there was Melania Piccolo (née Esposito), who worked as a Puella Magi in service of the Conductors, also known as the “Muse”. Violently protective of her mousy younger sister Catarina Esposito — known to most by her Anglicized name Katherine or simply Kat — she aided the Conductors in advancing their agenda by teaching them the ins and outs of being a Puella Magi. As the Conductors’ war against the Arashi criminal empire grew more intense, however, Melania grew more stressed out and antagonistic towards their associates, becoming more paranoid and worried about her sister’s safety with every day passing. Eventually, Melania succumbed to the every increasing corruption and began to turn into a Witch, upon which she was discovered by Katherine, who, in a panic, wished to take Melania’s grief and sorrow into herself. This however tainted her soul as well, and merges the two sisters into a single Puella Malefica, who called herself Kae.
Following this transformation, Kae turned on the Conductors, using her phenomenal power to single-handedly destroy everything they had left, until Nebbia, used the Troubadour’s Masque to seize control of Kae’s barrier, transforming it into the Dreamscape and sealing all aspects of the Puella Malefica — both its physical form as well as the corrupted wandering souls making up its twisted psyche — away along with parts of his own soul and parts of the souls of Kaito and Yuma Arashi, to serve as a seal. Years later, she manages to escape, both as a Puella Malefica wreaking havoc on the real world and and as a pair of vengeful spirits quickly reclaiming control over the Dreamscape from Nebbia.
One by one, Kae begins taking out the remains of both the Conductors and the Family, starting with Kaito Arashi. After lethally wounding his body in the real world, Melania’s spirit, destroys his soul in the Dreamscape as well. Afterwards, the Puella Malefica begins targeting Nebbia, but through a clever ruse, the Troubadour manages to bait Katherine’s spirit into killing him, much to Melania’s dismay. This pits the two sister against one another, weakening their shared existence in the real world. When Niko Segawa inherits the Troubadour’s Masque and retakes the Dreamscape from the sisters shortly after, Kae’s fate is sealed. Though she still manages to fulfil her objectives of turning Yui Arashi into a Puella Malefica like herself, this plan backfires, as Yui destroys both Melania’s soul and Katherine’s Witch half in the Dreamscape, leaving a powerless and defenseless Katherine behind in the waking world, where she is promptly executed by Shinobu Nagano of the 6th Bureau.
Mitakihara Original 