The Paranet Papers being an official TTRPG supplement from evilhat, with fun lore stuff in it. 

Including this from its 1918 Novgorod segment - compiled from letters/notes by Simon Pietrovich and one of his apprentices Larisa Yevtushenko. Also a topic of concersation in this section, is Justin DuMorne, one of Simon's other apprentices who was a good deal younger at the time - and an appearance of then warden-commander Mccoy. Further I will keep vague to avoid going into any book spoilers. 

This is a fun ironic historic bit from the book that is no spoiler to anything in the main bookline, so thought may be fun to share here.

For some brief relevant context, the Black Court has just had a massive problem in that its numbers have very recently all but been eradicated - causing huge supernatural society issues.

>When thinking about how organizations were forming at this point in history, you can’t ignore the effect of the recent demise of the Black Court. This was an absolute detonation in the supernatural world; everything was different after that. You combine that with the fundamentally glacial pace at which supernaturals tend to organize themselves and react to change, and you get the situation where the truly organized factions in Novgorod are very mortal-centric. The Winter Fae are about the only supernaturals approaching this situation with any sort of plan or cooperation. The other supernatural entities involved here look like free agents and wildcatters.

Summer are sort of active, but mostly in trying to save all the creatives in the area and sabotage Winter where they can.  We read about this in the section for Konstantin “Kostya” Evgenivich Voronko, a Summer Changeling - per a deal made by a fully fae maternal relative named Raisa:

>She also explained that revolution was coming, and that some of the greatest creative minds in the world were in Russia and would need to be smuggled out of the country before Winter took them. She explained that Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff had already left (“Rachmaninoff was a close one,” she said), and they were working on getting Prokofiev out. There were others, and they wanted him to go to Novgorod and keep his eyes open. She’d already gotten him a room at the Koslovsky boardinghouse. If Konstantin finds any talented artists or musicians, he’s to protect them until emigration can be arranged. And while he’s there, he’s to report on any overt activity of Winter.   
  
He writes his observations and reports in a book she gave him; she assured him that anything he writes in the book will be seen by the right people. And he’s to foil Winter’s activity if the opportunity presents itself and he can do so without serious risk to his own cover. Of course. Nothing big.

Note Summer asking for reports on overt Winter activity - because they do not actually know it. Even Simon an old White Council member with a lot of contacts and actively living in the same region, has not been certain who the Winter Knight is. It has not been widely published for some reason. 

Candidates have been investigated and dismissed. But there is one as of the writings who is held as very likely - 

>**FROM THE PERSONAL NOTES OF SIMON PIETROVICH, SEPTEMBER 1918 …**  
I am beginning to focus my search for the Winter Knight and have ruled out many of the people I once suspected. As I speculated in my notes from the previous week, I can now rule out Gregori Rasputin with no doubts in my mind…at the moment my suspicion falls most heavily upon Nicolai Bolshov, a Cheka officer assigned to Novgorod. The people are prone to superstition and rumor, so we should not take all of these reports seriously, but people have said that he is perpetually surrounded by a cold, misty fog, and that he brings a chill into the room when he enters and is never affected by even the most bitterly cold winter wind. Some say his piercing stare can freeze a man’s heart, and in more than a metaphorical way. If these peasants’ tales can be taken to have even a grain of truth to them, he displays many qualities of Winter Knights past…

In addition to weird cold mystic stuff happening around him, he also explicitly has a "Sword of Winter's Frost" - a winter empowered sword as it sounds. Funnily enough in an ironic way, he has a specific ability making him better at riding horses too. 

As for who this man actually is:

>Motivation: Ensure that the Revolution succeeds, by any means necessary.   
  
Face of: Threat Through Dismal Winter.  
  
Bolshov is the most feared Cheka officer in Novgorod, and that’s saying something, because they’re all pretty scary dudes. Aside from a small number of highly loyal officers under his direct command, the other Cheka in Novgorod aren’t any less afraid of Bolshov than the ordi nary people are. It’s telling that he’s known as "Bolshov" rather than “Nicolai Dmitrich.”  
  
He’s a slight man, about thirty years of age, with light hair and steel grey eyes. His uniform and Cheka badge are always immaculate, and he’s never seen without his revolver and cavalry saber strapped to his belt. He’s an excellent rider and a Great War veteran from the Imperial Cavalry, where he served with valor and distinction— until he coldly shot his commanding officer through the head for “crimes against the people” and led his unit into mutiny, leaving the front and riding to Petrograd to join the Revolution. He was quickly identified as a man with the right combination of revolutionary zeal and lack of conscience, and he was transferred from the Army to the secret police.   
  
Since then, Bolshov has taken great pleasure in hunting down enemies of the Revolution. He tends to scoff at trivialities like “trials” and “evidence,” preferring summary execution for most counterrevolutionaries—executions he frequently carries out personally. Bolshov is a remorseless killer and, frankly, one of the scariest mortals in Russia.

A personal hatchet man sort. If he deems someone should be dead he attends the matter himself often himself, rooting out anything deemed a threat mercilessly and efficiently. 

Although all of this is founded in a genuine ideological zeal, how he believes he must better his nation, as opposed to a love for killing in itself. 

Note he is not noted to have outright called himself Commissar - rather Murphy and Will Borden, commenting in the margins, note it is exceptionally unlikely he would have accepted being called a Knight with his idealistic beliefs.

>Murphy: Knights are associated with nobility and aristocarcy. I doubt Bolshov would identify with "Winter Knight"  
Will: Good point. I think Mab would be willing to humor him on this. How does “Mab’s Commissar” sound?

They also not it is highly likely that if he were the Winter Knight - or implied any winter knight in that era, since modern day it still has not been heard of who it actually was - with the volatile nature of Russia then they likely did not live too long. 

No real conclusion here other than to share the fun details - including the irony of a very communist revolutionary who wants the aristocracy overthrown, also serving fae monarchs.

Personally I do think Simon was right and he was the Winter Knight, a lot lines up both with details cited about him and I do think he is the sort of operative that would appeal to Mab.

Meta wise it is also the sort of irony that fits this setting - like an atheist knight of the cross. 



The Paranet Paper's Anti-Aristocracy "Winter Commissar"