
A wizard’s power comes from within him. His potential is clearly defined by his spectral disposition, and his performance is influenced by training and his own physical and mental condition. Regarding spectra, a wizard is either a Worldbender, a Lightshifter, or a Transcender.
This glossary presents individual wizards. Read more on wizardry here.
WIZARD TRIVIA
Age
The average wizard life spans 200 years.
When calculating their age, wizards do not count the years they are, but they count the eights they have. Hereby, the fractions are taken from the sum of 200 years:
▪ I have one-eights = I am 25 years old (but younger than 50). Abbreviated: I have one.
▪ I have two-eights = I am 50 years old (but younger than 75). Abbreviated: I have two.
A wizard, especially when younger than 100 years, may additionally use half-eights (12,5 years) to be more specific.
When adding, "half" is inserted between the number and eights:
▪ I have one-half-eights (37,5-50 years). Abbreviated: I have one-half.
▪ I have two-half-eights (62,5-75 years). Abbreviated: I have two-half.
When stating that he has not yet reached the "half-eight" marker between the stated number and the next, a wizard may place "half" before the number:
▪ I have half-one-eights (25-37,5 years). Abbreviated: I have half-one.
▪ I have half-two-eights (50-62,5 years). Abbreviated: I have half-two.
Attention: This may not be confused with the intention to say "I have only half the age of ..." Also, since wizards generally prefer to appear older, it is more common to leave out "half" instead of using it like this.
Child wizards are even more specific, using half-eights and quarter-eights. This is generally abbreviated:
▪ I have (my first) quarter (6,25-12,5)
▪ I have half-eights / half (12,5-25)
▪ I have quarter-eights (12,5-18,75)
▪ I have three-quarters (18,75-25)
It is quite common for child wizards to speak these fractions as numbers.This sort of slang may lead to great confusion amongst those races that count age by years. As an example: "I am between 6,25-12,5 years old" may be said as:
▪ I have quarter
▪ I have one-four (NOT: "I have one-quarter")
▪ I have fourteen
Attention: This odd and presumably lazy phrasing developed quite naturally and serves purpose. Adhering to the regular structure may lead to confusion:
"I have quarter" (6,25-12,5), for example, does not mean the same as "I have one-quarter" (37,5-43,75). Though adult wizards refrain from using quarters, the irregular abbreviations used by child wizards guarantee further transparency, especially when the listener cannot accurately guess the speaker's age in case of confusion.
Anatomy
▪ Wizard is a race, just like elf or dwarf.
▪ Tairan-descendants are closest to wizards in terms of facial anatomy.
▪ Wizards have two hearts.
▪ "Once you turn five, your beard starts to thrive" — Wizards start to grow beards when they have approximately five-eights (125 years of age).
▪ Wizards gradually expand their capacity to hold Rothar over decades.
WORLDBENDER

𝔖𝔢𝔪𝔭𝔞𝔯 [Worldbenders] are, from the shifting to the infusing to the creating end of their spectrum, those who have the skill to influence their surroundings or the physical bodies of other beings, and those who are able to transform themselves by using magic upon their own physical form. In other words, they are elementers, healers, and shapeshifters.
Read more on Worldbender magic.
WORLDBENDER WIZARDS
Blackmoor
Disposition: Unknown.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C11]
“Where forbidden magic appears,” as Master Blackmoor had once warned, “wizards disappear.” [B1.C11]
As revealed in [B1.C11], Master Blackmoor was/is a tutor at Emery Thurm.
Imbiad
Disposition: Wordbender elementer. Water.
Familiar: Unknown.
First appearance: [B1.C15] A member of the escorting party taking Yu to the Albweiss Mountain Guild.
“It is my duty as a wizard to protect against witches, regardless of where I am.” [B1.C15]
MAGIC
Imbiad wields water and ice. During the ork attack in [B1.C15], he protects Yu with walls of ice. When Samasira approaches the Albweiss Mountain Guild in [B1.C15], he offers to fight alongside the guards. While he had been cauteous not to use his magic on the Nowhere Snowtrail, as to not attract the Shaira, he then shows great power and explicit control over ice:
"Even to Yu, untrained and oblivious to elemental control, the sensation was staggering — it was raw violence running through the ice underfoot. Every fragment of frost on the ground and in the air seemed to sharpen, like blades pushing against his skin. It was too much. Yu could not stop shaking. Ice was all around them. The whole mountain was Imbiad’s weapon, and he had just put up arms." [B1.C17]
While Yu wants to trust and see him as honourable wizard, he perceives Imbiad's presence as frightening:
"The air vibrated with horror and malevolence, with the tension of thunder contained and compressed to the point of bursting." [B1.C17]
INTENTIONS
In [B1.C17], Imbiad claims that he joined Fallem to rescue his brother Evander from the Shaira.
Fallem
Disposition: Wordbender transformer.
Familiar: Unknown.
First appearance: [B1.C15] Alongside Yu, Fallem is escorted to the Albweiss Mountain Guild.
In the year 646, Fallem seeks to retrieve his brother Evander, wo had been taken by the Shaira. For that purpose, he contracted a party of skilled fighters.
MAGIC
Fallem may transform into beasts.
Prayan
Unknown abilities.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: Book 1. Chapter 2.
Prayan studied wizardry at Emery Thurm. It was said in [B1.C2] that he, Yves and the Prince Regent discovered and explored secret passages that led to the academy's forbidden underground chambers.
Salgier [B1.C13]
Core Disposition: Shapeshifter.
Familiar: Sahir.
First mentioned: [B1.C13] Albweiss Mountains Snowtrail. Slaughtering a pack of orks.
"There was nothing left of him but fading thoughts. Salgier had lived for one hundred and nine years, a life unmarked by grand events or accolades, but a fair life nonetheless. His name would not linger with this world. He was unremarkable, lacking the achievements that might etch a wizard’s name into the annals of history. He had been no-one special to anyone, but a good enough man to rest with a measure of peace each night." [B1.C13]
An individual who Midnight encountered when traversing the snowtrail leading across the southern face of the Albweiss Mountains. She observed him, Sahir, the voltera Ahrasik and a scorchborn slaughtering a pack of orks, whom they had encountered after fleeing the Shaira. As revealed in [B1.C13], Salgier had been a captive in their stgronghold within the Albweiss Mountains for twelve years.
APPEARANCE
Midnight found him terribly afflicted by the scorchborn's disease.
"Atop the voltera’s back sat a twisted figure. A bearded wizard, gaunt and sickly, clung to the beast's fur, hunched over the voltera’s massive shoulder blades. His body sagged as if on the brink of collapse, barely able to remain conscious, barely able to hold on." [B1.C13]
SALGIER AND THE GOLEM
Salgier proved capable of giving life to the golem through a combination of spellcasting and transferring his Rothar into his mountain blood armour:
"Rothar ebbed from his body and into a broad stone artefact strapped to his back. To the inexperienced eye, it seemed a cumbersome, oversised piece of armour, ill-suited for the wizard’s thin frame. The stone plates were bulky, covering his back in a strange, disjointed manner without offering protection to his vital organs. But to those with senses attuned to the ethereal, the flow of Rothar now revealed its magical properties, the way it siphoned energy and stored it within its intricately carved runes. Those who could see even further, beyond the wizard’s exterior, might also recognise that the many interconnected stone plates were a part of the wizard, fused directly into his skin as though they were an extension of his body." [B1.C13]
ABILITIES
Despite his affliction, Salgier is able to recognise Midnight in her darkness form:
"Frail and ravaged by disease, his body trembled, yet a sensibility lingered in his expression, as if he could see beyond the growing orb of radiance. He had not grasped all that she was, but something within Midnight, something of her drew his attention." [B1.C13]
He is able to transform into a grand avian beast resembling Sahir:
"As the wizard fell, his body warped and expanded, muscles bulging beneath his skin, bones stretching and twisting in abstruse contortions, legs lengthening into talon-like appendages. His feet gnarled into vicious claws while grand folds of skin erupted from his back, fusing with his arms, thickening and sprouting feathers in an instant; monstrous wings snapping open. His transformation was swift and violent, a grotesque act of primal magic that twisted his form into something both beastly and horrifying. He had become a creature of flight, an abomination far larger, far more terrifying than the voltera." [B1.C13]
Moments before his defeat in [B1.C13], Salgier also took the form of
"a predator of many legs, distorted and diminished — a horrid creature caught between worlds, neither man nor beast, stretching from the unnatural into the uncanny. Scales erupted over his elongating limbs and spine, arching at distressing angles as his body reformed into a crude, disfigured likeness of a lizard-kin." [...] "Its six feet were a complex interplay of fingers adorned with lizard-like suction cups, and equally numerous claws sprouting just above them. The claws, sharp and independently articulated from the suctioned fingers, gripped and released with great flexibility." [...] "His dark, bulbous eyes rolled erratically in their large sockets, pupils expanding and contracting, reflecting a mind that was no longer whole." [B1.C13]
When Salgier transformed, Midnight realised in him something more than the mere veneer of bestial nature:
"Unlike the novices of Emery Thurm, who draped themselves in the mimicry of animalism but held none of its truth, the wizard had undergone a profound, intrinsic transformation — he had shed his humanity. It was in his movements. They were honed, not conjured but carved from the crucible of raw wilderness survival. It was as though his mind had fully succumbed, leaving behind only the instincts passed down by his familiar bond — a haunting, hollow echo of what had once been a mind of sharp wisdom and intricate strategy. What remained was a fragment, a reduced consciousness bound to the form of a beast." [B1.C13]
HIS LAST REVELATION
Just before dying, Salgier inscribed a message on Midnight's messenger string to warn the world about the Shaira's experiments:
"Their plan to eradicate wizardry, to create a curse that stripped magic from wizards — it was a revelation that would irrevocably alter the future." [B1.C13]
The Wizard With Six Arms
Core Disposition: Healer.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C9]
“Yes. He will fix your body. He fixes everything,” affirmed Mushroombird.
“Everything except my eyes,” said Yves. And even in all other, more pressing matters, The Wizard With Six Arms was his absolute last oh fuck no there must be another way resort. [B1.C11]
The Wizard With Six Arms practices healing and other things in the Barnstream Mausoleum.
In [B1.C17], Yu stated that this wizard is never attacked by the Shaira,
"because he never fought for the settlements. Likewise, he never offered shelter during an attack. He sometimes healed the wounded, if there were any, but only after the witches were long gone. And for his healing, he demanded more compensation than what some of the people could pay in one lifetime. Yu had heard that he even tricked people into giving him things without healing them in the end. And sometimes, people went into the Mausoleum, ready to pay and to get healed, but then they never came back out again."
Urumir Vahl
Core Disposition: Shapeshifter.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C11]
A senior artefact hunter and an expert Worldbender.
"Besides individual academy masters, Yves had never encountered anyone who compared to Vahl. Vahl was a versatile transformer who could shift into astonishing creatures and even objects." [B1.C11]
As a Worldbender transformer, Urumir Vahl ventured closer to the impossible than should have been possible. Not only could he transform into creatures far exceeding his own body mass, but he could also appear as multiple beings simultaneously. As insane as it sounded, these entities were interconnected by nothing more than the subtlest threads of matter, a link that appeared as no more than the faintest of shadows. In motion, he could navigate obstacles by having these threads move over or under them, or by shaping them in a way that they opened and closed around any hindrances, never fully severed. [...] As Yves came to know Vahl, it became clear that his character mirrored this insanity. He was a wizard who dared to transcend the natural boundaries of what should be logical, possible, and allowed." [B1.C11]
LIGHTSHIFTER

𝔖𝔦𝔶𝔦𝔯 [Lightshifters] are, from one end of the spectrum to the other, illusionists, glass wizards, light wizards, and seers. Depending on their disposition and ability, illusionists may create audible, visual and physical illusions. Glass wizards create shards of various sizes and formations. If they are disposed to using light magic, they may bundle and direct light into powerful attacks. Light wizards can see and impact light directly when using their second sight. While light wizards can see light fragments, seers excel in perceiving various magical energies.
Read more on Lightshifter magic.
LIGHTSHIFTER WIZARDS
Abarius Fermeah
Disposition: Lightshifter glass wizard.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C11]
As revealed in [B1.C11], Master Fermeah instructed Yves at Emery Thurm. He is deeply devoted to teh academy.
Iridin
Disposition: Lightshifter illusionist.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C11]
As revealed in [B1.C11], Master Iridin instructed Yves during the time he created his shaman illusions at Emery Thurm.
"He had always been keenly aware of his students' abilities and their tendencies to conceal imperfections in their creations. Even now, whenever Yves worked on a new creation and encountered a particularly challenging section, one that he either had to master or obscure, he could not shake the echo of Iridin’s ever-persistent scrutiny: "A design of will or a lack of skill?'" [B1.C11]
Prince Regent
Unknown abilities.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C2]
The Prince Regent is the third oldest son of the Midland King. While the firstborn son will become the king's successor, his future lies in the role of the advisor, protector and substitute.
Having magical abilities, the Prince Regent studied wizardry at Emery Thurm. It was said in [B1.C2] that he, Yves and Prayan discovered and explored secret passages that led to the academy's forbidden underground chambers.
[B1.C11] revealed that the Prince Regent selected the name Yves' dwarf creation Snotbeard.
Yves
Yves has his own character page here.
Glass wizard with a disposition for illusion and light magic. Poor second sight and close to no seer ability.
Familiar: Midnight. Midnight stalker pathera.
Familiar (merged): The Jabarrah [Name undisclosed]. Midnight stalker jabarrah.
First appearance: [B1.C1]
Wizard Age: One-Eights, as of [B1.C9]
Yves studied magic at Emery Thurm but left shortly before graduation. In the pursuit of curing his deteriorating eyesight, he travels the world as an artefact hunter.
Conventional teachings and methods had failed him, so he ventured into the realms of the lost, the forbidden and the unknown. He sought travellers who had witnessed the obscure and mythical, wizards whose arcane wisdom stemmed from unconventional sources, and other peoples who honed unique skills. He was granted audiences with esteemed healers like The Wizard With Six Arms, oracles, shamans, and, in his most desperate and darkest moments, even witches.
Amongst his most valuable possessions are his two ethereal mirrors which he created from forbidden knowledge obtained at the academy. With these, he is able to cross into the Dimensional Plane of Shards.
YVES’ DETERIORATING EYESIGHT
Ever since Yves had glanced upon the Rothar of an elf, the world had dimmed around him, casting an ever-growing shadow over his once-potent second sight [B1.C9]. It took a relentless barrage of skilled hands, numerous attempts, intricate strategies, and unwavering vigilance from the academy’s healers before Yves regained his sight. Nonetheless, the deterioration progressed gradually ever since. Over the months and years, it had unfolded as a slow and measurable process.
He had first lost the ability to see true light fragments — the radiant structures visible to Lightshifters in the dark, which is, not in the Material Dimension but in the Alladharian Dimension. In other words, he had lost the ability to discern light fragments through second sight.
What had started with light fragments continued ever since. With the deterioration of his second sight, Yves was losing his grasp on the Alladharian dimension as a whole. His tether to world energies, to magic itself, frayed with each passing moment.
After emerging from the Mirror Dimension in [B1.C7], his first sight deteriorated significantly as well, leaving him unable to see celestial lights and anything beyond a distance of approximately 2 kilometres. As of [B1.C9], he believes that he has only weeks before turning completely blind.
Once blind, Adhar and Rothar will be lost to him. Yves might still cobble together meagre glass shards and rudimentary illusions, borne out of sheer routine, guesswork, and luck — creations as crippled as he would be, despairing and humiliating.
LIGHTSHIFTING WITHOUT SEEING LIGHT
During his initial two years at Emery Thurm, Yves found himself among the academy’s least accomplished students. To rise above the torment of his commilita and overcome his own weakness, Yves was forced to expand his abilities beyond the confines of glass magic. He had clung to the vestiges of light, delving into the exploration of phantom presences.
Through artefacts similar to the Lightgiver Wand and by tapping into natural light sources such as fire, he had learned to access light even after losing the ability to conjure it independently. Two mentors, unconventional in their methods yet champions of his progress, played pivotal roles in expanding such unconventional attempts at light magic.
Once he had gained knowledge on the duality of reality, Yves had understood that a Lightshifter conjures light that was visible in the Material Dimension by rearranging and compiling light fragments in the Alladharian Dimension. Conversely, powerful phantom presences like fire or lightning in the Material Dimension correspond to densely compressed light fragments in the Alladharian Dimension. Each individual phantom presence comprises distinct shards arranged in an equally unique structure.
Yves could no longer perceive or sense these clusters of light fragments. To access them, he needed to discern their structure from their phantom presence alone. Reaching blindly, Yves had to rely on guesswork and accumulated experience to harness light fragments from the Alladharian Dimension. If you broke it all down, he learned to guess the structures, sizes and shapes of light fragments from their phantom presences. [B1.c9] outlines in detail how he learned to adapt.
As he studied and trained fiercely to compensate for his affliction, he eventually caught up to his commilita. From there, he began to experiment. He invented creations that combined shards and light. Shards infused with light became his most versatile resources ever since. From them, he crafted potent weapons and vast constructions such as the Vicha dome.
HIS PERSONAL DARKNESS
“Yves hated darkness. He hated darkness even more when he knew that it was not even there, it was not even real. There were radiant stars, and the moon with her child, and, quite possibly, distorted yet beautiful fragments of light embedded everywhere throughout the expanse — they existed, tangible energies beyond his perception.”
“Yves had spent days entrenched underground, endured weeks in oppressive dungeons and caves, even delved into the recesses of the Albweiss Mountains. Yet, those experiences differed, for the darkness in these confines belonged to the places themselves. When Yves departed, the darkness remained there. This darkness, now, existed solely for him, a night that felt as if Teharun refused to set.“
“The expansive sight and energies from the sky realms, once teeming with winged beasts and dragons, were now beyond his reach, transformed into an obsidian ceiling overnight. Its pillars manifested as the ominous sensation of his world contracting, the last vestiges of light fading. It felt as though he again stood at the centre of his dome, as though he never escaped, besieged by encroaching darkness — a horrendous nothing closing in with every blink of the frantic-fearful eye, this Vicha born from an elf curse. It was a nothing that took nothing yet left nothing, consuming without taking from the world, devouring from within, impossible to outrun.”
[B1.C9]
MIRROR WORLD TRANSFORMATIONS
“The transformation into the ashen being marked not an endpoint but a crucial juncture, the one chance to survive this horror.” [B1.C7]
When first entering the Mirror World, a dimension that holds minimal traces of matter, Yves had learned to walk and see as a fragmented existence.
Incorporating ever-growing layers of light in [B1.C7] he gradually altered his matter-energy ratio, turning himself into a less and less substantial being. He evolved from the dark ashen being that he had first become when sealing the lighthouse passage in [B1.C3 ]to an entity of almost pure ethereal light. With this new form, he found himself at the threshold of an ethereal existence built from raw energy and compressed light.
MIDNIGHT
Midnight, a midnight stalker panthera, is Yves’ first familiar. They are bonded since Yves was born.
THE JABARRAH
“Beneath raw pain, fear and seething anger, Yves could discern a novel sensation emerging within him. Amidst everything that was wrong with his body and everything that shifted around in his body, something was new. Something stirred. Something unfamiliar yet discernible had taken root, something that wasn’t Midnight or the healers’ energies, something he could not explain. It felt like a foreign presence that was simultaneously him and not him, like a third heartbeat that persisted unyieldingly through panic-induced convulsions and moments of unconsciousness.” [B1.C9]
The Jabarrah was a powerful beast that, in a strange twist of fate, bestowed upon Yves a second chance at life. Ever since the battle against the elf in [B1.C9], the silver beak of the Jabarrah that had been Master Raidenbarl’s familiar is fused with Yves’ left arm, merged with his elbow like two flat silver bones that grew on the outside. To the unsuspecting eye, it looks like a set of curved and connected armour pieces that run from his elbow to his hand, but it is not an external attachment; it is an intrinsic part of his arm.
This fusion between a wizard and a familiar, especially not bonded from birth, posed an enigma to the academy masters. Even in the throes of death, familiars are not known to merge with their wizards, let alone with a stranger. The prevailing consensus among the masters was that the Jabarrah merged with Yves to evade capture by the elf that killed his former wizard Raidenbarl [B1.C9]. However, the specifics of their fusion remain elusive.
Whatever the Jabarrah had intended, the masters acknowledged that his impact on Yves had been profound and transformative. The healers went so far as to credit the familiar with Yves’ survival, suggesting that he had played an active role in keeping Yves alive until the masters found him.
Despite the absence of a distinct bond like that he shared with Midnight, Yves’ tutors perceived the Rothar of the Jabarrah within him and observed his influence on Yves’ magic. His shards exhibited greater strength and potency compared to his commilita, coupled with an element of unpredictability in their design. As of [B1.C9], the illusions that come most naturally to Yves are not copies of Midnight, but birds, particularly those that took after the Jabarrah, with his curved beak, grand wingspan, and imposing talons. While his second sight continued to decline, Yves demonstrated exceptional resilience against the intrusion of Transcender wanderers from a young age, a defence far surpassing the expected protection offered by a young familiar like Midnight.
Amongst other abilities, the Jabarrah proved the willingness to share his energy with Yves in [B1.C6]. The aftermath of the Vicha confrontation showed the Jabarrah beak changing shape, extending into Yves’ body, melting into his wounds and thus stemming the bleeding [B1.C7].
RELATION TO WITCHES
Yves’ path of life had been crossed, entwined, directed, and twisted by a myriad of witches. These encounters had ranged from fleeting glances and negotiations to outright battles, once even culminating in the binding power of an Unbreakable Oath. He was one of the few wizards on the continent who had acquired a witch tear and, in one unavoidable twist, also a disturbing form of comradery. At Emery Thurm, he had delved into the craft, customs and covens of witches deeper than any other novice, learning to navigate the treacherous landscapes of these perilous engagements. To regain his detereorating eyesight, Yves made a deal with a witch mother, which involved the creation of the ethereal mirrors.
“He had faced a choice — he could opt for a noble sacrifice, confront the witch mother, and risk dying either during the battle or shortly after. Alternatively, he could comply with her demands, see his eyes restored, and live another 175 years of dedicated witch and elf hunting.” [B1.C9]
RELATION TO ELVES
“The darkness drew closer, the black ceiling and the stone walls converging around him. Darkness and pain on the outside brought forth darkness and pain from the inside, and everything clashed and melded. And into the suffocating vacuum that gave Yves nothing to hold onto, seeped the haunting elf noise. And the noise grew and swelled around him and within him, and it submerged him in a maddening sea of sound.” [B1.C9]
After barely surviving the encounter with the elf that killed Master Raidenbarl, it had taken years of meditation for Yves to direct his memory past the sickening echoes of the elf noise and to recollect at least fragments of the incident. For two months, it took constant attention from the academy’s master healers to keep him and Midnight alive and to partially restore his eyesight.
“There were days where he wished to be dead, and others where he swore to become the most gruesome elf hunter the continent had ever seen.” [B1.C9]
RELATION TO GODS
Like many wizards, Yves does not adhere to conventional beliefs in mythological Gods. He abstains from the prayers and rites exerted by some peoples. Still, sometimes, he liked to imagine the myths surrounding 𝞨𝟁𝞬, the cosmic artisan. [B1.C9] states that her art resonates with his soul. When he witnesses the emergence of night with all her mesmerising phantom presences of light that are the stars, he often imagines how 𝞨𝟁𝞬 paints them just there and then with her effulgent palette of starlight. Things do not have to be true to convey true beauty. For an illusionist, imagining and believing often intertwine quite seamlessly.
In [B1.C7], the Mirror World Stalker claimed that Yves was transgressing the birthplace of the Gods.
ON THE ILLUSION OF BEAUTY
During Yves’ student days, beauty had been a sign of progress, craftsmanship, and artistic skill. Once the creation’s functionality, flexibility, and mobility became a given, an appealing appearance served as a reference point to compare and evaluate the students’ various works. More importantly, you did not, for dear life, want to be known as the one guy who got off by purposely creating hideous female characters. That’s a reputation you could never live down.
In order to create credible illusions, Yves had learned to distinguish and show health, strength, and age through appearance, stature, and posture. He understood how to create imposing males and females for all major races’ eyes — which sometimes diverged quite drastically from the common wizard’s perspective. Interestingly, some aspects were nearly universally appealing, amongst them symmetry. There were illusionists who prided themselves on creating the most remarkable males and females, especially ker and tairan. They competed, performed, and, if you would like to believe the more controversial rumours, entertained.
Yves did not share these ambitions. Now that crafting beauty and perfection had become second nature to him, his focus had shifted. You could say that he was spoilt, because whatever ker or tairan you crowned the most beautiful on the continent, he could replicate them — and then make them even more beautiful. Any individual you found to be the most unique, he could multiply. He could create the love of your life and the lover of your most intoxicating dreams, as you would never find them in real life. He could design them exactly like you wanted them to be, with all the traits you wished to see.
But this was exactly it. It was not just about seeing. You never only wanted to see. Beneath all this distinction, recognition and pursuit of physical beauty lay the longing to touch. Within all this fixation on perfection lay the craving to claim and possess. To Yves, the fixation on external beauty was a reflection of innate desire. Such desire can be satisfied and it can be very much exhausted – especially if you find yourself curious enough to investigate all these controversial rumours. Mind you, it helps quite well to be influential and wealthy enough to afford an equal level of discretion.
But what remains after seeing and touching and claiming and possessing such perfection? Time may pass, desire may resurge to be satisfied again, but what is the point? What does beauty give you, except for momentary pleasure?
..
ON LOVE AND VOICES
It was true. External beauty held no sway over Yves. It was voices. Voices captivated him.
He felt that he could not reproduce voices like he could reproduce beauty. Yves could perfect anything he saw. He could eradicate any of reality’s imperfections, and craft exemplary beauty with no comparison. He could reinvent perfection, but he could not create such voices or music.
No, that was the wrong way to put it. Yves could create a myriad of auditory illusions, infusing them with an equally wide range of emotions, both clearly distinguishable and subtle. But while he could acknowledge and even marvel at the beauty of his creations, yes, even create what appeared most appealing to him personally, Yves struggled to capture the truth he sought in the voices of strangers.
He crafted people that appeared indistinguishable from the real thing, but he could not do the same with voices. Because appearance, to Yves, was superficial; a body revealed many things, but it did not show the entirety of a person. While external appearance could change drastically over a short period of time, voices persisted in their character. To Yves, what he heard when others spoke held more truth than what he saw. A voice revealed a person from within. Even in moments of calm, you can discern underlying aggression, just as angry outbursts could not conceal inherent kindness. Voices carried characters and emotions more real than anything Yves could convey through a facial expression or pose.
Voices were the most real thing Yves could find in others. He could only imitate and pretend. Listening to his own creations felt like listening to his own voice and character, just distorted.
While desire may lie in fleeting beauty, love transcended the visual and anything a body could give. For Yves, love was in a voice that gave long-lasting comfort. It resided in heartfelt songs that resonated deep within and in voices that carried kindness — They were the rarest of all, and yet, you recognise them the instant you hear them. And even if you hear them just once, you can never forget them. Such voices held the heart, and they healed it.
The voice did not have to say “I love you”, that is not what he meant. Love was deeper, not in the words but inherently embedded in the voice. The words were almost irrelevant. They could be as simple as “I am glad you are well”, or “Take care”, or “Welcome home”.
TRANSCENDER

Transcenders are the only wizards who can shift their consciousness. Bordering at the perceiving end of the Lightshifter spectrum, the 𝔐𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔦 spectrum comrpises perceivers, soul readers, spirit readers, world readers and time readers.
While Lightshifter seers can use their disposition for harnessing the power of light to access their second sight, Transcender perceivers have the innate ability to recognise energies and spirits with all of their senses. Soul readers can distinguish the energies within other wizards or creatures, which makes them both excellent judges of character and curse spotters. Spirit readers are especially prone to non-physical existences. One of the most renowned challenges for a master illusionist lies in the ability to make an illusion indistinguishable from the real thing for a spirit reader. World readers are concerned with the connection between dimensions, and time readers could access different planes of time.
In addition to their general set of stronger or lesser abilities, all types of Transcenders could be conscious wanderers, unconscious wanderers or oracles. Wanderers can expand and split their consciousness to a point where they enter the minds and influence the actions of other beings from within. Some can, simultaneously, stay awake within their own body while doing so, others cannot. Oracles capture predestined futures. They are the conveyors of fate and prophecies. The more they excel in all disciplines of their spectrum, the more detailed their insight and the more accurate their interpretation. A wizard who excels as soul reader, spirit reader, world reader and time reader has the potential to become a True Oracle.
Read more on Transcender magic.
TRANSCENDER WIZARDS
Faroah [Oracle]
Disposition: Transcender. 𝔒𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔢 [Oracle]
Age: Yes.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C11]
First appearance: [B1.C12] Offering oracle in the dwarven temple atop the Varren.
“There is knowledge that is forever inscribed into the consciousness of man. There is knowledge that forever eludes his grasp. And then there is knowledge that is found and lost time and time again. Magic harbours many such secrets.” [B1.C12]
Faroah stands as a formidable Transcender who can see exceptionally far beyond his immediate surroundings — material, ethereal and temporal alike. He has earned official recognition as an 𝔒𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔢, as he apparently excels in both the world-reading and time-reading disposition. It is said that he had often foretold the future with uncanny precision.
"He simply saw a lot of things all the time, even just in this time here and now; things surrounding him within the temple. Of some, he never spoke, because that would quite terribly frighten people or make them think he was mad." [B1.C12]
However, he is notorious for his eccentricity and cryptic means of communication. Faroah refuses to converse in any known lingua magica, instead opting for a series of guttural noises. During a consultation with Faroah, seeking guidance is a solitary affair; no familiar may participate, and no other wizard may serve as an intermediary or translator, which often leaves those who seek his counsel more bewildered than enlightened.
Faroah is known to be elusive, his whereabouts rarely communicated outside Transcender circles. He sometimes resides in a remote location beyond the dense foliage of the Central Moorlands, but there is never any guarantee of being granted an audience, even if he was present.
[B1.C12] finds him sweeping the dwarven temple atop the Varren, where he is sought out by Samasira. The chapter reveals Faroah's rather odd take on the distribution of fate, which he compares to a dining experience with either set courses or a buffet.
"Faroah offered his prophecies not to those who sought them, but to those who needed to hear them. Often, those who needed to hear them were not where he was, though. Sometimes, he pursued and paid them a visit, which was generally a great pain in the ass because he hated travelling, and sometimes he simply uttered his prophecies to the world at large.
It mattered little whether people understood him or not, for the world always listened. And, in his experience, the world was kind enough to work out a way to translate and pass on the message, be it through elaborate signs of fate, through subtle tricks of the light, or in more modest terms, such as a chance encounter with a passage in a random book." [B1.C12]
TRIVIA
▪ Faroah is able to see mountain blood [B1.C12].
▪ Faroah has a fondness for dwarven history and culture [B1.C12].
▪ He uses spectacles adorned with an array of mismatched lenses that serve to limit his perception [B1.C12].
Herdin O'Rourke
Disposition: Transcender.
Age: Unknown.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [B1.C15] Yu shares information about the Crimson Baerras.
Captain of the Crimson Baerras, a seafaring sub-fraction of the Crimson Circle. Known to frequent the Barnstream Harbour Guild and the Albweiss Mountain Guild.
TRIVIA
▪ A "child of the streams": Born in the Barnstreams.
M. [Yet unknown]
Disposition: Transcender.
Age: Unknown.
Familiar: Unknown.
First mentioned: [...]
First appearance: [B1.C13] Steering a golem.
"The ground trembled. The orks, still clawing their way free from the snow and ice, froze as they felt it — a deep, throbbing pulse that seemed to vibrate through the very marrow of the earth. It crawled up their legs, sank into their bones, and filled their hearts with a feeling of dread that was more ancient than reason. The snow in front of them shifted, pushed and parted by something enormous that was ploughing its way through the frost-flooded trail towards them. The monolith moved." [B1.C13]
In [B1.C13], Salgier awakens a golem. Who or what is inside?
The golem shows to be a powerful entity driven by its own will. It is able to fight and climb expertly. "With a torso rotating ceaselessly, stone arms reaching upwards with relentless purpose, and fingers supple yet unyielding, the golem found purchase even on the most challenging surfaces." [B1.C13]
Within the golem, Midnight "sensed a second essence attempting to engulf her, as part of everything that flowed in. However, the other existence immediately retreated after touching upon her". [B1.C13]
"It threaded through the construct like the roots of a fungal network, spreading and intertwining, knitting the stone together into something alive, yet not alive." [B1.C14]
Raidenbarl
Disposition: Transcender.
Familiar: The Jabarrah who is now merged with Yves.
First mentioned: [B1.C6]
Killed: [B1.C9] Duel with an elf in the Veridian forest outside of Emery Thurm grounds.
As revealed in [B1.C6], the Jabarrah's former wizard had been a Transcender Master at Emery Thurm. [B1.C9] revealed that he had been killed by an elf during an encounter in the Viridian Expanse, outside academy grounds.
MAGIC
Master Raidenbarl was a formidable tutor known for his excursions into the forests in search of unique herbs and energies.
In his duel with an elf in the Veridian forest, Raidenbarl proved capable of conjuring dark light, ethereal beams of void. [B1.C9].
Yu
Disposition: Transcender.
Familiar: None.
First mentioned: [B1.C15]
Parents: Fina mother, wizard father.
Swarm: Shirrin to Tria.
Origin: Undertellems, a Barnstream settlement.
Lives: Albweiss Mountain Guild [B1.C15].
"If anyone understood the shitshow that came with apparent magical blessings that ruined your life, it was him." [B1.C15]
A BASTARD LIFE
"Everyone knew. Yu was no ker-born. He was a bastard by any measure of bloodline or fate. He should not have survived birth, let alone reached adolescence. He only did because a healer had fixed him — apparently fixed him to the best of his abilities. It was a sadistic joke. He had turned Yu into a species of his own, neither humanoid nor avian. To call him a wizard was cruel mockery at best and a blatant insult for any true wizard at worst. Most of all, it was a lie." [B1.C15]
To say that Yu has issues with his identity is an understatement.
CHARACTER
"Yu had no … reference to determine closeness or to measure friendships, not really. All he had felt in those four weeks was his own position as the outsider. He was the least included, the least liked." [B1.C17]
He has little experience with people, is unfamiliar with common social interactions, sees himself as "terrible at talking" and struggling to appear "likeable" [B1.C17]. He is aware that his "impulse to shit on others always managed to jump the mental queue all the way to the front" [B1.C18]. Atop that, Yu shows growing paranoia and spiralling suspicions when fearing that others are not what they seem.
SPLIT PERSONALITY
"This is not normal. This is not right. This is not me.” [B1.C19]
After hearing the Vourae 's voice in [B1.C18], Yu experiences a growing split in his personality, which also distorts his sense of basic physical needs and limitations. Upholding his old self in the form of the metaphorical mask of a guard, he tries to suppress the disparate halves; "the screaming part that went mad trying to unhear the
, and the listening part that would give anything to hear more of her voice" [B1.C19].
About the mask, he says that "It was the only thing he had ever tried to make of himself, apart from the faulty, fragile frame of hope that in another life might have developed into an educated wizard. And so he tried, violently, to force the guard-mask down, to pull the screaming and the craving under the same fabric, to smother both into a single, sensible, serviceable self." [...] He fastened the mask "So tight that there would be no room for the wanting part, and neither for the other, which was all the irrational panic. Until the mask would become his face again." [B1.C19]
However, the two half faces began to see through the facade. "They knew the unsaid underneath, the unspoken truth behind the mask. They were staring right at its backside. The mask no longer served only for the guards and guests. It existed for Yu. It was there to pretend in front of him as well — he had set it against himself; in front of himself. In this, the two halves were united. Both wanted to tear it off." [B1.C19]
Starting from [B1.C19], the wanting part, the screaming part and the mask self start to speak to each other in the form of differently coloured thoughts. They use "we" when arguing what Yu should do.
UPBRINGING
"His life had been a hazy, indulgent dream, untouched by the petty dramas that consumed everyone else, and blissfully free of the endless expectations people seemed so eager to shackle themselves to. Stepping outside? Socialising? Pretending to be a functional, respectable part of the community? Pretending to feel blessed to be alive? Pretending to want to be? None of it had been necessary. None of it had mattered. Because, as simple as it was, Yu had not mattered. And it had been perfect." [B1.C15]
Yu grew up quite comfortably on Tria's estate in the Barnstream settlements. As the director of the Barnstream Human Habitat, she educated him well on humans. In core, however, her attempts to mold Yu into an educated scholar or a competent trader failed due to his lack of ambition and interest for, well, anything. Those lessons ended after Yu's return from Emery Thurm and Ayenfora.
Before becoming a guild guard, Yu had not known about the advances of the world beyond the North.
"It had always been the settlements, with all the backwater people, and, apart from them, the estate, with Tria and him. Tria was everything that Yu associated with knowledge and progress. She was his measure of worldliness itself." [B1.C19]
THE VALUE OF PEOPLES
“She is just a human. She is not a tairan.” [B1.C18]
Yu internalised many of Tria's opinions on humans, as well as on society and the on the taits and value of various peoples. He respects tairan as much as he learned to despise bormen and objectify humans. Despite his apparant disdain for the nature of humans (from their appearance to their way of giving birth), [B1.C19] revealed that Yu spent his years at the estate regularly watching (selected) habitat humans.
ALBWEISS MOUNTAIN GUILD GUARD
Tria kicked him out to have him realise his abilities as a guild guard, which he strongly objects.
"If these guys were so great, then why by all means did they hire people like him, with no combat skill — with no anything skill whatsoever? Who in their right mind would want a bastard like him? He was not evem fit for manual labour, with his shit stumps for arms. [...] What did the Albweiss offer, really? A barren, icy wasteland infested with brutal storms and cold." [B1.C15]
Yu does not seek a purpose or occupation.
"Could she not simply have left him in peace? If not under her roof, why not nearby? Even if she did not want him to live with her, why could he not still live like her? His own apartment. His own quiet corner of the estate. A single room. A place where he could exist without forcing himself into the world’s expectations. What the fuck was wrong with that? Where was the problem? He would do his thing. She would do hers. Simple. Sorted." [B1.C15]
APPEARANCE
"Feathers in shades of not-quite-white, not-quite-grey, the dark smudges that ran from his beak to around his eyes verging on black. It was a lifeless, washed out plumage, the kind of thing that never drew attention and suited him just fine. Dull. No colours. Utterly unremarkable." [B1.C15]
Though he cannot see it himself, Yu has been told by Estingar that his feathers show streaks of siver around his face and chest. [B1.C15]
FINA INSTINCT
Yu freezes up when frightened. "When confronted with danger and death, this most useless suicidal instinct did not call for fight or flight, but to freeze and appease." [B1.C17]
MAGIC
"They did not know that his hearing was all he had." [B1.C16]
Yu described the seven weeks spent at Ayenfora as "a few hours of lessons between two months of getting beaten to shits" [B1.C18]. Besides that, Yu has received no formal training in his Transcender abilities, and his core remains undetermined. Currently, his abilities manifest through his heightened hearing, allowing him to hear sounds from great distance, including heartbeats, mountains, buildings, and voices no one else perceives: "eerie, otherworldly whispers that did not belong" [B1.C15].
More often than not, his hearing acts on its own, forcing him to listen "to all things that had no tongues but spoke to him still, and to all those things that were only voice, and nothing else." [B1.C17] Yu cannot always control it, less direct it. He is shown to lose track of his physical surroundings when hearing many voices from different places, all of them loud and equally close in his head. [B1.C18] If the voices become overwhelming, he depends on various questionable coping mechanisms such as void breathing [B1.C17] and screaming in his mind to push them out.
Sometimes, he may not only listen to the words, but also to someone's body, to see where the latter betrays the first and reveals hidden truths.
[B1.C15] shows first instances of Yu wandering.
TRIVIA
▪ Yu cannot stomach anything made of grains / dough. [B1.C15]
▪ He finds beings with featherless bodies greatly unnverving. [B1.C15]
▪ He is quickly annoyed by people with odd or wrong speech patterns, such as Harrow or bormen. [B1.C18]
▪ If given the choice, he generally sleeps for more than ten hours a day. [B1.C15]
▪ He cannot tell Deltington and Estingar apart, apparently because he is unable to recognise their silver conduits. [B1.C15]
▪ He also struggles to distinguish male and female beastkin such as bormen, krynn, and selder. [B1.C18]
▪ After first hearing the Vourae King in [B1.C17], Yu notes that he had once before suffered a similarly gruesome voice, after which he "spent months dreading it would happen again".
▪ As a child, he nearly drowned. [B1.C19]