The Tower of Renk was home to the powerful Wizards of Renk, but not every wizard of renown served the tower. In a world like Sangrar, strong practitioners of the arts arcane could be found everywhere. Here are some of the more prominent wizards from Tyrnavalle who used their power for good. All of them had long lives, thanks to the Spires and in some case, clean living. The Wizards’ birth years are not recorded as many rose from relative obscurity and the information wasn’t available. Instead, the first year listed is the first time the wizard attained widespread recognition. The latter year listed is the year the wizard died.
Note: Wizard was the term used most often during the Age of Mankind to refer to a practitioner of the arcane arts (someone who could harness the Spires). At various times/places in the age, the term mage was used interchangeably with wizard and during the Elder Days, sorcerer was most commonly used.
| 1 – 76 | Estan Phaerizol started out as an Endiron wizard for hire. He and Hali first met in Cormane where Estan had taken employment with Baron Xander Lessari. When Hali led the final charge against the God-Emperor, Estan and a small company of wizards were slinging spells for the good guys and when it was over, he decided to sail south with Hali.After the ships landed, he became the first Royal Mage of Halitai (Royal Mage was a title, not a matter of blood). Estan finally met his demise battling Horatin, an arch-mage born into Sangrithar’s nobility (one of the Barginalis) who followed Hali to Tyrnavalle. |
| 77 – 212 | Cantellex, the second Royal Mage of Halitai, served Hali’s son, Halimac and the next several generations of Halvyls. Cantellex learned the secrets of wizardry from Estan Phaerizol and challenged Horatin to a duel arcane, hoping to avenge his master. Cantellex did not survive the duel, but neither did Horatin. |
| 212 – 374 | Eramellas, the daughter of Erellan and Birae of Halitai (who was Hali’s cousin), became the third Royal Mage of Halitai. The house of Nov, a family of rangers enjoying notoriety during the latter centuries of the age, could trace its line back to Eramellas. |
| 226 – 1171 | The Sea-Mage was a long-lived, mysterious wizard residing on an island in the western sea. His origins were never certain, but his high forehead fed rumors that he came from Endiron, as did his skull cap, which he wore in the style of the mercenaries. Although Finbardin was the most popular god in Endiron, the Sea-Mage worshipped of Umbar, which wasn’t so terribly strange for someone living on an island in the middle of the ocean. I did find one source suggesting that the Sea-Mage was the grandson, or great-grandson, of Signor Pelthane Orvandal and Hermyna, but could never corroborate it. |
| 374 – 405 | Kerreloff, the fourth and last Royal Mage of Halitai. Kerreloff was assassinated by the mage Tymbar during the Halitai civil wars and King Haligar was unable to replace him. |
| 411 – 610 | Zerita of Pylos. She died at the jealous hands of the arch-mage Calef, whose love she scorned. |
| 561 – 883 | Somas and Samos. These twin brothers were powerful mages and theologians who came to blows over differences in philosophy. Their battled raged from the Malachai Hills to the Dansk Hills until the Wizard of Renk (Tarik, at that time) intervened. He told the brothers to grow up or he’d turn them into a two-headed snake and from that point on, the brothers worked together instead of fighting. In 647, they avenged Kerreloff by slaying Tymbar, but in 883, they fell to the Wolf-Mage, who had risen to power in the Suggam Moors. |
| 726 – 1749 | Elemeas the Elf-Mage came from good stock. His grandfather was Erellan, leader of the Elves in the Fillani Jungle, where Elemeas was born, though he chose to live in the Quendi Forest with his great-uncle Erebald, who was high king of the Fair Folk on Tyrnavalle.In 1293, Elemeas slew the nefarious Wolf-Mage, a spellcasting lycanthrope with whom Elemeas had an ancient grudge. After holding down the fort for more than a millennia, Elemeas finally grew weary of the world and took the Path of the Reborn in the year 1749. His last wish was to meet Kandol Elf Lord and so he travelled to Pel Aesylle at the end. When he called down the Path, Kandol stood witness. |
| 826 – 1104 | Surugarth the Wise was a wizard from the islands south of Tyrnavalle. He had the misfortune to be visiting Renk when the warlord Scarath and his partner, Rax the Black, were attacking the city and Surugarth was caught in the cross-fire, causing his death and many to doubt his nickname. |
| 1080 – 1205 | Rhys of Halitai. Rhys was cousin to Hali, named for his famous ancestor. Ironic, isn’t it, Halitai’s first and last lord sharing a name? When the dragon mounted barbarians flew over the Malachai Hills and descended upon Halitai, Rhys was on the battlements calling down lightning with the rest of them until Torlach challenged him to a duel arcane. Rhys was vastly overmatched. He’d only come into his full power recently, after defeating Sandalax, the dragon inhabiting Widow’s Peak, whereas Torlach had conquered half the continent, but Rhys couldn’t refuse without losing honor. The actual duel was as one-sided as you’d expect. Rhys’s youthful optimism was no match for Torlach’s experience. |
| 1137 – 1472 | A beautiful enchantress, Immerina of the East’s charms snared the affections of two arch-mages, the Wizard of Norbing and Fergol, a fellow wizard of the eastern isles. She found Norbing attractive, but wanted nothing to do with Fergol. Jealous, the rejected wizard sent Norbing a booby-trapped package, but Imerinna, who was visiting Norbing at the time, opened the package and took the death spell meant for him. |
| 1308 – 1652 | The Wizard of Norbing had a name at one point, but no one remembered it and why should they? No one ever called Marilyn Norma Jean once she hit it big except for Elton, and songs don’t count. The Wizard of Norbing lived in Tyrnavalle’s western badlands of the same name, sharing the rocky bluffs with the gnomes, whom he introduced to Renk. Until then, people thought gnomes the stuff of faerie tales, creatures from the Elder Days that had long ago given up the world.The gnomes attracted all sorts of attention, some good and some bad. Agranar, a rogue owning a set of enchanted lockpicks, came to Norbing seeking gnomes and the wizard’s magikal key. Soon after, Agranar disappeared, but several years later a pushcart owner resembling him, with one hand and no tongue, was spotted peddling fruit in Bayor.Imerrina also came to the badlands to see the gnomes and got more than she bargained for. Norbing grew fond of her, even though she wasn’t short and furry, and they became an item. For most couples, commuting between the badlands and the eastern isles would have been a deal killer, but these were two top-notch wizards, and far traveling came easy. Norbing did get his vengeance on Fergol, though it took him thirty-six years to track him down.Once Fergol was a memory, Norbing didn’t know what to do with all the time on his hands until a gnome by the name of Vilthuse paid him a visit and convinced him that adventuring was the cure for his blues. For the next century and a half, the pair explored ancient ruins on Tyrnavalle and Fanar, where they discovered chests of gleaming treasure, deadly traps and horrific Dark Ones. In the end, adventuring got the best of them. The Wizard of Norbing’s hunt for Ostrin’s Golden Egg took him to the wet marshes in the Suggam Moors where he and Vilthuse ran afoul of the Witchghoul. |
| 1526 – 1812 | Orallah the Desert Mage was born in Khantai. He looked Mongolian, like most people in southern Tyrnavalle, and kept his sanctum near Khantai, at an oasis in the southern reaches of the Sandstorm Seas. Orallah’s people practiced a more elemental wizardry than those in the north. For him, invoking the Spires was less a matter of concentrating on complex gestures and arcane speech than it was being receptive to the Spires, a state achieved through dance and ritual chanting.Orallah crossed staves with Numkargol, the Wraith of Halitai. Numkargol wasn’t actually a wraith, he wasn’t even undead – he was just a cranky old wizard who lived in the past. Somehow, Numkargol had hung on to life longer than anyone should, but since the dragons had destroyed Halitai, all he did with his immortality was pine away in the ruins. He came to believe that the Crown of Halitai, lost for centuries, was hidden in the Sandstorm Seas. BTW, he was totally off base on this one. The crown had been safely stored in a vault in Renk since Janus had recovered it one hundred fifty years earlier, in 1534. Numkargol was pretty much off his rocker by then and when Orallah tried to reason with him, he lashed out. Orallah defended himself, that’s all, but Numkargol left himself wide open and the desert smothered him.Unfortunately for Orallah, that wasn’t quite the end of Numkargol. Back in Halitai, his hunger for the crown brought him back from the dead. The Wraith of Halitai was now the Lich of Halitai, a terrifying corpse riddled with sand and worms and access to all of Numkargol’s magik. The lich gathered its power in the ruins and then, in 1812, caught up with Orallah and put an end to the desert mage. |
| 1620 – 1849 | Phante, a transmutation specialist, came to power in the Tallmeadow Plains. In 1693 his wife died in a freak accident and he far traveled to the temple of Deridean with her body straight away. Powerful clerics could sometimes bring loved ones back from the dead, if they hadn’t yet left the Halls of the Dead, and he hoped he’d come quick enough for Dallan to help. The high cleric of Deridean was the holiest person he knew. This wasn’t the Dallan from Srenson and Varzin’s time – that was Dallan ap Furst O’Binar and this particular Dallan was Dallan ap Tellerus ban Obin.Dallan agreed to bring Phante’s wife back in exchange for magikal horse fodder that could transform a paladin’s warhorse into a Pegasus. Phante and his wife enjoyed nine more years before she took the Short Walk again. That time, her spirit came before Bangal and continued on to the Blessed Realm like she was supposed to. Phante lived a long time afterwards and though he was at peace with her passing, he was never quite the afterwards. |
| 1776 – 1967 | Telleran, a wizard, and Ferrelan, his brother kept an eye out over portions of the eastern Fillani after defeating the local terror, a warlord from the eastern isles named Ulkizar in the year 1825. Ulkizar was an experienced warrior, but wasn’t prepared for the enchanted trident Telleran had made Ferrelan. When Ulkizar least expected it, Ferrelan spoke a command word and the trident’s head shot from the haft and skewered the easterner. Ferrelan and Telleran ruled for twenty-eight years until Ferrelan died of old age. The warrior knew a few magikal tricks from his brother, but not enough to live long, like a real wizard.After Ferrelan passed, Telleran stayed in the tower they’d shared, protecting the locals from any would be invaders until Moose took him unawares. The evil arch-mage had begun his rise to power at the turn of the century in southern Fillani but had his sights set on Tyrnavalle’s northern lands. Moose thought that Telleran’s tower in the upper jungle would make a perfect power base for his northern campaign and poor Telleran hadn’t faced a real threat in recent memory. No pirates had landed near his tower in years and the jungle bandits had long ago learned to skirt his lands. But, even if he’d been in his prime, I don’t think he would have stood a chance, that’s how strong Moose was. |
