Professor Cel
| Age ~38 |
| Gender male |
| Origin Altalusia |
| Occupation arcane engineer |
WIP
Cloud’s Keep born and raised, Cel’s family have been in the city for so many generations even they don’t really know where their deer-folk roots come from. Though, that doesn’t stop some people from assuming his kin are druids and forest huntsmen. They’re always so surprised when he explains that his father’s a welder, and the closest his mother has ever gotten to nature is servicing irrigation pumps and greenhouse climate control in Panier Borough.Not a bad background for an aspiring artificer to have. As skilled tradespeople, his parents were well-off enough to afford formal education for their children. And his good grades combined with a dash of the Gift quickly earned young Cel his scholarship ride.
Cellachán was able to embrace the cross-disciplinary training of the Shield Tower and Makari College. A double-degree of sorts, one in magical theory and spellcraft taught by the Third Ring of Weavers, while through Makari, he studied magitech construction, weave-augmented chemistry, and meta-arcanomechanics. He embraced the latter in his postgraduate studies: focusing on magitech research and development projects, then afterward, also joining the faculty as lecturer and later professor.
It’s been a long, productive career so far. He’s worked on it all: scorpion-class Shroudcoils, skyship propulsion engines, synaptic interfaces (for prosthetics and otherwise), mechanised automation, weave-assisted chemistry, and so much more, maybe including a couple of things some strict NDAs will prevent him talking about. But these days, he’s looking for something new. Cellachán has always been enchanted by the amazing potential that weaving holds to shape the world, but every step in his education has made him further, well… the official term is ‘specialised’. Which is another way of saying ‘restricted’.
So, Cellachán’s on a sabbatical. An indefinite leave of absence while he searches for something to re-invigorate the wide-eyed wonder he’s felt slowly being choked out of him by academia — to witness all the other weird and wonderful ways the Shroud manifests beyond the rigid, highly-quantifiable scopes of his own field of expertise.
Appearance
| Height 6’5” |
| Build lanky |
| Hair mostly walnut fur, plus some auburn curls |
| Eyes orange-gold |
Cellachán cuts an imposing figure, but that’s not his fault. The red deer-folk of his family tend to stand a good bit taller than the average human, and combined with certain facial markings and seasonally-growing antlers, he’s a fearsome sight indeed for many a frightened young undergrad. But that appearance belies his true nature.
The majority of his body is covered in short, walnut-coloured fur, save for a few spots where it fades to cream/white (such as the above facial markings). Where a human would typically have hair, his own fur grows out longer into little flat curls, and has a dash of red to its colour as well.
The professor isn’t a sedentary sort, spending as much time tinkering and smithing as he does researching and designing, and that at least keeps him somewhat fit. He’s still a bit skinnier than you might first think for someone of his tall and broad stature, though it’s hard to tell: the man is fairly well-covered in his specially-fitted shoes and stockings, breeches, long-sleeved shirt, and waistcoat. Optional extras include a comfy greatcoat depending on the weather, or a sturdy leather apron and gloves for the workshop.
Personality
A gentle giant. Cel looks mean, but he’s a thoughtful, deliberate thinker, who endures with the patience one acquires through dealing with an endless intake of frazzled, clueless first-years. If you’re picturing the mad inventor, then you couldn’t be further from the mark; Cellachán always tries to look at a problem from every angle before he tackles it, asking ‘what’ — what actually makes it a problem in the first place, and what a solution’s consequences will be beyond fixing it. Sometimes a thing isn’t nearly so much of a problem as people think it is, and all too often, a solution can leave you even worse off in other ways you didn’t consider.
That gentleness extends to his quiet sense of humour. It’s never malicious, though not entirely devoid of mischief, either. Cel may take pleasure from sowing confusion with the occasional, innocuous little remark, delivered in an earnest deadpan. And so long as they’re not dangerous nor expensive ones, he also enjoys letting his students make mistakes. They’re good learning experiences for everyone involved, and usually quite a bit more interesting than having him deliver another boring lecture.
People are sometimes taken aback by the lack of Cellachán’s gadgets and gizmos. Not that he doesn’t have a few, but they aren’t always his first resort. As they say: “when all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail,” and he knows that not everything can be solved by magic or cutting-edge experimental technology. The simplest solutions are usually the best. Fewer potential points of failure, for one thing, and they’re more accessible to the layman; if an Archimedes’ screw can meet a rural village’s water needs, they’re better off with that instead of some fancy, over-engineered magitech pump which they won’t even be able to fix themselves when it inevitably breaks down within a month.
That gentleness extends to his quiet sense of humour. It’s never malicious, though not entirely devoid of mischief, either. Cel may take pleasure from sowing confusion with the occasional, innocuous little remark, delivered in an earnest deadpan. And so long as they’re not dangerous nor expensive ones, he also enjoys letting his students make mistakes. They’re good learning experiences for everyone involved, and usually quite a bit more interesting than having him deliver another boring lecture.
People are sometimes taken aback by the lack of Cellachán’s gadgets and gizmos. Not that he doesn’t have a few, but they aren’t always his first resort. As they say: “when all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail,” and he knows that not everything can be solved by magic or cutting-edge experimental technology. The simplest solutions are usually the best. Fewer potential points of failure, for one thing, and they’re more accessible to the layman; if an Archimedes’ screw can meet a rural village’s water needs, they’re better off with that instead of some fancy, over-engineered magitech pump which they won’t even be able to fix themselves when it inevitably breaks down within a month.
Skills
WIP
Cellachán is formally educated in and very knowledgeable regarding the field of general Shroud/magical theory and spellcraft. These are the fundamentals which underpin his more specialised work, and also, things he has to keep reminding the less-than-studious pupils who plague his lecture halls about.His expertise, though, lies mostly within three fields:
Arcane engineering. Think your classic magitech bullshit: prosthetic limbs, propulsion engines, big old LAZOR CANNONS, etc. Cel can design and build many such things… supposing he’s got the right tools and materials for it, of course.
Para-alchemy (paralchemy, para-chemistry). Alchemy was a good start. Got some useful things out of it, if you ignore damn-fool ideas like ‘the elixir of life’ and ‘panaceas’. Chemistry takes it an important, scientific step further. But why limit yourself to what can be achieved with mundane physical materials? Parachemistry is an emerging disciple whereby weaving is used to control or encourage specific chemical reactions and properties, bypassing the requirements of purely non-magical conditions to achieve the same effects. For example: one can apply parachemical weaving to an iron surface and force its oxidation to favour the formation of an impermeable magnetite layer, which then prevents further corrosion (see ‘steel blueing’ and ‘impassivation’) — whereas under normal conditions, such iron would would eventually rust entirely through. Note that this is not alchemy in the sense of transmuting one substance into an entirely different one, i.e. don’t expect any magic nuclear fission/fusion reactors.
Meta-arcanomechanics. This is like… crafting tools and devices directly as patterns into the Shroud, rather than housing enchantments inside physical matter. These metaphysical objects are invisible save for the way they shape the Shroud, though their effects may extend into physical reality. And like regular tools, they’re usually designed with a specific application in mind. One devises a means of accessing each particular device during its creation, commonly via a highly-specific sequence of somatic or verbal actions, and they must be powered by the flow of Shroud as well. Wriggling your fingers, saying ‘abracadabra’, drawing on your mana reserves… yeah, they’re spells. They’re magic spells. I just had to make it sound all technical and shit to fit the character.
Art Credit: Meeeee
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