Castor Onerio

Castor Onerio is a wizard of the Archon Academy who in 285 AVD assembled the expedition that sailed west aboard the Imperius and returned with news of Canarque, the continent most of the Empire calls the New World.¹

His earlier life is played out in the campaign Mürekkep ve Çelik ("Ink and Steel"), which follows him from a young Archon mage to a master preparing his voyage. The campaign Yeni Dünya ("New World") is set years later on the continent the Empire came to know after his discovery in the west.²³⁴

The voyage west

In 285 AVD Castor, then a young and ambitious Archon wizard, gathered a chosen company of scientists, explorers, sailors, historians and wizards to sail west. Drawing on sources from the First Age and the Second Age, he believed that a vast continent lay in that direction.¹

The expedition began under protest from the High Church. Its doctrine held that the Eye of Aquaron, a barrier and a great vortex, marked the known edge of the Great Western Sea, placed there by the gods to protect humanity, and that piercing it would bring ruin. Castor had made influential friends in a successful career. Through the noble families he served he approached Emperor Falkred I and explained his plans; the knowledge and resources that might be found in the west caught the emperor's interest, and he gave his permission and support. This silenced the opposition, and at the High Church's request only a paladin was added to the ship's company.¹

The Imperius set sail in 285 AVD and returned four years later, in 289 AVD, with the discovery of Canarque. A port city, Aquila, was founded there, colonists flocked to the Canarque route, and relations with the native Inran and Geroni peoples continued to be built.¹

His memoir, Beyond the Eye, tells of the journey to the west and the discovery of Canarque; it is listed under the name of Master Castor Onerio.⁵

In Mürekkep ve Çelik

Childhood and the Archon

Castor was born in North Razer, across the river from South Razel, the son of the carpenter Felix and his wife Claudia. His gift took him from home to the Archon at the age of five, and he saw his younger brother Gaius and his sister Julia only once in the years that followed. Before the board that examined him for mastery he introduced himself as Castor Onerio of White City, a student of the Archon since he was five.⁶⁷⁸²

As a novice he was sent out with his friend Bernard to deliver a parcel and clashed with the cultists of Korn, an evil local god; the fanatics cursed the two of them as they left, and Castor says the curse still lies on him and that he keeps the fanatics' blood. He finished first in his year in the written examinations. Bernard went with him into the practical examination and died there; Castor later admitted that his own conceit had played a part.^9101112

After opening his mind to Kırmızı, one of the five great masters of the Archon, he was invited into The Hand, a secret guild of mages that seeks a greater political voice for wizards. As one of its members he was posted as adviser to the house of Hogar Baldrick, where he met the soldier Leonard and served until the war. A teacher of his was murdered as he left the Archon, leaving a note that asked what Zeratos had done to deserve such punishment from the gods; the question is one root of Castor's particular interest in Zeratos.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

He took under his protection Glanfall, an illiterate boy hunted by a witch hunter for his magic, and enrolled him at the Archon; by his own account he later left that witch hunter to die so that he could not harm the boy. He loves Glanfall like a son.^16171819

The war beneath the earth

In the third month of The Underdark Campaign, during a drow raid on the camp, Castor stayed behind to teleport some thirty Archon children to safety and was taken. He was held for months in a dark temple, tortured and kept from sleeping, and a spider was carved into his back through the imperial eagle of his robe. After his rescue he spent the rest of the war in plaster, nursed by Glanfall. Since then he cannot sleep without drugs and wakes from nightmares.^20212223

His family believed him dead and raised a stone for him beside his grandfather's grave. Visiting it with Leonard, he poured a drink for the "old Castor", saying that his former self, good but too naive, had died in captivity.²⁴²⁵²⁶

Appearance and convictions

Castor is about one metre eighty tall, with close-cropped hair and a stubbly beard. He paid for his red robe with his first wages: it bears the Archon's sign over the heart and the imperial eagle on the back, and he says its colour shows his loyalty to the Empire. He calls himself a loremaster, not an evoker. He once beat the emperor at chess and was given gifts for it.²⁷²⁸²⁹

He loves the Empire and its emperor, yet wants a world in which mages have a greater share in government, perhaps a parliament beneath the throne. He scorns idleness and wishes to keep his mind clear, and he holds that a person should be judged by his own work rather than his birth. He believes that he was born for great deeds and that he, not fate, will accomplish them.^30313233

The bloodstone of South Razel

On an errand for the Hand, given through the master Traumir, Castor and Leonard went to South Razel to look into stolen bloodstone; Leonard swore never to reveal anything about the Hand. On the road Castor read the memories of the travelling merchant Olman without his consent, deeply, and afterwards told Leonard he had only glanced at the surface. He suspected the town's captain, Nirati, partly because of her looks, until a captured bandit leader's memories showed that she had truly been hunting the bandits. He favoured killing the prisoners; Leonard insisted on handing them to the law.^3435363738

Guided by the diviner Aypol Morks, they went beneath the town. Castor shut down five working machines and destroyed a fire elemental with spells turned to cold, and found the bloodstones far stronger than raw ones. He argued more than once that Aypol should die for the greater good; Leonard refused, and instead Castor put him to sleep and read his mind, found that he gathered stone only for his own alchemy, and left him a note and a little of the stone.^3940414243

Home and Akşelale

In North Razer Castor met his family again: his father Felix, his ailing mother Claudia, Gaius, Julia and Flavia, an orphan his father had raised as a daughter. He left money in his father's chest for medicine and for the family's needs. When Flavia ran away with the young trader Pik, Castor warned Pik and slipped money into her pocket so that she could come home if she needed to. In a bitter quarrel with Leonard over the law he argued that Glanfall would be burned under it even without casting a spell.^44454647

In Akşelale he signed Castor's estate contract with the elf mage Esnarril Softart of the Starsong shop: on his death his personal belongings and work would go to Starsong, and in return he received two books and the egg of a pseudodragon, from which his companion Vaden later hatched. He also carried Bloodgat, an evil book given to him by Gregor, grandmaster witch hunter of Mavi Hisar, for bringing back his son's body; Esnarril would not have it near his shop.^4849505152

With Leonard he took up the search for the missing scholar Glamrin, found the old woman Gizel Ana murdered, and later found Glamrin alive but wounded. Refused authority to investigate by the legion's tribune, he still slipped invisibly into the house of Lene, a go-between, put her to sleep, read her mind and memorised a coded letter, which Glanfall deciphered. He gave the name Valentin to the Justicar Alcarin Nova, spoke for a blackmailed captain's right to a trial, and joined the arrest of the commander.^{5354555657585960}

There he first spoke of his great plan: to become a master of the Archon, win the emperor's support, and find a ship and crew to sail into unknown seas. Mastery, he explained, was the way to gain ship, crew and permission. Glanfall agreed to come. Before leaving he gave Glanfall a shape-changing spellbook and ordered a silver case for his own book from the rune smith Farnon Festent.^6162636465

Return to the Archon

Travelling by way of Neptune with Glanfall and the bear Bobo, Castor settled a roadside quarrel by arranging a duel to first blood. On the ship he showed its storm sorceress a fireball sent a mile across the water, but kept the true aim of his questions to himself.^66676869

At the Archon he taught a class in place of Marnor and saw Loren Opsus duel a man disguised as the great master Vex Noyer. His teacher Nocklin then asked him to find the disciples of the undying mage Polus within the Golden Arrow, the student club he still belonged to. Castor chose to play a man whose loyalty to the emperor was wavering. In secret he left a purse of gold and a note in the dormitory of the poorest students.^707172737475

When witch hunters of the Holy Inquisition arrived at the Archon, Castor stood on his chair in the dining hall, reminded everyone of his loyalty, his rescue of the children and his torture, and called a boycott of lessons, meals and gatherings until the hunters left, taking the responsibility on himself.⁷⁶⁷⁷⁷⁸

Spoiler: Arrest and the secret meetingRevealSpoils: Mürekkep ve Çelik #9; Mürekkep ve Çelik #10 · Say what you have read

In the uproar that followed the death of the grandmaster Follos, shot by the witch hunter captain Vorik, Castor broke the lightning that Yotun aimed at the captain, and the council's masters put the whole hall to sleep. He woke in chains and was handed to the witch hunters. Their captain knew of his secret task, and to make the interrogation look real cut off one of his already broken fingers. After two days Traumir brought him to the infirmary, where Riklon tended him.^798081828384

The student Alex then brought him to a secret meeting, where a dove turned into Mavi, the council member of the school of enchantment. When Castor understood that the plotters meant to kill the emperor at the Dwarf Gate and purge the Archon, he took off Nocklin's ring as the agreed signal and briefly held back Mavi's spell, until Herrenhal, sacrificing his right hand, brought down the floating Skydock on which most of the plotters stood.^8586878889

The Dwarf Gate

Before the battle at the Dwarf Gate Castor sent Glanfall and Bobo back to the dormitory. In the fighting he held back the heavy cavalry with a wall of fire, withstood a magical voice pressing on the minds of the mages, and chose to guard the legion standing before Emperor Conrad.⁹⁰⁹¹⁹²

Spoiler: On the battlefieldRevealSpoils: Mürekkep ve Çelik #11 · Say what you have read

Castor gave the emperor his own spellbook to wear over his heart, and carried the order to reinforce the dwarves to Hogar's forces. When he saw through an illusion hiding dozens of arrows aimed at the emperor, he threw himself in front of Conrad and took three arrows in his back. The book stopped an arrow at the emperor's chest, but Conrad died of his other wounds, the first emperor to fall on a battlefield; Castor fainted pressing pages of the book to the wound.^93949596

He woke in White City with broken ribs and an internal bleeding that had been stanched, and Nocklin told him that the battle had been won but that the emperor, the Golden Lion and Grandmaster Godfrey were dead, while Prince Falkred had survived. The new spymaster, Einhart Lorenz, brought him an honour bearing the imperial seal together with a grant that would have made him an independent mage, free of the Archon and of the mages' tax for life. Castor accepted the honour but refused the independence by letter, having always been proud to belong to the Archon.^979899100101

Mastery

Back at the Archon, at twenty-six, Castor defended two theses before a board chaired by the grandmaster Horus Maxwell: an encyclopedia of arcane foci and his disputed Thesis on Magic and the Elements. Their combined result earned him the right to sit the master's examination, and Horus offered him a place in his own research team, an offer Castor left open.^2102103104

He spent four months preparing. His wounds healed without lasting harm, though they may ache in damp weather. From the diaries of earlier masters he learned that about half of those who passed did not remember their examination, and that the trials changed with the candidate. He went in with a helmet but his chest bare, wishing to face the trial with all he had lived through.^105106107108

In the sunken city of the examination he crept past a chained dragon, crossed a rift of lava, solved a room with a countdown that left his ears bleeding, and set three strange mirrors in order. At the last a figure in white offered him a fight or a great sacrifice. He chose the sacrifice, telling again of the children, the torture and his leap before the emperor, and gave up his body rather than his mind, which he needed for his goals; the judge, calling him the son of Felix and Claudia, let him pass without exacting the price.^{109110111112113114}

For the second half he was made the Archon's envoy to the Nor Maradils, sea elves whose name means "exiles" in old Elvish, who were in danger beneath the sea. There he also met the triton Keros, shipwrecked far from home. Between the sea elves and the merfolk he negotiated a defensive alliance, with Archon weapons and potions, merfolk scouting and a shared command, and the masters who read its written terms judged the work a success.^{115116117118119120121}

Kırmızı told him that he was a master from the moment he came down from the council's tower. Castor declined an academic post or a desk as envoy and chose before the gathered masters to continue under his thesis master Herrenhal; he was then reminded of his promise to work two months for Yotun. Walking alone, he rejoiced in becoming the youngest master in memory.^{122123124125126}

Master of the Archon

As a master Castor gained a study and a library of his own, a salary, and the right to use the Archon's teleportation circles. He worked with Yotun on the Warforge Project, a secret effort to build thinking guards for the emperor, and asked him about runes and golems that might serve a ship beyond the barrier.^127128129130

He was then sent to Neptune to guard the first five warforged prototypes at a shipyard the Empire had bought under the pretence of building a great ship, with charge of their safety but no say in politics; the witch hunter Revenus Liber worked at his side.^131132133134

Spoiler: The Neptune shipyardRevealSpoils: Mürekkep ve Çelik #14 · Say what you have read

Castor had two watchers seized and read one man's memories by force, then agreed that they should be killed so that the truth of the shipyard stayed hidden; Revenus carried it out. He did not intervene when masked men looted a church, keeping instead to the shipment. When the young mage Falkred el-Nassil was found to have looked inside the crates, Castor read his mind, found no treachery, and put him to sleep; the orders were rewritten to say that Falkred had died in the fighting, and Castor asked only that it be done cleanly and without pain.^{135136137138139140141}

Returning to the Archon, he heard how Glanfall and Luke had fared in their examinations; Glanfall was to stay and train further rather than come to White City. Castor set the chess piece the late emperor had given him at the head of his staff.^142143144

The expedition prepared

Castor still meant to go beyond the known world: if all went well he would leave the mainland within one to three years, by thirty at the latest. At the palace in White City he presented his plan to carry the red eagle to seas it had not yet reached, above all to the west, and the emperor gave his permission. Castor argued that the crown's means had narrowed as resources passed to the nobles, and that the west might hold resources, materials and land to farm.^1453146147

Lorenz offered the help of his intelligence service, with crew, contacts and a safer passage, if the emperor received the public credit and his agent Jonas sailed with the ship. The priest Yozan urged him to learn the spiritual side of what lay ahead and to take a witch hunter such as Revenus aboard. Castor agreed to the lessons but left his final answer for the next day.^148149150151

In Yeni Dünya

The campaign opens in the New World, years after the events of Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles"). At its start the voyage is recalled: a great ship crossed the magic barrier and found a new continent beyond it, overturning the belief that the Empire's lands were the last place spared. In the campaign's own reckoning this lay about 250 years after Victory Day, and the voyage some ten to twelve years earlier.^4152153154

In the doctor Bruno's past, about a decade before the main story, Castor's research with other mages had returned its first results and the Empire had issued an edict to send colonists. The logistics ships that were to sail on Castor's orders were led by a young Archon mage, Oliver Mind.^155156157

The Archon force that came with Castor and remained in the New World is known as the Archon Faros, a name explained as meaning the Archon's reaching hand.¹⁵⁸