Loren Opsus

Loren Opsus is the chief mage of the Empire, the Primo Magistre, in the campaign Mürekkep ve Çelik ("Ink and Steel"). The mage Castor knows him well: Loren gave him his magic hat.¹²

The emperor's mage

The master Marnor counts Loren among his close friends and calls him a gifted mage who loves display; he says that Loren made the hat and the staff head given to Castor. As Primo Magistre, Loren serves at the emperor's side and is not bound to the Archon. It is explained that the chief mages do not train at the Archon but raise an apprentice chosen at a young age.³²⁴

Castor told the master Marnor that when the emperor turns his ring, Loren's magic leaves him, through a collar about his neck. Marnor took it for the leash of a mage who is not trusted; Castor said that Loren was content with the arrangement and thought it necessary. Loren has publicly written many articles arguing that reopening the mages' towers would be wrong.⁵⁶⁷

The duel at the Archon

One day Loren flew into the Archon faster than any common flight spell, without using the lift, and plunged into the rooms of the great master Vex Noyer. Someone in Vex Noyer's shape burst out of the window covered in blood, with Loren behind him, and the two fought a duel of magic that the paladins could not break. Loren pierced his opponent with two great magical spikes; the disguise broke to reveal an unknown man with black hair and a beard, who fled through the air bleeding, with Loren and the Archon's winged gargoyles in pursuit. His sudden, unannounced intervention caused unease between the palace and the Archon, and some at the school took his coming as a sign that the emperor no longer trusted them.^891011212

The Dwarf Gate

Through a portal opened at the Archon, Castor saw the battle at the Dwarf Gate, where an orc army and the banners of many nobles fought the imperial forces. Loren stood among the defenders on the emperor's side with eight mages of the imperial army, and the priest Yozan was seen there too; the mages' shields strained under a rain of meteors falling on the legionaries. Later, before the emperor, Castor said that as far as he had seen, Loren had done all he could with little strength.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

Loren is not the same person as Einhart Lorenz, the new spymaster who appeared after the battle.¹⁶¹⁷

Spoiler: The certificateGösterAçık ettiği: Mürekkep ve Çelik #13; Starter Setting Guide · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

When Castor returned for his certificate of mastery, a figure in a shadowed robe embroidered in purple and white waited in a dark room and sent the document through the air into his hands. Speaking in a voice that seemed to come from four places at once, the figure said that Castor's deeds had exceeded all expectation, that their cause was advancing, that mages' towers would open in every province and that mages would live freely with their families. It asked that the success of the coming voyage west not be claimed by the church or by those who oppose mages, said that it had worked to make his examination passable while leaving the success to him, and spoke of a greater gift to come. Fewer than a hundred mages, it said, were bound to it directly and more served without knowing it, and no more than ten had seen its face; then it stepped into the light, a man with a moustache and pointed beard. It is made clear that this was the chief mage of the Empire.^1819206

Loren has long been the Grandmaster of The Hand, though not its first founder. The Hand seeks to protect the Empire by putting the interests of its mages first: not to take power, but to let mages live without being torn from their families or scorned. Little is known of how the Hand works, and some conspiracy theorists suspect that it steered the decision to reopen the mages' towers from behind the scenes. Loren looks about forty but is older than he appears, and is stronger than is known; it is rumoured that he made his two tiefling assistants in a laboratory. His public writings against the towers stand in deliberate contrast to his secret work to open them, and the persona he has built would be in danger if his real role were exposed.^2122232425

At the emperor's ball Loren entered with his two tieflings and exchanged a nod with Castor. He spoke at length with an old man of the engineers' guild, then went to the High Inquisitor; the two exchanged hard words in low voices until Einhart separated them.²⁶²⁷