Cormac Evander Galescum

Cormac is in good, if not excellent, shape. He has the build of a laborer with a broad back and shoulder that are beginning to show a slight slouch. Still, Cormac is on the tall side for a Vikarahn and as solidly built as any.

Caught as he often is between tradition and practicality, Cormac wears the traditional braided beard of his people but shaves it barely past the chin. His medium brown hair is similarly short and sensible on the top and sides. It frames a face prematurely in the last stages of youthfulness. Faint lines are gathering across his heavy brow and gathering at the corners of his deep-set eyes. Combined with fleshy lips and a broad, twisted nose, Cormac isn't what most people would consider an attractive man.

Cormac's hands and arms have taken the brutal brunt of his chosen professions. Old chemical burn-scars are covered with more recent one from cuts and abrasions. In addition, Cormac has several tattoos, the most impressive of which is an enormous back piece depicting a ship at sea with blood-soaked sails.

Cormac has learned to live out of his backpack and tends to carry most of his belongings with him, including a pair of thick metal-bound books (his spellbook and formulae book) and a portable alchemy lab. All of Cormac's gear, including his armor and trusty club, show the signs of frequent repair. While the craftsmanship of the patches are excellent, the materials often do not match, giving the Vikarahn something of a motley appearance.

2696 (Age 0) – Cormac is born in Strovengar to Oddvar and Gudlaug Galescum. Oddvar worked as a technician at the airship docks while Gudlaug had been an apothecary’s apprentice before retiring after her second child was born to be a full-time homemaker. Cormac is the fifth of seven siblings. Living under the shadow of their infamous pirate ancestors, life is hard for the Galescums in the heritage-centric society of the Vikarahns. Cormac is raised speaking Common around the docks and markets and Vikan at home.   2716 (Age 20)– Cormac begins to apprentice under his father at the docks and quickly shows an aptitude for magic that outstrips the bounds of small-time airship repair. The family begins to save money for Cormac to attend Oslo Academy in Snowtop City.   2720 (Age 24)– Cormac is denied acceptance to Oslo Academy. The justification is thin but Cormac and his family are sure that the true reason is their dishonorable reputation. Oddvar spends the money that they had saved on materials for Cormac to study independently. Cormac continues to work at the docks and study magic at night.   2726 (Age 30)– With his apprenticeship nearing completion and fed up with the expectations of his family and Highwind society, Cormac signs a two-year contract on a passing airship as a junior mechanic and deckhand. The airship, Whisper of Silk, mainly trades in Olympusian textiles. Cormac learns conversational Elvan from its largely-fey crew.   2728 (Age 32)– At the conclusion of his contract, Whisper of Silk is docked in Sapphire Port of Almahna. Cormac is offered an extension of the contract, at least until they return to Highwind but he declines. Taking his earnings, Cormac travels to Calrune and applies to the Almahna Mystia Academy. He is accepted and begins study.   2729 (Age 33)– Taken with the incredible architecture of the Calrune and the Academy in particular, Cormac is inspired to pursue Earth Mystia, instead of the Water or Air that he had originally intended. Initially, Cormac is disgruntled by the religious overtones in his chosen field but gradually begins to appreciate the role the gods play in the lives of his teachers and fellow students. The hard edges of his former atheism soften and Cormac decides that it doesn’t matter whether or not the gods truly exist, only what they inspire people to do. Cormac quickly learns Almahnan to be able to converse in his new home.   2733 (Age 37)– Halfway through his schooling at the Almahna Mystia Academy, Cormac has proven to be an excellent student, if not a terribly sociable one. Other than a few exceptions, Cormac finds that he has little in common with his peers, given his Vikarahn ancestry, working-class roots, age and religious belief (or lack thereof). He spends most of his free time working part-time jobs and studying. With the remainder, he visits ruins in and around Calrune, sketching in his notebook imaginings of what their architecture looked like in its heyday. Cormac learns Ancient Almahnan and Ancient Saurusian as part of his studies to better understand the local ruins.   2735 (Age 39)– The ascension of Stormbreak changes Cormac’s life irreparably. While he initially has no biases against the theocrat, Highwind’s government’s sanctions create instant tension wherever he goes. While the Academy takes no official action against him, Cormac can feel the common people of the city turning against him in an uncomfortable reminder of the shame and judgement he felt growing up in a pariah family in Strovengar. Deeply angered, Cormac joins the protestors against Stormbreak. Cormac stays away from large-scale demonstation, instead working behind the scenes to craft improvised body armor and shields. As tensions and violence rise, Cormac begins providing emergency healing, working at a field hospital.   2736 (Age 40) - Cormac is drawn steadily into the orbit of powerful organizers of the anti-Fae'roh movement. The people he meets are increasingly radical, which disturbs Cormac deeply. When Cormac learns that several of his associates bombed the Maji Guard Keep, he distances himself from the protests immediately and refocuses on his schooling.    2737 (Age 41)– In his final year at the Academy, it is attacked and destroyed by two of the Dragon Lords. Cormac is in a series of nearby catacombs at the time, leading a group of first year students on a field trip. Collateral damage from the dragon's attack causes the catacombs to collapse. Cormac is able to use his Geomancy to prevent their chamber from falling in but he and the young students are trapped by the rubble. Over the course of the two weeks it takes for rescue to arrive, Cormac produces food, treats injuries and does whatever he can to keep moral up. By the time their chamber is finally unearthed, almost everyone is still alive. Almost.   The Cormac who emerges from the rubble is vastly different from the promising young wizard who entered. Already shaken by his experiences in the civil unrest, Cormac's inability to save the lives of all of his charges seems to have broken something in him. He briefly assists in reconstruction efforts on the Academy but he is wracked by frequent nervous breakdowns when near the Academy or other students. Cormac files for academic leaves and begins to take odd jobs in the city, mostly assisting in reconstruction efforts from both the dragon attacks and persistent damage from the unrest.   2738 (Age 42)– To show the resiliency of the Calruni spirit, having survived civil unrest and dragon attack, the city begins construction of the magnificent Precipice District. Cormac is contacted by one of his former professors at the Academy, Hypaxius Antonais, to work under him as he spearheaded construction of one of the venues for the upcoming World’s Fair, work which could substitute his final year of schooling at the Academy and earn him his degree. Cormac agrees and begins, along with a few other classmates offered similar deals, to work on The Gilded Oasis, an amphitheater that is intended to feature prominently in the Fair. Cormac’s return to the Academy life (in this tangential capacity) is not the triumphant one that he had imagined for himself. Profoundly unsettled by his experiences over the past several years, Cormac makes mistake after mistake, culminating in the collapse of a platform while several other students and Professor Antonais are on it. The Professor is able to gain control of the falling masonry at the last moment and prevents any deaths but several students are injured. It is a bridge too far.   With less than a year left to go in his studies, Cormac is expelled for Reckless Incompetence and Gross Negligence Unbefitting of a Wielder of Mystia and disbarred from studying or practicing magic within Calrun. Soon after, Cormac leaves the city, heading west.   2739 (Age 43)- Due to the actions of parties undisclosed, the government of Highwind reconciles with the Fae’roh Stormbreak and re-enters into trade with the continent. At the time, Cormac is working maintenance at one of the bath houses in Robathin, a job which involves the regular flushing of sulfurous build-up in the aging pipe systems. It is merely the latest in a long string of dirty, dead-end jobs that Cormac had drifted between in his seemingly aimless quest west. The Vikarahn government’s re-entry to Almahnan society conversely inspires Cormac to do just the opposite and soon he crosses the Nile, headed into the true desolation that is north-western Almahna.   2741 (Age 45)- Cormac spends two years alternately on his own and taking temporary positions in the scarce pockets of civilization he finds, sometimes working as a ranch hand in the lowlands or working with stone in the mountains. Yet even in the remote quarry that Cormac finds himself in, news of the completion of the Precipice District and the glorious Worlds Fair still makes its way to his ears. Cormac leaves the site in the middle of the next night. He spends the next several months alone.   2742 (Age 45)- In the early days of 2742, after four years of steady progress west, Cormac has finally reached the coast, finding himself in the insular hamlet of Agroba. At first, Cormac’s plan is to find work on a fishing boat and perhaps find passage back to Highwind. After a few days of stonewalling and hostility from the locals, Cormac realizes this isn’t going to happen. A year ago, he might have had simply moved on, following the coast north to somewhere more friendly but the fugue is beginning to lift from Cormac’s eyes. Something about the locals reminds him of terrorists he’d seen hiding in crowds in Calrune during the civil war. He feels certain that they are hiding something deadly to everyone around them. After years of dormancy, the instinct to make the world a better place than he found it reawakens in Cormac. It is the same instinct that drove him to imagine beautiful buildings and decrepit ruins restored. With the desperation of a man who feels he is on the edge of losing the best part of himself, Cormac begins to investigate.

Cormac identifies as male and uses he/him pronouns.

Cormac identifies as bisexual. His first clumsy fumblings were aboard the Whisper of Silk and at the various ports that it called upon. He had a couple minor flings in the early years of his schooling but nothing that lasted, especially not once Highwind denounced the Fae'roh. In recent years, Cormac has had a few partners but the encounters have been transient and purely physical. Cormac worries that the part of himself capable of romantic attraction is broken forever.

Cormac apprenticed under his father as an airship technician during his childhood but left before completing his term. Several years later, he was accepted into the Almahran Mystia Academy in Calrun but did not complete his degree there either.

Cormac has worked a wide variety of jobs over his life, most of them not very glamorous. Cormac has worked on airships, in war hospitals and in reconstruction efforts. More recently, Cormac has taken less impressive work as he's wandered west, quarrying stone, unclogging plumbing and ranchhanding, among other things.

None, as far as he's concerned.

Too many. Cormac feels he's never finished anything in his life. Looking back, he sees a string of wasted years and failed opportunities. Even when he saved a group of first-year students at the Academy during its destruction, he focuses (perhaps rightly) under the few that died under his care.

Cormac has had, objectively, terrible luck, starting from the moment he was born. As part of a pariah family in Highwind then as a Vikarahn in Almahra under Stormbreak, Cormac has repeated lived as an outcast from society. Being trapped for weeks in the rubble of the Academy, struggling and partially failing to keep a group of first-years alive tore a hole in his soul that may never heal. Compounded by the stress of fighting in the sidelines of a civil war then nearly killing a group of his classmates during peace-time, Cormac is only beginning to heal and return from self-imposed exile.

From a young age, Cormac showed a natural aptitude for learning, especially when it came to Mystia. Cormac displays an uncommon combination of pragmatism and imagination which makes him a natural craftsman, both able to dream of something that doesn't exist then also work through the minutiae to create it.

Cormac doesn't like to be far from the windows or doors of buildings.

To leave the world better than he found it. To make things that are beautiful and practical and will last for long after he is gone. To be able to live with pride once again, both in himself and in his family name.