Profiles
in Magic, Volume Eight
Borrugar Steadfoot : Never Again Helplessness
PREFACE:
Heritage Monographs, the official press of the Moonmage Guild,
is proud to present the eighth
volume in the ongoing Profiles in
Magic series. The information within these volumes, painstakingly
culled from transcripts and field research, has been compiled by
a dedicated staff of scholars and Guild representatives.
This installment of our ongoing series details the life and times of
Borrugar Steadfoot, the Merchant Magician. It is hoped that the
story of his triumphs and untimely death serve as a guide and
warning to young mages, as they face their own challenges in
apprenticeship.
Bourrugar Steadfoot, while not as well known as some of his
contemporaries in the turbulant decades just after the fall of the
Empire, was nonetheless a luminary of the magical world. Known
as "the merchant magician", Steadfoot was an unusually shrewd
and calculating olvi, concealing his brilliant strategic mind behind
a cheerful and sometimes frivolous demeanor: more than one
trader-baron found himself utterly cleaned out in a deal with him,
after being tricked into underestimating the bubbly halfling.
The fifth child out of twelve, Borrugar's large extended family
traveled with a gypsy tribe through the wilderness of the western
provinces. Their nomadic life served them well in the rampant chaos
and danger of the post-Imperial period, and they rarely stayed in a
single place long enough to do more than fill their wagons, water
their steeds and move on. However, the gypsy life did not sit well
with the young man, and he often felt ignored and lonely on the
caravan route.
Befriended by the gypsies' soothsayer, a mystic who had herself
been raised by the tricksters of the Fortune's Path sect, Borrugar
discovered a way to both keep his complex mind occupied and to
finally gain the attention he craved: magic. He was a quick and
eager study, soon able not only to work the simple cantrips he
was shown, but to combine these elements into new, more dazzling
spells. Unfortunately, before he could truly begin to exercise his
newfound abilities, disaster struck.
While travelling through a forested glade some distance from
Zoluren's North Trail Road, the caravan was waylaid by fenrae
reavers. The merciless fae asked for no bribe or ransom, seeking
only bloodthirsty destruction. Small even for an olvi, Borrugar
escaped in the confusion and hid in the thick underbrush, able
only to watch. Years later, he would write in his journal: "The
helplessness, the utter helplessness as the fiends slaughtered
my family, was worse than any pain of sword or arrow. I had
illusions, and trinkets aplenty, but what good would they do me
now? Worthless. Then, when it was all over, to slink off through
the brush with my head bowed low and footsteps soft, as if I were
the guilty party, the interloper, fearing punishment? I knew then,
as I huddled beneath the cold, uncaring stars, that I would never
allow myself to feel this way again."
Escaping alone, he staggered up the road until he finally
collapsed with exhaustion. He was found by an elderly trader
on his regular route, who took the young man in and brought
him to an inn at the next stop. Hearing Borrugar's tale, and
recognizing that he was an exceptionally bright person, the
trader offered him a job to get him on his feet: he would
accompany the trader on his assignments, keeping track of
inventory, doing general clerical work and employing the tricks
his gypsy mentor had taught him on the way, using the positions
of the stars to divine the most favorable routes.
Borrugar accepted, and stayed with the man for nearly a decade,
as their fortunes grew. When the old trader finally passed on, he
left Borrugar the fruits of their labor: a thriving company based
in the city of Riverhaven, grown strong from risky shipping and
exploration projects. Suddenly gifted with not only a small fortune
but an ongoing legacy, he put his money to use in constructing
that which he'd dreamt of since childhood: a stable, permanant
home. Concerned about security to the point of paranoia, his
glorious mansion had one odd twist: nobody knew where it was.
Though he certainly lived in Riverhaven, and the building -- gigantic,
said those who had seen the interior -- was there as well, those
who attempted to find it or even follow Borrugar home found
themselves oddly unable to pinpoint exactly what they had seen,
or where they had seen it. His artifice in illusion had never been
put to such a bold-- or, perhaps, subtle-- use. It is worth noting
that his home presumably still exists to this very day, but it will
not be found on any maps of the
great city.
It was not long before ennui began to set in; while his material
needs were satisfied, and there was something of a challenge
in outwitting his business rivals day after day, the true calling
of his heart had gone unanswered. Realizing what he needed to
do, one spring morning he underwent the lengthy trip to the
nearest Moonmage guildhouse, there to enroll himself as an
apprentice at the age of seventy-three. He was accepted, and
barely slept for the next five years, alternating his business
pursuits with intense magical studies.
Using his knack for seeing and manipulating the core elements
of spells, he was quickly out-performing mages with twice his
experience. Among his early achievements was a refinement
of the magics of Aura Sight, for which he was noted in the
official rolls of the High Council... And netted him a considerable
advantage when trying to negotiate with mundane competitors.
Once he graduated as a magician in his own right, his interests
turned to works of enchantment.
Most of Borrugar's works were unique, permanant enchantments
on a large scale, done for friends and patrons; one classic example
is the Everflowing Fountain in the courtyard of the Zoluren
baronial mansion, where crossed ivory dolphin sculptures pour
an endless river of pure water into a seperately-enchanted basin,
which in turn magically evaporates the water before it overflows.
The fountain is still a popular sight for noble visitors to the
province. It is interesting to note that his most popular contribution
to Moonmage lore, the Ivory Chalice of Borrugar (the original
Satiation version; later versions employing the sigils of Revelry
and Desire were created by his successful apprentices, the latter
as a practical joke), was essentially a smaller version of this device.
In a vein less dramatic but far more useful to his magical
colleagues, one of Borrugar's greatest creations were the
Chimes of Disruption; despite the foreboding name, the
purpose of these huge, enchanted windchimes was to imbue
an item with powerful sonic energy, disrupting its physical
structure enough to easily introduce enchantments and
spells into its core. While they proved incompatable with
many experiments (the sound pitch sufficient to shatter
items of weak material and even injure their bearers), all
of Borrugar's devices involved the Chimes as part of their
creation, and his apprentices followed the same tack.
The location of Borrugar's original set of chimes is unknown
at this time. It is believed that, prior to his death, they were
passed on to his close friend Suniyetsu as a housewarming
gift. Suniyetsu, a mistress ranger, used them to keep an
infestation of dangerous cougars from her remote forest
sanctuary. As she vanished from the records of history not
long after the gifting, not much more can be said.
Borrugar, sadly, and like so many before him, fell victim to
the magic he loved so dearly. The key to his undoing was
an ongoing obsession with a grimoire of pre-Imperial sorcery,
the infernal tome known to scholars as the "Arte of the Black
Cockatrice". He had first come across a fragmented, partial
translation of this elvish text in the library of Throne City, and
this was the main source from which he had been able to
reconstruct the power of auric sight. Tidbits of dark secrets
enticed him into yearning for more, and he hired a team of
scholars and researchers to find a complete edition of the book.
After dead end upon dead end, a copy was indeed found;
legend holds that it was located in the dank catacombs
beneath a Tezirite monestary, clutched in the withered grasp
of a high priest's mummy. While still fragmented and ruined
by water and oils in spots, it was the most complete version
of the book known to be extant upon Elanthia. His own
translation abilities honed by years of practice, Borrugar
locked himself away and set to deciphering the tome's
mysteries.
Friends close to him-- a small tribe of Fortune's Path
gypsies who he had invited to share his home, in return
for serving as bodyguards-- later wrote that he had attempted
to create something he had read in the cursed grimoire, an
enchantment he referred to as "the Mithricine Key". Great
apparatus were constructed, and elaborate, dark rituals
prepared to this end. On the final night, the climax of the
enchantment, Borrugar bade his servants to stay outside
his laboratory, and to not venture in, no matter what they
heard. The evening was later recounted in the journal of an
anonymous housemaid [Moonmage Archives, Throne City
Guild, 315:42:12] as:
"Twas not a sound that came from that door or past it, nor
nothing of sight, but Roberto who is frazzuri among us said
that he read something lively awful in the night sky. He drew
the tokka, looked at what he'd set out, and quickly pulled the
cards back together without showing any what was there.
He burnt the deck later, after we opened the door, like he
told us to do right away.
"Maestro Borrugar was there, just like he said he would be.
We had to pull back right quick, because the smell was like
three- week carrion, and the sight inside wasn't nothing for
the children to see: he was sitting there in his chair, plain
as day, except his limbs weren't fitting together like they
were supposed to, not at all. The downs were in up places,
the ups were in down places, and some things we didn't
find till later . He was all mixed up. Among us there wasn't
no question about what had done it to him, the question
was how it had been done WITHOUT MAKING A SINGLE
SOUND..."
Details of Borrugar's burial and afterwards are sketchy:
it is believed that he was put to rest on his private estate,
which in turn was given over to the gypsies who had been
so close to him in life. As for the Arte, a formal Moonmage
tribunal requisitioned the tome as soon as the story came
to light, seeking to keep it in a safe place at the guild
stronghold: a thorough search of the mage's laboratory
and libraries failed to find it, and scholars believe one of
Borrugar's apprentices or colleagues must have stolen it
shortly after his death.
Despite his tragic death, Borrugar Stoutfoot's legacy
lives on, through a lifetime body of work to rival many
an archmage. His early years in the guild are an inspiration
to striving apprentices-- and his untimely end is a sober
warning.