The Collegiate of the West makes its home in the City of Calader, one of the three cities under its governance. In the days of old, when it was the Great Academy of the West, its influence extended to no less than 12 cities of the realm. The age of the Six Realms ended some 300-500 years ago, however-- historical accounts are both conflicting and scarce-- and with it has gone the glory of the Academy. Yet the title of Master of the West, given to the head of the Collegiate, still carries great prestige. To be granted entrance into the Collegiate is likewise no small form of recognition of one's talents.

Ostensibly the Collegiate is dedicated to the pursuit of science and knowledge, but in truth politics seem to override all other concerns. The publishing of one's papers confers a kind of status, which in turn inspires envy in one's peers, and the result is a kind of a petty in-fighting replete with nitpicking, bickering, pretentious posturing, and general skulduggery. Even so, science perseveres. There are those who genuinely seek to advance the knowledge of their field and teach their craft to young initiates, refusing to let politics bog down these noble goals. Preastor Merrick, head of the College of Machinery and sole vote for Thaddeus Corvington's advancement beyond internship, is just such an individual.

When Thaddeus was admitted to the Collegiate, primarily thanks to the efforts of his adoptive family and their good standing in the community of Calader, it was Preastor Merrick alone who would take him on as an intern. "S'lang as ye c'n fix them thar ratchety-spoke wit'out dem horns gettin' inna way, ye can stay on as ya like," he had told Thaddeus. Being a tiefling, Thaddeus' friends were few and far between; while rarely outright hated or reviled, most people seemed to regard him with the kind of unease with which one might tolerate the presence of an unfamiliar beast. He was also on the young side for a student of the Collegiate, having been admitted at the age of 19 while most students were no younger than 22, and this combined with his decidedly exotic appearance meant that no other preastor gave him so much as a second glance. So it was that he joined the College of Machinery, after showing himself to be talented in the artifice of constructs and a swift learner as well.

His initiation project was to create a kind of iron horse golem, which one would normally fashion from a solid block of iron, furnished by one's sponsor within the Collegiate. He never managed to secure a sponsor, however, and it was only by gathering the scraps of iron from various workshops around the campus that he was at last able to assemble the body of his golem. The other colleges parted with them readily, for it was common knowledge that the metal would retain the residue of any magic cast upon it even after it had been splintered from the bulk of the material, and such residual magic was known to foul attempts at re-enchantment. He suspected that much of the reason they tolerated his brief presence in their workshops was because they were amused by the prospect of his collecting their waste material and subsequently failing spectacularly in his efforts to make an initiate project out of it.

So It was surely to their chagrin when, after months of construction and several intense all-nighters, he produced a functional horse construct and was admitted into the College of Machinery. It was not the most elegant one ever submitted to Preastor Merrick, neither in form nor in function, but it met the requirements of the project. In truth, the preastor was impressed by his ability to simply get the lump of slag to function as a single entity, and Thaddeus was at last granted access to the more advanced classes that the college had to offer.

He took classes in all of the colleges, of course, learning the basics of every subject the Collegiate covered as an initiate ought. He even displayed a modest degree of talent in a number of them, although this went altogether unrecognized. Thus he turned his focus solely to his new career as a machinist, learning the ins and outs of the trade and coming to enjoy it. Like many in the Collegiate, he spent virtually all his time on the campus, having little to do with his life prior to enrollment. He didn't miss it. The days he'd spent with his family were just another stage of his life: one to which he felt no particular attachment.

His work was fulfilling, in a way; crafting the inert shells of golems and then breathing life into them brought him a particular satisfaction. He devoted his spare time to his hobby of creating increasingly life-like constructs, whenever he could scrounge up the materials. He started out simply, first with a squirrel and then a house cat, and eventually he was creating pixies that flew and goblins that snarled at unwelcome visitors.

Preastor Merrick thought little of his hobby, dismissing it with a snort whenever Thaddeus would mention it. The gruff old man seemed only to appreciate the practicality of the conventional hunk-of-clay kind of golem. Even so, Thaddeus looked up to him: the man was a wellspring of knowledge and the many years he'd spent plying his trade gave him great insight into the peculiarities of golemcraft. What's more, he shared his talents with Thaddeus freely, acknowledging him as a colleague.

He even taught him of the art of imbuing constructs with one's essence, a process not dissimilar to the summoning rituals by which one could bind a familiar. The practice was frowned upon at the Collegiate, but Preastor Merrick maintained that "wha' a man does in the privations of his laboratorium is his own damn business, and I'll cut the next man that says different." Thaddeus was rather leery of the technique himself, but curiosity drove him to learn it just as it did everything else the preastor saw fit to teach him.

In the span of three years, Thaddeus had learned nearly everything a master of machinery could teach an apprentice. By year seven of his internship the work to which he was necessarily relegated would have been miserably boring had he not conducted the more-than-occasional unsanctioned experiment. He was in the middle of tinkering with the latest job-- yet another wargolem, undoubtedly for use in some border skirmish somewhere, he thought-- when Brevor Dalston, Master of the West himself, burst through the door to the workshop.

His movement was erratic, and stranger still was the flesh that seemed to be melting off his face and onto the floor. Around his neck hung a pendant of thorny wood, splattered with what appeared to be human blood and a substance that was black and ichorous. Thaddeus had once overheard a rumor that Master Brevor dabbled in necromancy and had even constructed a phylactery, with the intention of one day defying death and preserving himself as a lich. While it was true that the master's talents lay in animation, he never openly practiced or condoned necromancy. Yet something about the amulet around his neck screamed 'phylactery' to Thaddeus, perhaps because its wearer seemed to be violently and excruciatingly transforming into a lich before his very eyes.

Brevor, or the creature known as such, let loose a howl of inhuman pain and several magic missiles which rendered the golem Thaddeus had been working on altogether inoperable. With a curse in Infernal and a mad dash for the back door of the workshop, Thaddeus escaped the building and very nearly ran into the preastor of the College of Creation. The preastor shoved him aside in annoyance and raised his hands as he began to chant, hurling a great blast of fire at Brevor just as he appeared in the doorway. Brevor roared and unleashed a torrent of coruscating black energy that slayed the preastor where he stood.

Had Thaddeus looked back as he ran, he would have seen the man rise to his feet again with an unnatural gait, eyes burning like embers, and sharp teeth ready to rend flesh. Instead his gaze was captured by the fires in the buildings he ran past as screams of terror echoed through courtyards. Nothing made sense any more: his world seemed to be crumbling around him and all he could think to do was run. He made it to his quarters and threw the door open. Tossing to one side the plank that had served as a makeshift table atop a massive lump of scrap iron for the past six years, he commanded his construct horse to rise: "Dûrroch, no hal!"

It came to its feet just as it had the day he'd made it. His mind raced momentarily as he struggled to recall which of his possessions were most valuable to him. All around the room were the fruits of his labors: he had made so many of those constructs over the years, and now he would have to leave most of them behind to be engulfed by whatever madness was consuming the Collegiate. He shook himself from his sorrow, stuffed a few of his possessions into his traveling sack almost at random, and led the construct horse out of his room.

Once he'd succeeded in getting his leg up over it he took off for the rear gate of the Collegiate in what passed for its saddle. As he approached, he found that the gate had partially collapsed, killing one very unfortunate individual who had been under it at the time. A closer look revealed it to be one of the supervisors from his workshop, still clutching his spellbook in his arm. Thaddeus cursed once more as he realized he had forgotten his own in his haste. He dismounted, taking the slain man's book and leading the horse past the rubble of the gate.

Outside the Collegiate's walls he could see that the entire town was burning, and it was obvious that the shrieks and cries were not coming from the campus alone. Though the danger was almost palpable, he hesitated for a moment as he thought of the preastor which had treated him well for so many years. If he himself had made it out, Thaddeus told himself, then surely the preastor would too. He tried to ignore the feeling of dreadful finality that tugged at the corners of his mind as he fled the scene of destruction on his iron steed.

He rode for the nearest town, only to see the flames of its ruination in the distance before reaching the half way mark. Though bulky and uncomfortable, he was grateful for his mount's sheer tirelessness and might as he turned from the road and bee-lined through the untamed scrubland to what he hoped was the nearest remaining settlement. He arrived to find the town intact but glutted with refugees fleeing from the north, just in time to secure a spot on the floor of an overcrowded hovel for the night.

Waking early the next morning, Thaddeus found that the refugees had already begun to spill out onto the road southward, along with many of the town's residents now joining them. The fires of war still burned on the northern horizon and they seemed to loom closer by the hour. There were rumors flying about madly; they all involved legions of orcs or beastmen or undead sweeping through the land, though everyone seemed to have their own theory about what was behind it. Some thought it was divine punishment for the Collegiate's tampering with forces best left alone, others attributed it to their treacherous neighbors in the east, and still others thought the world was being invaded by the abyss in some great End of Days. Thaddeus quickly learned to keep the hood of his cloak up over his forehead, as the looks he received seemed to suggest that lynching anything remotely demonic would amount to recreation in these troubled times.

He kept moving south, the armies of the north bearing down upon him every step of the way. In the following months he ran, hid, scavenged, ambushed and did everything he could to survive. Early on he would trade with other survivors, both in materials and stories; it was from them that he heard the tales of "Brevor the Damned," the terrible lich said to command a horde of undead. Friendly faces began to grow fewer and fewer, however, as the slaughter claimed ever more lives and those who survived were wary of his ruddy complexion and red-hued eyes.

As time wore on, the isolation and the constant threat of death began to take their toll on Thaddeus. He looked back on his time at the Collegiate as his halcyon days, in stark contrast to the present he sullenly faced. He still carried with him the handful of constructs he'd managed to save from his room so many months ago; they were the only glimmer of joy he had left in a very dark world. In his memories, his room was a safe place: it was its own little world, populated by the kindly inhabitants of his making. An idyllic haven from the senseless chaos of a world torn asunder.

The more he dwelt on it, the more he longed to return to that cherished place in his memories. Yet he knew that time could never be rewound and that his longing was in vain. Gradually, he slipped into a state of listlessness, survival instinct keeping him moving each day but failing to keep him nourished or rested. One night, as he sat collapsed against the trunk of a tree, fever overtook his exhausted body and mind. Images of the room surfaced in his mind, only to be clouded over by the darkness of his grim reality, again and again. Each time the oppressive heat that suffused his being grew more intense, and so too did his despair at the object of his desire being taken from him.

At last it seemed that he could not bear another instant of his agony; he was certain that the next one would be his last. And then it was all gone. In its place: a vision, as clear as crystal. A woman-- an elf. She was radiant as the fullest moon, possessed of a grace unearthly, and more beautiful than Thaddeus' wildest imaginings. In that instant her image was engraved in his mind to the last detail. He awoke with a gasp, his fever broken and his purpose clear.

He recovered his strength and soon began to construct his most ambitious work. He would render her perfectly, precisely as he had seen her in his vision. He disassembled the constructs he had kept with him all this time and built them into the frame of her body. Every moment not dedicated to survival was spent scrounging up materials and perfecting her, functionally and cosmetically. Even before she had attained the barest sapience he would greet her each morning with a smile, calling her "nîn celeb hiril" and "wilwarin en silmê."

He imbued her with every magic he knew to try, never satisfied until he had brought forth the creature which had left him awestruck that night. He even turned to the practice his peers had called "immoral" and "deviant," bestowing upon her a portion of his own lifeblood when at last he saw that conventional methods simply weren't enough to realize his ideal. Even now, Thaddeus continues to seek ways to improve upon her, the many months of assembling, animating, refining and imbuing having exhausted all relevant knowledge he had.

Thaddeus' life is still a harrowing ordeal, every day a test of his ability to survive. There are vast armies that seem bent on hunting down every last living thing, driving those who manage to elude their blades and arrows ever southward to eventually be crushed between the army's might and the wild, unforgiving jungle that bounds the civilized lands. But he does not face the hardships of this life alone. Silmê is there: his companion, protector, and ally. With her, Thaddeus finds the strength to seize each day that he still draws breath, so that he might slip through death's grasp yet once more.