AARON SHEPHERD

Overview

Sorcerer’s apprentice. Alchemist. Scientist. Explorer. Adventurer.

Aaron Shepherd is all of these and more. Born to modest parents in the small fishing hamlet of Taloo, on the coast of the fiefdom of Seacea, Aaron gave his mother and father their first glimpse of what he might become when he worked through complex mathematical and engineering problems soon after learning to read. His father made his living as the village tinkerer, repairing whatever Taloo’s fishermen and farmers hauled to his door—a fouled mill wheel, a cracked hull, a winch seized with salt. Aaron grew up at his elbow, and what other boys learned as chores he learned as principles. Growing up the son of a craftsman afforded him endless opportunity to practice and refine his mechanical skills, though it took little time for the hamlet to run out of problems capable of holding his interest.

The paper he wrote as a boy, The Principles of Alchemical Energy Transfer, carried far beyond the reach of a coastal hamlet. It reached Norwynne Keep, and the desk of Master Elsanar, a master sorcerer and inventor then searching for an apprentice to assist with his work, and it settled the matter for him. The same paper drew the notice of other parties, who put its findings to use in ways Aaron would not learn of for years. When Elsanar’s offer arrived, Aaron’s parents needed little convincing. They understood his potential exceeded any challenge Taloo might set before him, and that the world needed his insight. Aaron was eleven years old. On his last night at home, his father gave him a final lecture, and one piece of it lodged in Aaron’s memory and has stayed there since. “Make your mark,” his father said. “Do something good.”

Norwynne Keep, perched atop the cliffs above the Barrens Ocean along Seacea’s southern border, had stood for centuries as a bastion under the Ashcroft family. Its present lord, Vuller Ashcroft, coaxed Elsanar into taking up residence there and financed the construction of the wizard’s tower Elsanar named Ellingrel. Into that tower came a tinkerer’s son from a fishing village, and over the next four years Aaron immersed himself in every lesson and experiment his master set before him, advancing Elsanar’s work in energy convergence, transmogrification, and other areas by leaps and bounds. His studies centered on alchemy, mathematics, and mechanics rather than the mystical arts. Every month, he sent a report home describing his master’s latest experiments—a small ritual his father had asked for and Aaron never neglected.

His standing as a sorcerer’s apprentice has not come without social cost. Norwynne is home to a small coterie of master wizards, many with apprentices of their own, and these budding practitioners of the craft do not always look kindly on a boy gifted intellectually but not magically in any way. Those who lack the privilege of living within the lord’s inner walls, let alone inside Ellingrel itself, look on him less kindly still, seeing a privileged foreigner despite his modest upbringing and the fact all of them hail from the same fiefdom. Aaron carries the friction quietly and answers it with work.

Appearance

Aaron is fifteen, and he looks it. Four years into an apprenticeship that began when he was eleven, he still reads as a boy to nearly everyone he meets—soldiers, lords, and sorcerers alike default to calling him exactly that, and the habit follows him into rooms where he has more answers than anyone else present. He has not yet grown into the authority his work keeps handing him.

His wardrobe is thin to the point of embarrassment. He owns one good suit, black, and wears it to every occasion that demands one, whether funeral or coronation, because there is nothing else in his trunk to reach for. He colors easily, too—caught staring, caught flustered, caught out in a half-finished sentence, and the blood rises in his face before he can govern it.

What marks him more reliably than any feature is the encorder holstered at his belt. He is seldom without it, and the habit of dropping a hand to the device—checking a reading, thumbing it awake, angling it toward whatever has caught his attention—is as much a part of how he carries himself as his posture.

Abilities & Expertise

Aaron solves nearly any problem set in front of him, whether scientific, alchemical, or magical, and he remembers everything in detail—a product of his photographic memory, but also of his keen awareness and methodical approach to learning. His scientific knowledge encompasses mechanics, alchemistry, physics, energy transference, and more. He estimates volumes and distances in his head as a matter of course, and he approaches an unfamiliar device the way another boy might approach an unfamiliar animal: cautiously, curiously, and with the assumption that it can be understood.

He possesses no magical gift whatsoever, a fact his fellow apprentices never let him forget. His responsibilities to his master have never been to assist with the mystical but with the scientific, and he has built his competence entirely on the side of the ledger that can be measured, calculated, and repeated.

His greatest gift, though, has nothing to do with any of that. Aaron empathizes with others, and despite his intellectual prowess, he remains modest and willing to extend a helping hand regardless of the task.

Personality & Demeanor

Aaron is modest to a fault. He does not lead with what he knows, does not correct people who underestimate him, and absorbs slights from the other apprentices without answering them—he answers with work instead, which is both the more effective response and the one that costs him the most to sustain.

Under pressure, he holds together better than anyone expects, including himself. He thinks in steps, sets emotion aside because setting emotion aside is a basic tenet of the scientist, and works the problem until the problem yields. The composure is real while it lasts, though it tends to arrive with shaking hands attached once the crisis passes and there is finally time to notice them.

His father’s parting instruction—make your mark, do something good—functions less as a memory than as a standard he measures himself against, and usually finds himself falling short of. For all his capability, Aaron carries a persistent sense of being a boy handed responsibilities meant for someone older and better equipped.

Notable Relationships

Master Elsanar, sorcerer and inventor, is the central figure of Aaron’s life since his eleventh year. Their partnership runs along an unusual seam: Elsanar is a master of the mystical arts, and Aaron assists him with everything but. What binds them is the work itself—energy transference and convergence, the shared laboratory, the experiments that neither could advance as far alone.

His parents remain in Taloo, and the monthly report he sends home describing Elsanar’s latest experiments is the thread that keeps them present in his life. His father asked for it, and Aaron has never once let it lapse.

Among Norwynne’s wider community of master wizards and their apprentices, Aaron occupies an uncomfortable position—resented by the magically gifted for his standing, resented by those outside the inner walls for his privilege, and belonging fully to neither group.

Role & Affiliations

Aaron serves as apprentice to Master Elsanar within Ellingrel, the wizard’s tower at Norwynne Keep, under the patronage of Lord Vuller Ashcroft. His domain is Elsanar’s scientific laboratory, set off the sorcerer’s private study and personal chamber inside the tower. There, master and apprentice delve into Elsanar’s primary area of study—energy transference and convergence—surrounded by beakers, vials, retorts, and alembics aplenty. In that laboratory, Aaron has found the closest thing to a home he has known since leaving Taloo.