Horimeis

Horimeis (pronounced /hɔərɪˈmeɪ.ɪs/) is an eremitic ghost that lives in the veigur of Ufmarkt. Making his home in a shee that floats far above the world's flaming surface, Horimeis studies the stars, and is a powerful stellurgist, although he tends to keep his capability to himself and masks it by a façade of dottiness.

Like most inhabitants of Ufmarkt, Horimeis can only remember a few centuries into his past, and as far back as that he was already a puissant stellurgist. How long he has had these powers, and how he developed them in the first place, is therefore a mystery, but a mystery about which whatever rhegus has left him without older memories has also left Horimeis, and other residents of Ufmarkt, completely incurious, and indeed incognizant.

Description

Horimeis has a ghastly appearance, the right side of his head looking seared and blistered and much of the left side little more than an ustulate skull. What can be made out of his remaining features suggests a lantern-jawed man perhaps in his early thirties, with a broad mouth, a narrow nose, and heavy brows. His hair, what there is of it (mostly on the right side of his head), is straight, dirty blond, and not quite shoulder length. Horimeis's body is even more badly burned than his face, a mass of fused and blackened bone and flesh nearly unrecognizable as humanoid. The obvious implication is that Horimeis died in a fire, but given the unknown origin of Ufmarkt's undead this may very well not be the case; it may just as well be that he was never alive at all and has simply always been this way.

Often Horimeis chooses to "dress" himself in magical robes of light that follow his movement. These "robes" don't actually bear a close resemblance to physical robes, but more resemble shifting and shimmering curtains of hazy light. While sometimes he elects to cloak himself in robes of particular colors, or small sets of colors, more often his robes are iridescent mixtures of every color of the rainbow.

Lair

Horimeis makes his home on a floating shee usually situated above the Muttering Sea. It's widely believed that he created the shee himself, but nobody (including presumably Horimeis) remembers back far enough to know for sure whether this is the case. The shee is not large, only about ten hectares in area, but this is more than large enough for Horimeis's needs. About half the shee is covered with flames similar to those below, though the other half is bare black stone that is much colder than its proximity to the conflagrations should allow, sometimes dipping well below forty degrees Celsius.

Near the center of the shee is a round building Horimeis simply calls the Fane. While the Fane seems to be not much more than a largely empty expanse surrounded by pillars, with a few platforms positioned about it, the real core of Horimeis's home is within the shee, in a huge series of underground chambers accessible through trapdoors in the Fane. On the platforms of the Fane and in certain locations elsewhere on the shee are telescopes and other apparatus, magical and otherwise, that Horimeis uses to study the stars.

While Horimeis may on rare occasions entertain visitors, intruders are not welcome—and are unlikely to survive their intrusion anyway. Though Horimeis lives alone on his shee, he is far from undefended; the shee, especially the Fane and its vicinity, is full of formidable magical traps and hazards of all sorts that will leave trespassers dead, transformed, or otherwise permanently neutralized. Horimeis, of course, knows exactly how to bypass or avoid his traps, those that aren't simply enchanted not to be triggered in his presence anyway, and he can direct guests as to how to traverse a safe route through them. Unexpected interlopers, however, or guests who wear out their welcome, will find the Fane and the whole of Horimeis's shee a deadly place.

Powers

Although he doesn't advertise the fact, Horimeis is an extremely powerful sorcerer, who invented many of his own spells and, in his spare time, crafted a number of talismans. Some of these talismans he has sold or traded for the few luxuries with which he has outfitted his home (obviously, as a ghost, he has no need for food or drink); others he has kept for his own use; still others he has whimsically tossed off the shee to be picked up by whoever finds them in the sea below, his enjoyment having come from their creation. There are rumors that Horimeis has created his own pocket plane—or maybe more than one—within his shee, or that he's created his own arcanum. While these stories may be unfounded, it's not because Horimeis doesn't have the power to perform such feats if he wanted to.

Much of Horimeis's power comes from the fact that he has managed to tame not just one star, but (almost) an entire constellation, a blue constellation called Almahara that highly boosts his powers of sorcery. Given the mnemonic limitations of Ufmarkt's inhabitants, almost no one but Horimeis remembers that this constellation ever existed, and is aware that Ufmarkt has, or had, (at least) eleven constellations, not ten, one now dimmed and sundered by nearly all its stars having been tamed. Horimeis has also tamed a few other scattered stars outside Almahara, but not to the same extent. He has lately begun trying to devise a way to tame Ruj, the dimmest of Ufmarkt's suns, but has yet to make much progress on that regard. He isn't certain that taming a sun is even possible, but has decided it's worth a try.

To those few with whom Horimeis is willing to speak more or less straightforwardly, he has claimed that he is in close communication with the constellations, and has forced them to tell him their secrets, that from them he has learned secrets of the gods, the planes, and many other esoteric matters. This may be merely another of his misleading metaphors, but given all that he has accomplished with his stellurgy it's not impossible that it's actually true.

Personality and goals

Horimeis speaks in singsong leresis, rambling on about subjects seemingly only tangentially connected to the previous topic or to the question he was asked. He peppers his speech with meaningless interjections ("Oh yes, oh yes" being a particular favorite), and often refers to the stars singing to him, and other such apparent nonsense. All of this adds up to most people who speak to Horimeis concluding to that he is a few figurative logs short of a figurative cabin. Which is exactly what he intends; Horimeis is a vast storehouse of knowledge about astronomy and magic, especially sorcery, and doesn't want to be queased by queues of querists. By giving the impression that he is a scatterwitted crank he effectively screens out those who aren't already knowledgeable enough and determined enough to see through his ruse. And, truthfully, none of what Horimeis says is really nonsense, even if much of it is metaphorical. The stars may not literally sing to him, in the sense of producing audible music, but he can still refer to the figurative song of their motions and relations that he understands, and if his interlocutors don't realize that he's speaking transumptively, well, that just proves to him they aren't ready for his wisdom.

Much of Horimeis's time he spends perusing the skies and communing with the stars, seeking to add to his already immense store of knowledge and power. If he has an ultimate end in mind for these pursuits, he hasn't revealed it; it may be that he's just seeking knowledge and power for their own sakes. Anyone presenting Horimeis with secrets about the stars about which he wasn't already aware would be sure to gain his favor and alliance, though given all he already knows about it finding such knowledge new to him would be a formidable enterprise.