Archmage Rannus Adderan

Archmage Rannus Adderan is a character in Mini-Grand 5111

Race
Venephim are a crystalline race hailing from a plane of existence that is saturated with mana. While individually the appearance of Venephim can vary massively they are generally tall with spindly limbs. They have no natural form of reproduction, new Venephim are formed through a particularly complex magical ritual.

At one point magic came as naturally to the Venephim as breathing does to a creature with lungs in a world with air. In fact that metaphor is very apt, at that point in time the plane of Kaiy was filled with mana in the same way our world is filled with air.

Unfortunately this came to an end with an event known only as The Crisis. It remains unclear the precise series of events but suddenly, within the space of one day mana drained and dwindled to the point where it suddenly became a precious resource.

This had a profound effect upon the Venephim. As everyone clamoured for the precious dregs of mana their civilisation all but broke down. Previously nobody had given a thought to the supplies of mana, but one short day later a venephim would fight his best friend to the death for the slightest scrap of the substance. It was in short anarchy. Only the toughest, and those who had through sheer dumb luck found themselves with the most plentiful supplies of mana survived.

Life continued and slowly the Venephim began to adapt to this new state of affairs. Magic was proved to still be possible, even with just the trace amounts of mana that remained. However the downside was that such magic required intense preparation; incredibly specific magical reagents, complex runes and diagrams that have to be drawn out before time, complex magical gestures which if not performed correctly can have massively unpredictable results, long winded magical incantations which must be intoned word perfectly and in some cases to a precise rhythm and the use of specialised totems (referred to as wands) which can directly influence the trace mana in the air.

If any one of these factors is wrong the spell is likely to blow up in your face, sometimes literally.

Items/Abilities:
There is very little that Archmage Rannus is not capable of. His magic can alter summon forth powerful beings to do his bidding, bind the power of the elements to his will, subjugate his enemies’ will (either physically or mentally) or alter the very fabric of the world itself.

The problem is that to do any of these things is very very very difficult (as outlined in the race section). Archmage Rannus carries with him at all times, packs filled with a slew of magical reagents, magical wands for every occasion, tomes filled with diagrams and incantations, paints and chalks and the like for inscribing runes on whatever surface he finds himself on, and of course a reference tome just to make sure that he doesn’t forget any of the necessary rituals.

Description:
As a Venephim Archmage Rannus is a crystalline figure, approximately human shaped. He has an extra pair of arms and his all of his limbs are long and spindly, including his fingers (two fingers and a thumb upon each hand). His skin is smooth and speckled like titanium drusy.

Biography:
The title of Archmage harkens back to the time before the Crisis, before the collapse of Venephim society. He was at that point a highly respected mage who spent most of his time teaching others how to get the utmost from their innate abilities.

When the Crisis occurred Rannus survived by not owning anything with enough mana to make him a target for others, and not being foolish enough to go after those who still had a slim scrap of mana.

It was actually Rannus who began the pioneering research into magic without mana, something that did not make him popular with those who had mana, most of whom had seized upon the imbalance of power to declare themselves the de facto rulers of the Venephim.

Archmage Rannus had to go into hiding until he had perfected his techniques, a task that took him a long time. While his magic without mana is a cumbersome thing, and not very useful in any situation where you don’t have a lot of planning and preparation time beforehand, it is better than being without magic entirely.

He eventually managed to spread the knowledge of how to work magic with little to no mana throughout the remaining Venephim population, by way of an information ritual which took days to set up. Shortly afterwards he was taken to be part of a grand battle.