Arachne Tellwyrn

Professor Arachne Tellwyrn is the founder and director of the Unseen University, the elite school of magic that crowns the mountain above the frontier town of Last Rock, at the edge of the Golden Sea. An ancient elf — by repute well over three thousand years old — she is widely considered one of the greatest archmages in the world, and her name carries enough weight that the powerful are said to run once they realize whom they are dealing with.

Her legend is a tangle of cautionary tales. She is famous for being irascible, blunt, and entirely unimpressed by rank, throwing her excessive power around wherever she pleases. The Tiraan Empire formally regards her as a one-woman national event to be managed rather than crossed, and even the Pantheon's gods are said to have their hands full with her. For all that, she takes her students seriously — admitting the children of great houses, driving them hard, and protecting them fiercely.

To the public she is simply the eccentric, terrifying old wizard of Last Rock: brilliant, impossible to push around, and not someone any sensible person provokes. She wears gold-rimmed spectacles she plainly does not need, and runs her University on her own uncompromising terms.