Background

Early life

Gorzyslaw was born and raised in the Kingdom of Poland, the son of a very talented rural blacksmith. As a young boy, it was drilled into him that he should not let others see him playing with coals or fire, although at the time he could not understand why. Every couple of years, his family would pick up its belonging and move to a different village. Although it meant that he would leave behind his friends, he didn’t mind because he also got to make new ones. Occasionally, that required him to have to establish himself with his fist with the local bullies, but in general that went fairly well.

As he grew older and begun working with his father at the forge, he realized a few things. The first one was that he was different from other youths, just as his dad was different from other men. No matter how intense the fire or hot an object was, neither of them would ever get burned. Other people were not like that, and some people thought this was the sign of the devil. It was not, his father told him. It was simply the way they were, as it had been for the male of the family for countless generations. The womenfolk of the family did not share this immunity, so although his mother and his two sisters knew of it, they did not share this immunity. He was also not to tell anyone about this because some bad people, who believed this trait made them bad, would find them and hurt them if they found out. Any time something happened to make other villager suspect something, the family moved on.

His father had only one long-time friend, an older wandering woodworker named Brykcy who occasionally dropped by the same village where the family was living. No matter where the family moved, their paths would eventually cross again.

A year after his older sister Elena had been married in another village, tragedy struck Gorzyslaw’s family. A group of men attacked them as they were moving from one village to another. His parents told the boy and his young sister to run, which they did while their father tried to defend his pregnant wife. They only escaped the men by jumping off a bridge over the river Oder, miles after being pursued by them.

Gorzyslaw escaped his parent’s murderers, but almost drowned in the process and lost his younger sister Klara. Alone and without resources at the age of 10, he had to beg for food, eat stolen scraps and take whatever job he could find. It was an emaciated boy that Brykcy found months later.

Apprenticeship

Brykcy turned out to be a wizard from the tradition of the Artisans of Rod, and a member of House Ex Miscellanea in the Order of Hermes. He took Gorzyslaw as his apprentice, and began teaching him the crafting magic and philosophy of his tradition.

It is said in some old Slavic legends that Rod was the god who created the earth and all life. Skilled artisans and healers honoured the god by dedicating their lives to acts of creating and nurturing. The tradition fostered craftsmen with magical talent, which learned to imbue their creation with magic, protecting and strengthening life in all its forms. The religious aspect faded with time, but the philosophy of nurturing and crafting endured. The members of the tradition were low, but the advent of Christianity reduced them even further. The arrival of the Order of Hermes had been both a boon and a curse for the tradition. Brykcy was one of the last ones, and had joined the order some decades ago (his name is translated in Latin as Brictius).

When asked about Gorzyslaw’s immunity to fire, Brictius speculated that this may be because one of his ancestors may have exposed to the blood of the dragon Smok Wawelski when it was killed near Kraków soon after the city was founded by the legendary King Krak.

As it was, Brictius had trouble integrating Gorzyslaw’s blacksmithing craft into his tradition, already modified to fit the teachings of the Order of Hermes. He had to resort to teaching him the basics of his own craft, woodworking, and leave it up to the boy to transpose those teachings to blacksmithing, a craft where he had inherited his father's talent. This left the apprentice with some limitations with Hermetic magic. The magic of the tradition being inherently focused on creation, it also makes direct destruction extremely difficult.

After 15 years of teaching, Brictius declared his apprentice a full magus and named him Gorianus, a Latin-sounding made-up word close enough to the young man’s birth name.

Outlook on life

From short experience as an orphan, alone and desperate, Gorianus was left with a deep need to help children in similar situations. He is almost always taking care of one or more children in need, and strives to find them a welcoming family. In the meantime, he takes care of them -- providing food and as much safety as he can, given his own occupation.

Still, those bad experiences have not changed his essential personality. He is invariably cheerful and looks at the positive of any situation. This does not mean that tragedy does not sadden him; it simply means he always looks to the future as bright and full of hope.

Now out of apprenticeship, he is looking forward to travelling and interacting with normal people again. He wants to use his skills (both mundane and magical) to improve ordinary people’s life. He’s also convinced that his skills are modest and will always look up to others better than he is. It does not bother him.

The one thing he is very secretive about is his immunity to fire and heat. To him, this was the cause of the family’s death, and the reflexes drilled into him by his father remain etched into him. Only Brictius knows about it, and Gorianus will only share his secret with a very close friend and his eventual family.