I am Dorthea Greskovičja, Historian of Boudičja’s Forge.
These are my notes on the life of Clineman, Sorcerer, which I have prepared for her Ladyship of the Forge, great may be her vault.
Of his birth and origins, there is nothing to know. Whether he emerged from obscurity or obscured his past, the result is the same. Nothing is known of his heritage, home, schooling, or start.
We first know if him from his defeat of Cneg, the Ancient White Dragon, bane of the Dwarves of Boudičja, and complete dick. We know in the fight, Clineman entered Cneg’s Liar with his companions, Antimony and Similacrum. We know Similacrum perished, his body entombed somewhere the vast tiaga of The Ocean Topographical. Antimony, of course, we know as another of the five Patalogical Sorcerers of the great disaster that befell Ur.
Shortly thereafter, there was a great falling out between Clineman and Antimony. Over what or why, I have not yet discovered. This is considered to be a Great Question of the Disaster.
Clinamen established his domain in the heart of Gloriana, where the great river springs upward into a great pool at the heart of the land. To the south, Clinamen established a friendship with the elves and fay of the Forrest Harmony and their great muse Singring. The elves of Nyc were especially aligned to Clinamen, with their city on Gloriana welcome. Much of the city of Gloriana was elvish influenced, in style and structure.
Clinamen appears also to have maintained, at very least, cordial if not friendly relations with Pataphor and the denizens of the city of Pataphoria. I continue to argue, and I am of course correct in that argument, no matter what the dimwits at Merdeterre Institute of Thaumaturgy will blather on about, that this was not a genuine friendship but a detente resulting from political and economic circumstances of geography: Pataphoria occupied a position of control over the great northern inland sea. This means, all trade down the River Gloriana had to necessarily pass Pataphoria. Otherwise, all trade would necessarily be directed overland from the south and out to sea via the city of Nyc.
Clinamen built his tower at the center of the great lake in the heart of Gloriana. How he did it, that remains a mystery. To the best of our knowledge today, the lake is effectively bottomless, being fed — we think — from the elemental plane of the water. How one anchors the foundation of a tower that reached several miles into the sky on a base of turbulent water is beyond our understanding. We know that his tower was visible from Pataphoria, just as Pataphor’s tower was visible from Gloriana. While the remnants of Pataphor’s tower may be found across the ruins of Gloriana, which we now, rightly, call Merdeterre, nothing appears to remain of Clinamen’s tower. This is another great question of the calamity, since several miles of stone must go somewhere when it is no longer a tower.
The School of Clinamen was a school of subtly and economy in transmutation. We know little of the occult knowledge of his school, other than the cult of Clinamen believed that all things exist within an order, and that order can be altered by influencing a part of that order. A clock, for example, could be reordered to a music box or a mousetrap reordered to be a tie-clip, each being essentially the same and completely different. One nearly had to observe carefully the workings of things to know how to subtly alter them.
Clinamen was also known for his faculty at the crafting of devices to observe what is very far from our eyes, whether the distance was in the direction of the very small but close or the very large but far. Observation, apparently, was a key to change.
During Clinamen’s reign, there were four great wars in Gloriana.
The first was fought against the Vampiric and Lycanthropic, which required Clinamen’s personal involvement.
The second and third were hellish and demonic invasions, both repelled by his principal lieutenants, Samedi and Vendradi. Notably, Samedi is said to have employed Hellions against the Demonic and Hellions alike during the second war — which created a strain between the Seelie Fay and the Elves of Nyc and forces of Gloriana.
The forth war, waged between armies unknown and an alliance between Gloriana and Pataphoria — we don’t know who they fought, where they fought, or why they fought. We know these Sorcerers fought together, which suggest that, whatever the fight, it required more than one ‘Patalogical Sorcerer to achieve victory. Let that sink in. Pataphor’s lieutenants, the great generals Collman and Grimble, returned scarred but victorious (see my notes on the Gardens of Collman in volume two of this study). Of Clinamen’s lieutenants, only Samedi returned, and what became of him is unknown – he either retired *into* Clinamen’s tower or *from* Clinamen’s tower, but he was never seen at the head of his army again.
Leading up to the disaster, it was observed that had been great activity at the top of Clinamen’s tower. The nature of it remains unknown, but the top of the tower was said to have changed shape and size to the observers of such things.
It is believed that the ‘patalogical weapon that destroyed Clinamen’s tower emerged from Pataphor’s. The nature of this weapon is unknown, and the aftermath of the weapon is equally unknown. All that we can say is that the tower is gone and the attempts to explore the ruins of Gloriana have been — unfortunate — for those stupid enough to undertake such an enterprise.
Following the destruction of Gloriana, disaster after disaster befell the nation-state. Gloriana was invaded by dark forces from Vulgaria, Singring the Muse disappeared from the Forrest Harmony, and the land was divided into northern and southern regions.
There is no tomb or shrine to Clinamen. His body, like his tower, was never discovered or recovered, leaving behind only the ruined roots the once great city, now mostly sunken in the corrupted lake that now flows into a river renamed The Black — for obvious reasons.
Today, there is no cult of Clinamen. The ‘patalogical and arcane mysteries discovered in that tower are gone with the tower itself, lost, forgotten, and abandoned. For those seeking answers in that place we now call Abandon City, I ask only that you name me beneficiary to your life insurance policy before setting out on your adventure.