Commorus Rex - Grand Levitator

Many powerful Wizards are considered celebrities for various reasons, but few have ever matched the conspicuousness and audacity of the great Commorus Rex, self-proclaimed Grand Levitator and Savior of Victims of Natural Disasters.

Born into a prominent Argethian family with Royal bloodlines, Commorus eschewed the typical somber Dirg persona. Instead, his exploits often rivaled those of the most flamboyant and wealthy playboys of the time. As a student at Vohnchester University of Magical Arts, he gained city-wide notoriety when he re-located the school’s Administrative Building onto a small, crab-infested island off the coast. Unbeknownst to him, the Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies was asleep in his office that night, which was just before finals, and had a very nasty encounter with several largish crabs as he attempted to leave for home the next morning.

It was a stunt that sky-rocketed Commorus to fame, but resulted in his immediate expulsion from University. But this barely seemed to matter as it was clear that Commorus had a very particular talent – that of levitating impossibly large objects. As far as magic was concerned, he was good at little else.

His services quickly became coveted by builders, engineering firms, wealthy landowners who wished to move their homes around to various locations, and farmers looking to move herds of cattle and megafowl. He moved bridges, boats, apartment blocks, government buildings, churches, museums, factories, city wall sections and defensive towers, and for no small sum of money we can tell you. This work quickly made him extremely wealthy, all while living a very public life as one of Gateway’s most charming and outrageous eligible bachelors.

Commorus began to feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled after about a decade of this lifestyle. And one particular job was about to entirely change his outlook on his talent.

The City of Gateway hired Commorus to move a city block in Marketown that had been condemned in order to make way for a new Rail Station. The block was notorious in Gateway because it had been densely populated to the extreme - a city unto itself dubbed “The Stacks.” It was one of Gateway’s many “hivetowns,” so-called because of the hive-like nature of its unplanned, labyrinthine layout.

The Stacks was a place well-known as a hideaway from tax-collectors and prying City Guard eyes. Tens of thousands of families lived in cramped, filthy quarters there, but despite these seemingly unlivable conditions, most inhabitants were fiercely loyal and protective of their home. It was probably because of the Stack’s scofflaw nature that the City eventually had to destroy it.

Commorus was hired to lift the entire block out of its foundation and drop it into the sea several miles out. What Commorus was not made aware of, however, was that the City of Gateway had not entirely cleared the hivetown of its inhabitants. Many people, young and old - most of them sick or invalid – were still in their homes , either unable to remove themselves, or refusingto remove themselves out of protest, or because they were chained to their homes by vindictive government officials looking to punish those who they felt were “bad elements.”

This fact became apparent once the block began to lift into the air. Commorus could detect competing levitation magic (though weaker than his own), attempting to keep the super-structure in place. But since this was the biggest job of Rex’s career, even the slight disturbance broke his concentration. Hivetown had barely been lifted four stories into the air when the whole thing tilted to the right, then collided with another block of buildings. Commorus attempted to rectify the situation, but overcompensated and sent The Stacks crashing into a complex of storehouses that were adjacent to its original location.

It was a disaster of epic proportions. But as devastating as the deadly incident was, Commorus discovered his new calling. He put his abilities to work removing and clearing out debris and chunks of destroyed buildings, and saved many people who had become trapped in the rubble.

After Commorus was cleared of wrong-doing in the incident (he was led, afterall, to believe that the hivetown was empty by Government officials), he began a new career as a hero of disaster-struck areas around the Known World. When earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, sinkholes, fires, meteors, volcanoes, mage-warps or even war struck communities, Commorus would be called in to help remove rubble and debris, and to help rebuild. Now, Commorus was not only an infamous wealthy playboy wizard, but he was the most famous humanitarian in the history of Gateway. Although he continued to do commercial jobs he never again took work from the City of Gateway, despite several offers. In fact, he often publicly denounced the City’s corruption and mismanagement.

As you can imagine, all of that fame, wealth and public denunciation of the Central Governance of Gateway placed him high on the Chancellor’s hit-list once the Inquisition began. Luckily, probably because of his unmatched access to resources from people and communities all over the Known World, Commorus disappeared himself, and is rumored to be continuing his work in various places throughout the Unknown World. Every now and then, new stories of his flamboyance and flagrance crop up and get whispered in backrooms and alleyways.