Hwangbo Yeol-jeong

Hwangbo Yeol-jeong, also called the weather witch, founded the field of temancy, or weather magic. In their lifetime, Hwangbo collected almost an entire library of weather-related data and wrote dozens of temancy scripts. An heir to an aristocratic Ju family of low standing, they had few responsibilities on their small estate, but could live and study as they wished without worrying about wealth. Their chosen passion was weather, first measuring it and, aspirationally, predicting it.

Hwangbo's protégé, Ryuk Min, carried on their work after their death.

## Three Fundamental Runes of Temancy

Over time, and with much trial and error, they created the three fundamental runes of temancy:

* **Su-jeung** measures how much water is in the air. The original Su-jeung reported a simple percent. More refined Su-jeungs report not the percent of water in the air, but the percent of water in the air compared to maximum capacity, or the saturation point. Because temperature and pressure affect saturation points, these Su-jeungs take longer to grow. They are notoriously unforgiving to draw and have numerous, sometimes dangerous, quasi.
* **Ondo** measures the ambient temperature of the material around the caster. Hwangbo intended Ondo to be used for air only but the rune will still cast if the mage is underwater or, as was tested in one unique case, buried under snow. However, the results are often incorrect as the rune itself is tailored for the intricacies of canopy-level air.
* **Giab** measures the atmospheric pressure around the caster. Hwangbo wrote tens of thousands of letters in their life, including to Dhi friends, who told them that at higher altitudes, water boiled at different temperatures. Fascinated, Hwangbo experimented with simple reactions at various altitudes and at last determined that air has a weight that humans do not feel because they are used to it—this is why entering the water results in a feeling of weightlessness. As with water, the more air around a human, the larger the pressure, which is why pressure deceases at higher altitudes. Giab essentially measures the "weight" of all the air above the caster.

## Lifelong Correspondences

Though Hwangbo never married or, seemingly, had affairs with other aristocrats or even peasants on their estate, they wrote tens of thousands of letters in their life, often three or four per day, to anyone who would write back. Their tone runs the gamut, from stiffly formal with higher-ranking Ju regarding official business, to casual and often sloppy with long-time friends. They reveal themself to be a lover of puns and codes—in later years, they communicated with Mathi Erpa almost entirely in cipher, and Makkadi cryptanalysts only broke the Hwangbo-Demses cipher in 64 PS—and a bit of a romantic, especially with Nebi Ma and Xiao Yaling. However, they never made sexually explicit comments. When Chu Yazhu admitted his feelings for Hwangbo and expressed a desire to visit them on their estate so they could "learn things about one another that cannot be sent in a letter," they cut off all communication with him for a year and wrote to Nebi:

> The betrayal I feel, it hurts me like a brand. I have given years of my life to Le Le [a nickname they had for Chu] and this whole time, he has been thinking thoughts like this? He ended his letter by revealing he had written it wearing only the thinnest nightgown. What am I meant to do with information like this, dhi? Should I reveal I read all his letters fully clothed? We used to discuss the clouds, dhi. We would describe them as shapes and emotions and songs. He wrote a song for me—I had it played last year for a celebration of the coming of my year. Now I cannot even think about it without becoming sick. Shall I throw myself into a sea? How can I overcome this without losing my friend?
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Hwangbo had the most success finding confidants in Dhi, where, at the time (and to a lesser extent, today), children were named by the day and month they were born on, and given one of ten or so common clan names. Hwangbo often wrote the same name on many letters and sent them all to different lowland Dhi cities to see how many people wrote them back.