Calligraph

Concept art

#0f5e7a "Allports"

Spellcrafting

Spellcasting

*“A second was all I needed.”*— Calligraph
**Calligraph** (Senglast "*Ixaselćye Kalligrapf van Exyzisryoch*", Senglast cyrillic *"Ихаселше Каллиграпф ван Ехйзирйоч*") is the deuterotagonist of *Hourglass*. He is a junior Librarian and one of the five members that made up the Company, and an instrumental part of the defeat of the Haze.

## Personality

Calligraph is soft-spoken, calm, and careful. He is the Company's de-facto strategist and accountant, responsible for keeping the group financially and legally afloat, and keeping the prying eyes of the Librarians and the Mage Council away, much to his distress when the rest of the group tends to overlook the effort he has to put in. He is cunning and calculating, and tends to be sarcastic in his conversations. Calligraph is a foil of sorts to Syntax, and tends to become upset whenever her plans go awry, particularly because a malfunction generally involves explosions in his house.

Calligraph was well known for his views on magic itself, being a highly-praised academic in the subject. He is a Librarian, a military and scholarly order of mages who founded their organisations atop reservoirs of radioconstitutive radiation and energy. The Eversail Library was founded on one of such reservoirs, the strongest of any known single source of energy. He is highly knowledgeable and skilled in spellcasting and spellworking, sporting an arsenal of customised Librarian equipment, which helped him in battle against a wide variety of opponents.

Calligraph loses his composure upon the discovery that Vista was an artificial planet, being the last bastion of humanity. His understanding of the world was stricken, and this reached a boiling point when Calligraph's parents became possessed, and he temporarily leaves the party after being forced to strike them down.

Calligraph enjoys drinking hibiscus tea and reading books in the study of his house, or the main observatory of the Eversail Library.

## History

### Early Life

Calligraph was born 31st July 212/1523 (2173853 A.D.) to Lunellum and Letterpress in the City of Bronze. Despite his lavish and rich upbringing, he often felt suffocated and cut off by his parents, who were mostly absent from his upbringing, favouring servants and housemaids to tend to him. For most of his early childhood, he found his only friend was in a small family dog named Custard.

Calligraph attended the Bronze City High Academy of Magic, and was recognised as a gifted academic. However, the reports from his teachers reported poorly as they noted his lack of interest in the general curriculum, as well as often directly challenging the teachers. Despite this, he was able to graduate with good remarks, specifically for his dissertation on magic as a physical force rather than a mystic one.

Despite their acknowledgement, Calligraph began to distance himself from his parents after they began to make clear their expectations that he follow life in their footsteps in the high council. Due to the expanding Librarian's Guild in the advent of the Printing Press being discovered a few decades prior, Calligraph took the opportunity to move to the quieter town of Eversail against his parents’ wishes. He began deeper study into magic and found great companionship with fellow Librarians of the town, whom he frequently challenged on matters such as existentialism and magic concepts. He passed the Librarian initiation, consisting of a written and oral examination. Suffering somewhat on the oral examination due to his neurotic tendencies, this caused the Archmage at the head of the Guild, decorated Locutor Archibald Winthrop, to be scrutinising of him in the years to come.

Calligraph’s life in Eversail was quiet and uneventful, taking it upon himself to take up new hobbies to fill in the long periods of time between bookkeeping. He enjoyed this quiet life in Eversail until the Hourglass Incident (327/1546, or 2173876 A.D.) After being alerted to a strange meteorological event in which an object seemed to be falling from the sky, Calligraph and two other young Librarians made their way towards the impact site of the falling object, which was already surrounded by hired bandits from the local crime lord. Calligraph attempted to talk his way into the site, but his attempt was ultimately thwarted by one of the brigands, forcing him to attack the group. After one of the mages he was travelling with is shot by one of the bandits, Calligraph unleashes his Ego Blitz, wiping out the entire congregation in the blink of an eye. Calligraph then secures the site, opening the object and discovering the body of a badly mangled woman, who was somehow alive despite her injuries.

### During Hourglass

With no way to identify the woman, Calligraph gives her the name *Syntax Error*, after a strange object displaying the same letters was found at the site. Calligraph's discovery was forwarded on to Archie, and detailed correspondence was exchanged, upon which the discussion of possible vivisection was brought up. Calligraph was strongly opposed to this, believing that the woman was obviously human, even if the circumstances of her arrival, as well as her attire, were completely alien.

At some point, while Calligraph was absent from the Library, Syntax wakes up and exits the Library on her own. This is discovered by Royal Guards patrolling the Library, and leads to a chase throughout Eversail which would eventually result in damage to the Library. After Syntax is ultimately captured, Calligraph informs her of the situation at hand, and tells her that in exchange for shelter and safety, she would help Calligraph fix the damage she had caused to the Library and surrounding buildings, which she begrudgingly accepted.

## Relationships

### Family

Calligraph had a shaky relationship with his parents Lunellum and Letterpress, as he disagreed on their world view and resented them for insisting he take a path he disliked. With his return to the Bronze City and the recruitment of the Torchbearers, he comes to appreciate them and what they have done for him regardless of his actions. He becomes distraught with their deaths.

###  Friends

* Syntax Error: Calligraph is the first to discover Syntax within the damaged Hourglass. While initially annoyed by her carefree and flippant attitude, he comes to appreciate her friendship throughout their journey through Vista, despite her continuing efforts to purposefully annoy him. He is furious after Syntax converts the majority of his house into a base after they gather some team members, but quickly learns to deal with this as well. After the events of Hourglass, Syntax moves in with Calligraph, and Calligraph states that *"for the first time, I don't seem to mind that much."*
* Standing Eight: Calligraph is initially opposed to Eight joining the party, questioning Syntax's motives in inviting a drunk bandit onto the team. Even after this, Calligraph continues to be mostly distrustful of Eight, but is quickly forced to trust him after one of the members of the Company is kidnapped. They form a strong friendship in the hardships leading up to, and during, the Second Human-Haze Conflict, with Calligraph admitting that he was initially wrong to judge Eight so quickly after meeting him.
* Lullaby: Placeholder.
* Ver Million: Placeholder. Calligraph also shares a common interest of discovery and knowledge with her.
* Wolfram: Wolfram was detached from the Hourglass by Calligraph for study. He was able to activate it, but was unable to elicit much more than an "access denied" from the operator. After Syntax is able to retrieve it from Calligraph, he becomes much more curious, asking it a multitude of questions to understand its makeup and purpose.
* Keine: Calligraph is entirely distrustful of Keine, citing her tendency to "randomly appear", her cryptic method of speech, and the fact that she refused to tell the party anything pertaining to her or how she is able to seemingly teleport at will.

## Skills and Abilities

### Arsenal

Calligraph commands an impressive variety of modified Librarian tools, as well as his own personal inventions, such as a compound hand telescope he created that allowed him to see across vast distances. Some notable items or weapons Calligraph uses are:

* The Abstract Lexica: Calligraph's personal spellbook, it contained all of Calligraph's notes on magic, as well as a listing of all the spells he had come across or invented. Unlike most mages, who simply replaced their tomes with better variants as they came across them, Calligraph instead opted to upgrade the Lexica as he went, citing sentimental reasons in that the tome was the one he had used throughout his entire Librarian career.

### Ego

Calligraph's Ego, Blitz, allows Calligraph to slow time to a crawl. He frequently uses this ability in battle, and his training with it has allowed him to exercise great control with it.

## Trivia

* Calligraph was originally named *Cavalier Diffidence*.
* Calligraph does not actually understand Senglast, the language used to cast spells - he has simply memorised a huge amount of combinations that can be used to cast spells.
* Calligraph represents *Katasmyo*, the Vistan patron of progress, the advancement of society, and the catalyst to greater events.