Quentin McGregor
Son of Prince Brannart McGregor of Klantyre
Water Elementalist of the Third Circle
AC 1014
"I am not me. I am Brannart. I am Morphail. I am Jessica. I am Angus. Except when I am wearing my favorite kilt and my tartan—in which case, you may call me… radiant!"
Appearance
Quentin McGregor is altogether a poignant sight. He is a Kaelic man of tall, lanky build, a long tired face with sharp, piercing features. He has the reddish-brown hair of the McGregors, wild and disheveled, sticking out from under his bonnet. His deep-set, piercing eyes once shone brightly with the ideas of a genius mind, now only gloss over from the anguish, despair, and tragedy he has witnessed.
Quentin is always dressed in the traditional Kaelic kilt, bonnet, tartan, and sporran, with the plaid designs of the McGregors, but in a perpetual state of disarray.
Quentin has a most disconcerting manner of avoiding the gazes of people and not talking to them directly. He also has a habit of carrying conversations with himself—giving the distinct and unsettling impression that he sees visions and hears voices!
Background
By the time Quentin McGregor was born in AC 969, his father Prince Brannart McGregor was already too obsessed with Immortality to care about finally having an arcaner son—and very gifted one, at that. All all the doting and lavishing of affection on this brilliant young prodigy did not sit well with Quentin's inhumanly selfish father.
In AC 976, at the tender age of 7, Quentin enrolled at the Great School of Magic. Being away from the rest of the McGregors at Crownguard, Quentin became very attached to one of his uncles (Brannart's second cousin) and a high-ranking instructor at the Great School, Wallace McGregor. Master Wallace provided the sensitive prodigy the much needed guidance and supervision, both emotionally and academically, and under his tutelage, Quentin progressed into one of the most creative and imaginative spellcrafters of his time. It was also Master Wallace who introduced Quentin into the wonders of Water Elementalism.
In AC 981, two years after a series of bizarre and brutal deaths among the McGregors began to occur, Wallace McGregor was drowned by a school of hostile undines, allegedly summoned by a miscast conjuration—or so the Constabulary report said. It was Quentin who discovered the horrible bloated body, and as he maintained that Sir Wallace could not have erred, Quentin was then accused of involvement in the tragic accident. Young Quentin was devastated. He was not in his own mind when Prince Brannart had him brought back to the dark, malevolent loneliness of the gloomy Tower of Crownguard.
And it was at this time that Quentin began to hear voices and see visions. At first, Quentin believed them to be products of his wild and fertile imagination, or the cries of distress by his fragile psyche. But Quentin soon realized that these voices and visions were the spirits of the McGregor family—many of whom died violently and unjustly at the hand of his father. Later on, Quentin became more sensitive to the ghosts, not only of the recent dead, but of all his ancestors years and decades past. It is said that Quentin could not go around Crownguard, and even Klantyre itself, without making contact with the ghost of a McGregor long gone and dead! These personal hauntings slowly invaded into Quentin's everyday dealings and even into his dreams, until eventually, the voices and the visions would be became an intractable part of his own mind—even without the presence of the shades and haunts of the McGregors.
By AC 983, Quentin became thoroughly insane and uncontrollable. He was becoming quite dangerous at Crownguard (as most powerful psychotic wizards tend to be), and it was decided by Prince Brannart that he be sent away to the Lovecraft Asylum in Rymskigrad, a mental hospital of ill-repute within very perilous territory.
For five years, Quentin languished in the madhouse, with no visitors, save for the occasional agent of the Prince Brannart (who would actually be in Rymskigrad to spy on his enemy, Prince Morphail Gorevitch-Woszlany of Boldavia). But during his isolation, Quentin was under the compassionate care of Jennifer Lovecraft, a member of the family who founded and ran the asylum. In time, Quentin regained his sanity and his feelings for his cherish nurse bloomed into affection and love.
In AC 988, Quentin returns to Klantyre in time for the wedding of his sister Barbara to Sir Alasdair McAllister. At the wedding feast, Quentin imprudently revealed to all his secret love for the Fenswick lady, Jennifer Lovecraft. Not more than a week later, it was with distinct pleasure that Prince Brannart showed Quentin a letter from the Lovecraft Asylum announcing Jennifer's untimely death in a tragic laboratory accident. Quentin was crushed and would have descended to madness again had it not been for Mary McGregor.
Mary was Quentin's cousin orphaned by the recent string of deaths of the McGregors and newly arrived to Crownguard. Her compassion drew her to the poor, pathetic soul, and Mary came to believe that what she felt for Quentin was love. They got married in AC 989, with neither approval nor disapproval from Prince Brannart, and had their first child, Angus McGregor, in AC 990. Quentin found a semblance of a happy family life, and was uncontrollably overjoyed when Angus displayed prodigious magical ability before the age of 2. It was only when Prince Brannart displayed his sinister interest in the child that Quentin was shocked back into a semi-lucid, albeit partly paranoid, state.
When Angus was 2 and casting his first spells, Mary had a second child, Fiona, who died a few months into infancy. Two years later, Mary had another child, Amabel, who died the same mysterious death as Fiona's at six months of age. It was in the next year, upon the birth of their fourth child, Wallace, that Quentin discovered the cause of his children's death. Quentin witnessed his 5 year-old son Angus sacrificing his baby brother for some evil twisted magical experiment. At that point, Quentin lost control and violently attacked the child Angus. He could not be stopped, and it took Prince Brannart's most powerful spells to prevent Quentin from utterly destroying Angus. With a potent geas, Brannart took control of Quentin's fragile mind, leaving Quentin only enough consciousness and will to come face to face the horrors that haunted his life.
In AC 997, a new form of entertainment entered Quentin's life in the form of Sean McAllister. Sean was Quentin's nephew and a another child prodigy who was allegedly sent to the Tower of Crownguard for magical instruction. As there was no one to actually instruct Sean, Quentin took it upon himself to teach the child a thing or two about magic—although Quentin's idea of education was subjecting Sean to madcap experimentation and dangerous spell effects. Despite Quentin's chaotic methods, he did manage to initiate Sean into the Secret Craft of Water Elementalism.
In AC 999, Prince Brannart arranged for the death of the Castellan of Fort Sablestone, and decided to pass the position on to his son Quentin. Quentin was indifferent about the move to Sablestone, but Mary saw the benefits of leaving Crownguard. But even in faraway from Klantyre, Quentin is haunted by nightmares and odd messages from his father at night. Mary took upon the responsibilities of Castellan, while concealing Quentin's madness from the rest of the soldiers, lest they be forced to return to Klantyre.
But in AC 1004, upon the enfeoffment of the Principality of Sablestone under Prince Harald of Haaskinz, Quentin and Mary were forced to return to Klantyre. While Mary made good her escape and never returned, Quentin was not in his senses to resist his father's malevolent will.
Quentin McGregor has suffered a loathsome fate, waiting for some form of release from the evil and madness that pervades the Tower of Crownguard. His son Angus—whose secret dabbling into the Radiance is carelessly being exposed by Quentin's mad babblings—is only too willing to provide Quentin that release…
Personality & Quirks
Once a brilliant, imaginative, even artistic wizard, the schizophrenic Quentin is now completely mad. He does not know what is real from what is not. The voices he hears and the visions he sees are just as real to him as anything else in existence. His sensitivity to the ghosts that haunt the Tower of Crownguard has only made him prone to more psychotic hallucinations and delusions.
Quentin does have occasional moments where he seems lucid and reasonable, but he also has his sudden outbursts of frenzied paranoia and destructive violence. Throughout all this, Quentin remains intelligent, conversant, utterly polite, and strangely charming—at least, until his totally chaotic behavior emerges and shows just how truly crazy he is.
Web of Intrigue
Quentin is a mere pawn to Prince Brannart McGregor, politically and otherwise. Everyone that Quentin ever loved and held dear has been destroyed by Prince Brannart. Not that it matters to Quentin anymore, now that he is completely detached from reality.
Quentin's wife Mary McGregor is happy to be away from him, but still works to find a way to free him from Prince Brannart's grasp. His thoroughly evil son, Sir Angus, considers him an insignificant lose threat that he must deal with to gain the throne of Klantyre—not that the task will be difficult.
Quentin has no direct dealings with the rest of the McGregors, including his siblings, Sir Duncan McGregor and Lady Barbara McAllister, and his brother-in-law, Sir Bruce McGregor, and is inclined to treat them like the ghosts and apparitions that appear to him in the Tower of Crownguard. Not that he cared about these before mundaners when he was sane anyway, nor they for him, for they have troubles of their own. At this point, Quentin's only care is his own survival—whatever that may mean in his psychotic mind.
Quentin's nephew, Sean McAllister, is perhaps the closest thing there is to a caring blood relative, although Sean's feelings towards Quentin are utterly confused. Sean does not know whether to pity or fear his mad uncle. In any case, this would be unlikely as Sean will never return to Klantyre, and Quentin never leaves the Tower of Crownguard.
Style of Magic & Combat
Statistics: 9th-level mage, Water Elementalist of the 3rd Circle; Str 13, Dex 10, Con 11, Int 18, Wis 6, Cha 10; AL C (D&D), CN (AD&D).
Languages: Kaelic, Thyatian (Glantrian dialect).
Skills: ancient history (Klantyre), arcanology, etiquette, local history (Klantyre), planar geography (Elemental Water), reading/writing, spellcraft (+2), spellflash.
Weapon Proficiencies: dagger, staff.
There was a time when Quentin was hailed as the most prolific crafter of new spells at the Great School. His spells were creative and imaginative, sometimes quirky and fun, sometimes bizarre and outlandish, but always masterful and loves by the trendy Glantrians. His early spells, such as Quentin's inexplicable absurd sogginess or Quentin's crazy upward rain, reflect his expertise in water elementalism and his unique sense of humor. But his later spells, like Quentin's sea of blood and Quentin's dampening of the spirits, belie the darkness and the madness in his haunted life. With his days of spell creations long done, only the spells that bear his name as a reminder of his genius.
With Quentin's madness, he has become too frenzied to engage in spellcraft, but it does not diminish his spellcasting or magical power one bit. He can still manage to cast spells to protect himself or to assault any threats—real or perceived. If anything, his psychosis has only made him more dangerous. When such paranoia besets him, it is best to keep away, as devastating violence usually follows.
"What a shame! An utter waste of magical talent! Of course, I blame Brannart, who destroyed his own son for his sick senseless enjoyment!"
(Prince Étienne d'Ambreville)
References:
History of House Crownguard
Spells of the Secret Craft of Water Elementalism
Sean's Indecent Frightful Wetting
Author: Kit Navarro