Terafa's Named Wizards

One of the cleverer bits of world-building in D&D, going right back to 1st edition, is the use of a small number of 'names' in spell descriptors: Tenser's Floating Disc, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, and so forth. For the most part, these are named for PCs back in the first campaign (and one real person), but they serve to provide just a smattering of world detail in the game (just why was Bigby obsessed with hands?), without being obtrusive.

(Of course, there's a downside - if you're playing in a setting where Mordenkainen is unknown, what do you do with his spells? Though there's an argument that it's best just to not worry about it - after all, Nystul is unknown in every setting.)

Anyway, for the purposes of Terafa, I am similarly inclined to introduce a number of 'named' wizards. I will almost certainly not get around to populating spells for all, or perhaps even any, of them, but they'll serve as a useful set of names to drop in whenever I need a name for a spell, book, magical theorem, or other bit of weirdness. And, of course, we've already seen one: Cavcari famously has his Last Invocation.

At this point, the bit of my mind that likes things neat and orderly notes that there are traditionally eight schools of magic (Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation), and so the ideal would be to have eight 'named' wizards, one for each school. So that's what I'm not going to do...

• Alendra: A contemporary of Drachias, Alendra attempted to prevent his ascension to godhood but was thwarted as her alliegance to The Usurper was exposed. She was a mistress of the arts of compulsion and manipulation, and an Archmage of the school of Enchantment. Alendra is believed to have been slain by Drachias, although some suggest that she instead stole immortality from a Fae queen.
  
• Cavcari: Despite being best known for his famous Last Invocation, Cavcari was actually an Archmage of the school of Necromancy - his obsession was with death and its avoidance. He was counted as a master of the black arts, but is also credited with ending the Necrotic Plague. It is whispered that he finally found en exception to his own Last Invocation, and thus found a means to cheat death. However, it is also suggested that he was finally struck down by the gods themselves. Whether this was due to his hubris at including them in his Last Invocation, or out of frustration that they could not escape it depends on the teller of the tale.
  
• Delericho: In life, Delericho was an Archmage of the school of Abjuration. He was always noted for his paranoia, and with good reason - his list of enemies was long, and his every effort to shorten the list only served to multiply it. Eventually, Delericho was slain by a vampire lord he had offended... and reborn as one of the undead himself. Fortunately for him, one of the wards he maintained prevented him from falling to any sort of compulsion, and so he was able to destroy his sire in short order. Delericho is believed to remain active to this day, ever attempting to chart a return to life.
  
• Drachias: Before he became a demigod, and then rose to become God of Ambition, Drachias was a powerful archmage. His focus was on order and rulership, and he stood as an Archmage of Enchantment. Drachias was a contemporary, and some say lover, of the wizardress Alendra, although they later came to blows over his attempted apotheosis.
  
• Marna: The Lady of Stone, Marna was one of the first dwarves to embrace wizardry after the Great Awakening. She helped to guide the nascent dwarven clans to the surface, developing several powerful spells in their quest. Melira never held formal standing, but she is generally counted as one of the founders of the school of Transmutation.
  
• Mantakalasa: An ancient red dragon whose greed ran towards arcane might rather than simple gold, Mantakalasa's spells typically unleashed extreme force, and frequently her preferred element of fire. Mantakalasa adopted a human guise, in which she became a noted Archmage of Evocation. She eventually disappeared, although no record of her demise has been found.
  
• Melira: The oldest of the mages of legend, so great was Melira's influence that the moon is named for her. She was instrumental in the founding of the school of Illusion, and is formally recorded as the first Archmage of that tradition. Eventually, after several very long lives, she died. Her corpse was taken to the moon that now bears her name, and buried in a secret and unmarked location.

Behind the Curtain

Alendra, Drachias, and Mantakalasa are actually elements of Terafa from way back - two of them actually featured in a (really bad) novel I attempted to write some twenty years ago. No, you can't see it.

I named the moon Melira some years ago, but hadn't associated it with an archmage until now. I quite like that association. Likewise, the name Cavcari is one I've had floating around for a little over a decade, but haven't fully fleshed out until now. Of course, he's been part of Terafa since the start of this "Ultimates Version" effort. Marna is new.

Delericho was originally one of the major villains in the "Vampire: Rivers of Time" chronicle I ran during my university days (one of my "Big Four" campaigns). He was a vampire lord who was revealed as the sire of one of the PCs, and who eventually was slain after some years. Delericho is also the name I use online in a number of places.