Asteria Stormbow

Professor Asteria Stormbow

Once a Scholar of Green Magic from simple origins, Asteria Stormbow grew out of being a Jade Elf in Outlander territory once she came to the Unending Scroll. Scholars and Mages of all proficiencies came to the academy to learn about magic and utilize the talents that they had been granted by the goddess Lycana, but Asteria took her schooling a step further, eventually becoming one of the many professors at the Unending Scroll.

For decades, she served as a profession of both Green and White Magic as her specialties brought her to excel in both. Her aptitude for difficult magic allowed her to be a guiding force in the Unending Scroll, but this never fully piqued the deep curiosity she retained from her childhood. With an idea and some leftover classroom materials, Asteria would put in motion her greatest achievement.

Asteria Stormbow would go on to create the Research and Development division at the Unending Scroll that specialized in the creation of magical goods, constructs, and technologies that aided the Elven Kingdom and beyond. It was an unorthodox use of magic, but her achievements in this field brought important technologies to the world that saved and enriched lives.

— Appendix M of the Yllvalion Codex, People of the Unending Scroll

Asteria Stormbow, a Jade Elf that grew up as part of an Outlander tribe, used her talent for magic to earn herself a place at the Unending Scroll first as a student and then eventually as a professor. She specialized in Green and White Magic, learning and excelling in both during her time at the academy. Her proficiency with magic and the renown she gained as part of the Unending Scroll allowed her to form the Research and Development division, a special unit of the academy that focused on creating things of varying levels of helpfulness to all manner of people.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Outlands Crest

Outlands Crest by Crest via Coat of Arms Generator, created by RiverFang

One of many smaller factions in the Elven Kingdom, the Outlands encompasses wide swathes of land on the edges of the Elven Forest.

Asteria was born the only child of a Jade Elf father and an Emerald Elf mother, granting her the aptitude for the magic of the Jade Elves and the deep love of nature known to the Emerald Elves. Her father left the family when she was young, choosing to return to his life of study at the various magic academies across the continent. She was raised as part of the Outlander Culture, learning the ways of hunting and tracking, but her abilities with magic were a constant itch at the back of her mind. While her mother did not dislike her magic, there were few in the Outlands that could teach Asteria the control and knowledge she needed to properly use her gifts.
The leader of her mother’s tribe, a known user of Green Magic, took Asteria under her wing, teaching her the basics that few of the Outlanders had mastered as part of their way of life. Speaking with the plants and animals around them gave much-needed clarity to the world and granted Asteria an opportunity to test and hone her skills. While it was not strong magic, it was the basis for all Green Magic, a foundation that would serve her well as she learned more in the future. In her younger years, she was content conversing with the world around her and enjoying the feeling of her magic on her skin.
By her hundredth year, her magic had grown but her knowledge was stunted due to the lack of Mages in the Outlands. Asteria’s mother and the tribe leader saw that the girl had come to a point beyond what they could satisfy in the village and chose to ask for a seat at the Unending Scroll so that the girl could study. This request had to go through the Huntsmen Elders before it reached the Headmaster of the Unending Scroll due to the situation, but within months of the first communication, Asteria was granted a place at the academy as a fledgling student.

The Unending Scroll

The early days of being a student at the Unending Scroll were overwhelming for Asteria as she had never been outside of her tribe’s village. The size of the Academy and Alfensil was more than she could have ever imagined, but she quickly took to her studies, often asking the birds and mice around the campus to lead her to various places. She excelled in the use of Green Magic, quickly outpacing her peers who had little to no instruction before they entered the Academy. Asteria soon became a well-known student to all professors at the Academy, including the Headmaster.
After nearly a decade of studying Green Magic, Asteria’s aptitude and natural instinct for magic allowed her to branch out and work with other colors of magic. While she dabbled in multiple colors over the next decade or so, she eventually chose to specialize in Green and White Magic, often mixing the two in intricate ways to achieve new results. Again, she excelled in her new color, reading all that the Unending Scroll had to offer in its libraries and gaining permission to study in the royal libraries as she reached her thirtieth year of study.
Those at the Academy of the Scroll often graduate at their own rate, taking decades or even a century to gain all the knowledge they wish to before departing. For Asteria, she wished to stay part of the Academy for the duration of her life, studying all that could be learned and discovering things that had yet to be found. After five decades of study at the Academy, the Headmaster approached her, offering her a position as a professor if only she would choose to graduate. She would be allowed to continue her studies, ever learning more about the two colors of magic she had come to love.

Professorship

With five decades of study behind her, Asteria entered the Unending Scroll as a professor, specializing in Green Magic with some instruction in White Magic. Her earliest classes on Green Magic taught students the same methods that she had been taught by the tribe leader, often sitting and listening to the world around them. Instead of classroom instruction, she often preferred to take her classes beyond the enchanted barrier of the city so that they could listen to the forest around them and fully grasp the magic that they were learning to use. This style of teaching endeared her to her students, making her a favored professor by many.

Crest of the Unending Scroll

Crest of the Unending Scroll by Crest via Armoria, created by RiverFang

The Unending Scroll is one of the premiere magic repositories in the world and is home to the Academy of the Scroll. Here, great strides in magical research occurs as well as studies for those to wish to learn about the various colors of magic.

The nature of White Magic necessitated classroom learning, but this did not stop Asteria from using the same approach that she had used in her other classes. She believed that the ability to use magic was built upon one’s ability to feel and understand the magic inside them. While White Magic was academic, she taught her students that through knowledge, they could better understand anything, even spells that were seen as beyond them. Her approach varied greatly from the other professors of the Academy, but it seemed to have greater success.
Discovery was the driving force behind everything Asteria did. That was why she taught her students the way she did, why she immersed herself in knowledge. The unknown caused her to meld spells of different colors to see what the outcome would be and what she could create, always wanting to know more. This drive caused her to appeal to the Headmaster to create a new division of the Unending Scroll that would cater to people like her, to those that always had to know. She hoped that this division could help more people with their gained knowledge, sharing their outcomes with the world.

Research & Development Division

The Research & Development Division was meant to be for all those that were never satisfied with the answers they received. Those that were never happy with the reasoning behind why something couldn’t be done. This Division was created to find all the answers and then ask more questions.

— Asteria Stormbow

Although many in the Unending Scroll were surprised by Asteria’s appeal to the Headmaster, it was accepted and she began the process of recruitment for her fledgling division. There were no stipulations to join the division, just one needed to be inquisitive and willing to continue asking difficult questions. In its earliest days, the division consisted of only seven members with Asteria leading the research.
The projects, in the beginning, were simple, often only melding different colors of spells to create desired effects. Their processes were meticulously kept, often with annotations from those that had seen different results or other issues. Tomes were filled quickly, causing the division to be given its own wing of the Unending Scroll to hold research notes.
Over the following centuries, the Research & Development Division would continue to grow in size and scope. At one point, nearly one hundred members worked in the division on a variety of research projects, including spell melding, magical constructs, and a variety of magic items. This division would be Asteria’s crowning achievement, but she did not live long enough to see the division begin to make the changes in people’s lives that she had spoken of.

Species

Jade Elves

Ethnicity

Outlander Culture

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Elven Culture
• Jade Elf Culture

Date of Birth

23 Summer's Noon, 2000 IM

Life

2000 IM 1256 IM 744 years old

Eyes

Purple

Hair

Light Brown

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Bronze

Height

5'4"

Weight

115 lbs

Aligned Organization

Academy of the Scroll

Other Affiliations

• Elven Kingdom

Legacy of the R&D Division

While Asteria never got to see the ultimate goal of her division come to fruition, the Research and Development Division of the Unending Scroll has created a wide variety of items and technologies that have made daily life easier for a number of people. These items range from mundane to intricate items of great power, all because those in the division kept asking why something wasn’t possible.

Physi

One of the most important discoveries of the Research and Development Division was the Physi, an adaptive technology that aids those with a wide range of disabilities. The Physi was nearly an impossible discovery as the team was working on creating something entirely different, but the fluffy construct was much more helpful than the original goal.
While Asteria did not see the creation of the Physi, this creature embodies everything she had ever wanted the Research and Development Division to be. Her original plan had been to create things that helped everyone in everyday life, from the most simple of tasks to the most difficult. With her goals in mind, the Unending Scroll made the Physi free to anyone that needed it or at most 1 gold so that all could benefit from the research that had been completed.