Agamede
Agamede , The Traveller
Probably the most famous explorer in Altruisian history, Agamede trail blazed a path across strata, on a journey that lasted eight years. Her discoveries laid the foundation for the trading routes that now bring wealth and influence to Altruis. Intially disowned by her family for her actions, almost 350 years later, her decendents are now renowed for heading the respected Exploration Service, who seek out new trading routes in a similar manner.
Physical Description
Special abilities
Like all humans, Agamede was assessed when she reached puberty for magical ability. She was born in a Water year, and under a period of heavy shardfall, so her Elemental potential was classed as 'promising, but latent. Were she not an eligible marriage candidate in a high ranking noble family, she might have attended the College of Magic and developed her talents, finding work as a water elemental in a hospital or suchlike. As is, her elemental potential remained untapped for her entire life.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Eldest daughter and third born of the wealthy Foulkas family, who were one of those rare instituions; a family of 'old' money, but who had successfully transitioned from land holding into trade and business. This had alienated them from many of the more traditional noble families of Altruis, but had maintained their position of wealth and prominence, where so many had fallen behind. During her childhood and youth, she wanted for nothing, and had the benefit of the finest tutors and teachers that Altrius had to offer, learning philosophy, mathematics, literature, and much more. Her father's plan was to marry Agamede off to another influencial and established family, to bind the two together.
What Agamede thought of this was irrelevant, and outwardly she seemed to be content with her lot in life. However, inwardly, she riled against any and all limitations; the gaps in the knowledge presented to her, the blank spaces on maps, the social constraints and expectations of a young noble lady. She pushed, and her father relented enough to allow her to learn how to sail a boat, mainly to keep her occupied. He might not have been entirely unaware that his intelligent and headstrong daughter would not settle easily into a domestic lifestyle.
On her seventeenth birthday, the week before her announced betrothal, she escaped from her family estate and travalled to Altruis. There, she disguised herself as her mother, and used faked papers and her natural authority to commandeer one of her father's trading ships. Replacing the original crew with one with fewer ties to her father's business, she took the ship, now renamed 'The Nomad' through the Gate Tree and away from Altruis.
For the next eight years she and her crew travelled through any and all Gates that she found, exploring strange new strata, seeking out new life and new civilisations. Going boldly where no human had gone before. When she returned, she brought back exotic creatures, unknown materials, rare Shards, and much information about other strata. Her journeys became the cornerstone for Altruis' vast trading network, trail blazing routes that are now some of the most profitable.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Agamede and her crew are directly responsible for the discovery of more than a dozen important strata, including Ubrok, home of the mysterious Ilikkamoam, Piom, with some of the richest Shard fields yet found, and the Gate Forest, a strata that contains two dozen Gate Trees within just a few kilometres of each other. She claims to have travelled through almost one hundred Gate Trees during her journey (not all of them accessible by ship), with some strata displaying extreme conditions; hellish strata with fiery lakes of lava, dark strata entirely undergound, strata as small as a reasonable sized village, and rising so high that the Source was visible in the skies above and the Planes could be seen directly. The latter claim was dismissed by philosophers of the Altruis College of Magic, but to her dying day Agamede held it to be truth.
Failures & Embarrassments
On her return from her voyages, no one took her claims seriously at first. On arrival, her ship was impounded, her crew arrested for piracy, and it was only because of who she was that she was not imprisoned herself. As the contents of her ship's hold were uncovered though, the truth of her amazing journey came to light, and the Nomad and her crew was suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Her father, and by extension her family, never forgave her slight and the abandonment of her proper place, and whilst she was never short of admirers and popularity, a certain section of Altruis' nobility refused to have anything to do with her for her entire life. It was only after her father's death, some twenty years after her return, that some trading companies conceded that the places she discovered were worth trading with.
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