Gehel Friedrek

"In honor of Gehel Friedrek. Whose wisdom placed her on the path of understanding, whose intelligence let her decipher the truths she found, and whose charisma ensured others heard her gifts. May she wander well." A plaque underneath her statue in Endya Square.

Gehel Friedrek (she/her) was influential for her work on entropy, magic, and the theorized fourth dimension through which magic operates. She was also the founder of Observitair An’ees the arcane College of Marsetan which overlooks Endya Square in The Village. In honor of her a statue was erected in 333AS after all hope of her returning from her journey into The Lost

Early Years

Gehel Friedrek was born in 234AS to House Kalur in what was then the independent city of The Village. Her birth was auspicious occurring the day after the collapse in Fools Lip. In her younger years, as the early signs of celestial ancestry began to emerge, some claimed that she was the reincarnation of those who disappeared in the collapse. Others instead shunned Friedrek claiming she was a doppelganger and facsimile of conscious kind created by the Lost. Born to the leadership of House Kalur, she excelled in her schooling. However, from an early age she pushed back against the nihilistic beliefs of her house, instead becoming fascinated by the precarity and absurdity of The Ristarcan Peninsula and situation that conscious kind found themselves in.
As an adolescent she has stepped back and rescinded her claims to Kalur leadership in order to pursue the study of magic. Without any formal academic institution on the peninsula Friedrek was forced to wander the villages and cities of the peninsula seeking tutelage. Hungry for knowledge she never stayed with any one instructor for long, instead choosing to move every few years. With funds still being provided by House Kalur she was able to spend her spare time writing rather than turning to adventuring or spellcraft as many others in the arcane arts did. While much of her early writing on theory has never been published, she regards it as essential for honing the skills required for her magnum-opus A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown.

Friedrek's Law and A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown

In 253AS returned to the Village to attempt to have published her manuscript A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown. At this time, there was little interest in such academic theorizing, especially around the arcane. Despite the connections she wielded through her house she was unable to get the manuscript published due to publishers concerns that there was simply no audience. Unable to get it distributed, she turned to practice to promote the contents of the book. Her impressive mastery of magic, and the specificity of which she could predict the effects, duration, and range of spells began to be noticed. Other practitioners became increasingly interested in how to replicate the work of Friedrek and slowly she was developing a demand for a written guide to her work.
During this time she met her later protégé, Xarm Heinrich (they/them) who became well known for their book Magic: A Critique of Energy Primacy in which they took Friedrek’s conception of a 'pervasive fourth dimension’ and refined it with explanations of how exactly the various traditions of spellcasting interacted with it. With the encouragement of Heinrich, Friedrek created a small pamphlet outlining the theoretical basis of her spellcraft. The accessibility of this pamphlet, her work suddenly was reaching a much larger audience. Beyond just her peers, hedge mages, alchemists, song weavers, and those with innate spellcasting talents began to consume her work. With an established audience, she was finally able to get A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown published in 269AS. The most famous passage would come to be the one outlining Friedrek's law, her theory that regardless of how one imposes their will upon the fourth dimension, there is a conversion cost paid in spellcasting and a loss of the original intent.

“When a spell is cast the material, verbal, and/or somatic components must be transfigured, their meaning translated, their power converted, to a form that is amenable to existing within the fourth dimension. Yet ultimately these are still foreign concepts and ideas; no sooner is the conversion completed then the original purpose begins to fade, to disintegrate, to fracture. Entropy. We step into the misty beyond and are shunted back no further than 30 ft. We conjure a lance of fire, one that travels straight and narrow unaffected by gravity or any natural law, and yet it dissipates after an arbitrary period. That which persists requires nearly single minded concentration, and even then, our grasp on that place will eventually slip through our fingers and the effect is lost.” Excerpt from A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown

The College

In the period after the publishing of A Reason-Based Approach to Understanding the Unknown, Friedrek turned her attention to construction a place of study for arcane practitioners. Convinced that a solution to the perpetual erosion of the edge would come from the advancement of arcane knowledge and technical expertise. Based in her travels and wide network of peers, Friedrek went to House Kalur to propose the construction of the Observitair An’ees, the Arcane College of Marsetan. This would lead to a rift between her and House Kalur due to her vision of the college accepting not just members of House Kalur or aristocratic residents of the village, but all conscious-kind. Receiving pushback Friedrek had to once again forge her own path, eventually having the college constructed in neutral territory besides the main crossroads of the city. The college grew swiftly and would by the end of Friedrek's life be a point of pride for the Village.

Reconciliation and Exploration

Little is known about why Friedrek ventured into the Lost in 321AS. In her later years she had reconciled with House Kalur, nearly a century later beginning to return to religious texts of both her house and The Order of the Earth’s Prayer. Those close to her say she began to hear voices, to become listless, and increasingly dissatisfied with life in the college. Whatever the reason, in late 320AS she announced she would be conducting a voyage into the Lost. Despite the reticence of friends and colleagues, in early 321AS she finished preparations and began her journey. At first hopes were high as members of the college received daily updates. Then, after a week all communications went silent and Friedrek went missing. Attempts to reach out to her failed and all attempts to perceive her condition or scry on her encountered difficulties. Both House Kalur and the college attempted to put together a team to go after her, but despite their considerable resources such an expedition was deemed a death sentence. Instead, all were forced to wait for further updates, updates that would never come.

Death and Memorial

In 331AS, after a decade since her disappearance, the members of the Observitair An’ees and House Kalur finally accepted she would not return and instead died in her attempted voyage. Over the next two years, the arcane college and leadership of Kalur would work to convince the district to construct a memorial for Friedrek. This ultimately led to the creation of a statue of Friedrek outside of the college in Endya Square. The statue is fourteen feet tall and made of a deep red wood inlaid with bits of marble and basalt for shading. Her eyes seem to still glint inquisitively and she stands with a regal posture demonstrating her roots in the aristocracy of the Village. She wears loose flowing robes, with 3 bands on each arm keeping the fabric away from her hands. Her face is human but her body is framed by celestial looking wings. She holds an owl feather quill in one hand and a spellbook embossed with triangular bits of sacred geometry and celestial markings. Water condensates at the tips of the wings and spills down into the fountain below. As the grandmother of modern arcane knowledge and potentially the most influential practitioner to ever exist this memorial is but a small record of the impact she had on Ristarca.

Life

234 AS 321 AS 87 years old

Circumstances of Death

Presumed dead after venturing into the Lost.

Birthplace

The Village

Place of Death

The Lost

Parents

Mary Friedrek

Ermen Friedrek