Kellen Leffery
Kellen Leffery was in many ways destined to be an adventurer and an innovator. Born around 175 years ago to the Rock Gnomes Bilbron and Lorilla Leffery, originally of Windfall, but at the time denizens of Montspring while they worked as arcane researchers at the Torrentha Academy, Kellen grew up in the shadow of the academy and the legends of its adventurers that stretched back centuries. While it was a forgone conclusion that he would join the academy himself once he came of age, his focus there was much less certain. Would he take after his father, one of the key figures in establishing the original Artificer curriculum at the academy, or his mother, a prominent Wizard professor (or something else entirely)? His first years at the academy were often directionless, much to his parents dismay. However, during a final-year independent study on the runic tradition of the giantfolk, he made a key discovery that would shape the rest of his career: a series of recurring patterns between Giant runes and the academy's standard spellcrafting grammar (derived from ancient Draconic). His presentation on his initial findings throughly impressed the provost Audrarith, who sponsored his continuing research. This led to the developed of a new arcane language highly suited for manipulation of (and by) mechanical and magical items, which he jokingly called the "Draconic-Runic Arcane Cypher of Nethys", or DRACON for short.
With such a discovery, many would have rested on their laurels...but not Kellen. Making up for lost time as a directionless student, he reconnected with several of his former classmates to form a new adventuring party. This group, who became to be known as the "Rockers" (a play on many of the party members having a connection to rock/stone), made a name for themselves across the continent of Omros in the following decades. Their crowning achievement was an adventure through the Hells, saving much of the world from oncoming invasion and destruction by the armies of Gruumsh, the Ruiner. With most of the rest of his party looking to retire after this adventure, Kellen set up shop back in his hometown of Montspring near the academy. Working tirelessly on the problem that vexed him throughout his expedition through the Hells, he toiled to find a way to move past the limitations of the Sending spell. This effort was not in vain, as late one night over drinks with several of the leading figures in the Arcane Studies department at the academy, yet another insight dawned. By decomposing the underlying magic that unified the Sending spell with telepathy and somehow also the Light cantrip, the ansible was born. Based on a crystalline matrix encoded with DRACON sigils, this specialized magic item became capable of supporting reliable and magically efficient communication across long distances. After this revolutionary invention, Kellen would go on tour throughout the world promoting it, gaining even more fame and riches. Additionally, numerous wizards and artificers at the academy took up many lines of research based on his work. This lead to the development of many new ansible-based spells, as well as the establishment of the Sigilist Artificer speciality based on his applied techniques more generally, which has slowly increased in popularity in the roughly 80 years since its inception. To this day, Kellen Leffery's name is known by most people across the world's civilizations, to most for his "Leffery Crystal" (which is now more commonly referred to in generic form as the ansible), but still to many for his reputation as a world-saving adventurer.
In the current academic year, he had visited the academy a time or two to give seminars or attend noteworthy events. With the rising of geopolitical tensions in the later portion of 724, he has once again become a person of some interest. Given that the majority of his extended family hails from the province of Windfall, and he currently has his primary residence there, the center-point of the Dunhaar Free State rebellion, he became under suspicion (at least by Tilly, if not others at the Academy) for opening up a backdoor in the ansible's default encryption methods to Dunhaar agents. At first, it was unknown whether it was willingly or under duress, but it was later revealed to have been intentional given his strong support and central role in the rebellion.
While on tour over the past several decades promoting his inventions, he has been made increasingly aware of the plight of the working class around the world. Continuing to posture himself as a high-class figure of renown and a meritocratic success story, he began to work behind the scenes to empower workers' strikes and rebellions by providing them with arcane technology and means of organizing. It was not his original intent to support the Dunhaar efforts all the way to multi-province organized rebellion and secession, but after tapping in to the communications between Alethramach and Dinalth via ansible, he became fully supportive of the movement, disappearing from public view so as to still attempt to preserve his public image. He is conflicted as to whether the Academy would more likely be allies or foes in regards to his true motives, especially because it was Jadvigal who pressured Kellen to put the backdoor in the ansible sigil protocol in the first place.
Since the start of the war, he has realized that the rebellion, while spirited, simply does not have the logisitical support of goods and tools of war to survive on either front (Ixlan Republic above ground, Dinalthian Dynasty from the underdark). He has connections with Rsydalagh (code name "Revolution's Spark"), an ancient bronze dragon from the west coast of Oketh, however, and is trying to get her to support the war effort to increasing degrees. So far, he has managed two shipments of magic gear for soldiers.
Age
175
Children
Pronouns
he/him
Comments