Originally born in a small, traditional hamlet in Gantore, Arkady Farraday would, by his twenties, one of the most important people on the continent. He heads the League of Wizards, an international, nongovernmental organization that works for the promotion and study of wizards and wizardry. Though technically a research body and not a political entity, the League is a touchy political issue, especially in Ronia. For one, the League is based in rival Gantore, and headed by a Gantoran, and for another, the Church of Ronia, and thus the government of Ronia, officially oppose wizardry. Thus, the League is another faction vying for the new king Dakerai's favor (although word has it Arkady himself is vying for a certain tall, dark friend of the king...)

To outsiders, Arkady often seems like a strange choice to lead such an important organization. A phenomenally powerful wizard, he is a bit of a mad scientist and frequently risks life and limb in the pursuit of the science of wizardry. Legend has it that his mind was forever addled in an explosion caused by an experiment with dimensional gateways, but his close friends know that, in truth, he was that loopy long before the accident.

An incurable eccentric, Arkady is spontaneous, gregarious, and ravenously curious. Whether his strange behavior and absence of tact is a result of a child prodigy's lack of social skills, an addled mind, or simply the fact that he doesn't care has never been determined. Intelligent almost without peer, he reads and experiments constantly. He has delved more deeply into the sublime nature of his magic than any wizard in history, and the magic is beginning to take its toll on his body: his hair and eye color are subject to change at any moment, strange markings appear on his skin, and he ages slowly.

But despite his innumnerable oddities, he is continually reelected as head of the League. Eccentric or not, it remains that he is a shrewd leader and a brilliant man, able to take on kings, bishops, and emperors without flinching, and there is no one more selflessly devoted to the study of magic.


So here's Arkady and his pet snakey, Helmut. I've been drawing this guy for ages, but I'm still tweaking his design (there are a few examples of his earlier stages in my scraps). Drew everything here except the heraldic wolf (the symbol of Gantore), which I Photoshopped in and then printed onto marker paper.

Don't worry about the tiger stripes--miscalculation in a recent metamorphosis experiment. They'll probably fade.


Prisma, Copic, and Tria markers
[Dakerai]