Arcane Chancellor

The current Chancellor of the Arcane University is part of a long-serving dynasty which goes back… not particularly long but at least a few generations. His name is [redacted for the sake of mystery]. There is no legally mandated order of succession for the Chancellorship, and there is not even an unofficial one; the chancellors are appointed by committee rather than anyone appointing a successor. The chancellor is well acquainted with Primus, both as a personal friend and as a colleague. This is a side effect of being the son of a former Chancellor; given the lucky timing he was as close as you can get to being born into the nobility.

The Chancellor is more explorer than developer; he gets bored easily, and university policy reflects this. He also believes sincerely that it is better to make a series of rapid discoveries and leave expanding on them for later. He tends to be more interested in making discoveries and solving interesting problems than in coming up with a fully developed theory or technology (this is one of the very few criticisms frequently levelled at him). For instance, when the Faraday generator was invented, the Chancellor politely asked the inventor to discover something else. When it was protested that the generator had enormous potential, the Chancellor responded ‘leave that to the practical folk, as a scholar let’s get on with proof-of-concepts’. This reply was not recorded anywhere; but if the executive of the a of the guild heard about it he would slightly peeved rather than surprised. The Chancellor, while mostly well-regarded as a capable scholar and good leader, is really bad at dealing with non-scholars; he is to blame for much of the growing split between the Guild and University.

As a student the Chancellor was known for being extremely talented and charming, but also quiet and serious. He has grown more eccentric since he acquired tenure as well as more easily bored. Since the members of the guild council overlap a lot with the honour roll of recent graduations (for a given value of recent, since most of them are at a dignified grey-haired age), they sometimes still consider the Chancellor the ever so slightly arrogant whizkid from college. He is often compared to Da Vinci for his reluctance to finish anything. As a leader he considers himself more of a 'big picture' kind of person, relying on underlings and administrators to handle the details and implementation. The only area where he makes an exception to this policy is his own field of Theoretical Arcana; he is active in this field as a researcher himself, where he puts out some impressive and interesting (though nowhere near groundbreaking) work, and also occasionally teaches classes or gives seminars. The Chancellor is almost obsessive about what happens in that field, reading every single paper and often taking time out of his schedule to speak with innovators; he actually cancelled a meeting with Primus to play with the Faraday generator. The Chancellor is convinced of the superiority of the Arcane Science with all the pomposity of a God-botherer. He is not openly patronising of the other subjects, but it is common knowledge that he only tolerates the other fields. This is reflected in the funding he allocates; however this is justifiable since the arcane craft is the most profitable research as well as the most expensive.

As far as practical skill with the Craft, the Chancellor is actually quite lacking since he spent too much time on developing his theories and experimenting. Additionally, he prefers to spend his funds on curios and books (lots and lots of books) rather than lodestones. He is capable of using the limited skill he has to power a few interesting gimmicks which he has discovered. One of his favourites is a metal bookshelf, so that while in his study he can basically summon a book into his hand by muttering its name and expending arcane energy.

The Chancellor graduated from the Arcane University a few years before is usual, as is the custom among chancellors (he was in his late teens at the time). He graduated the equivalent of 'magna cum laude '. Academic excellence is one of the few (unofficial) requirements for the job. The others are moderate leadership skills and charisma, soundness (that indefinable quality), and unbridled curiosity- all of which he has in spades.