roam (Anathema)

All one has to do to know Roam’s life story - is simply ask! Happily he will recount his many tales of the great Nymenian conquests, the journey across the Mirror Bay and the Rithan Sea, the Ivranian knights and the fall and rise of kings, queens, the forming of Namarast and the battles of the Southern Clans and … Oh, are you still there? Hello? Please come back! Poor Roam hasn’t had a good ear in over a decade, and he does get very lonely.

A simple Nymenian historian and painter, Roam travelled across to Ivras during the conquests in the 840’s in hopes to document the history unravelling within the world before him. Though he had no battle experience, nor talent with a sword, his paintbrush was his greatest weapon and Roam found himself becoming quite a popular artist and storyteller across Ivras. Even during wartime, or perhaps especially during wartime, the need for art and stories was ever present. And Roam was more than happy to deliver.

Roam spent a good few years travelling, making coin and a name for himself by writing several books and being commissioned by important figures to paint their portraits until the founding of Namarast in 856. It was here after an extended visit to paint the first Archmage of the Order that Roam became aware of his own magic, which had long gone unseen.

Perhaps it was being around so many other mages, or perhaps it was some other untoward deed which unlocked Roam’s hidden magic, unbeknownst to him. Regardless, the man soon found himself at the mercy of his own hand. Unsure how to control the magic which now surged through him, Roam’s talents for portraiture quickly became his bane. As he painted one sunny evening out upon the branches of the Namarast keep, Roam realised that his subject matter - a fine bouquet of flowers - seemed to start moving as he painted. After some experimentation, and much astonishment, Roam began producing paintings which by all accounts seemed to be - alive. Yet, as he painted each subject, at first all inanimate items, then perhaps a toad or a bird where he could find them, he realised that as his life figures began to appear within his paintings, they vanished from the material world before him. It was as if he could capture a figure inside of his paintings!

Before Roam had much time to come to terms with his newly found magic, sparks of unrest began growing across Ivras as mages were looked upon by the king as something of a resource, to be controlled and used, rather than appreciated. Roam in all his imminent wisdom thought that this was a travesty, mages were works of art in themselves! Truly artefacts to be treasured, studied and understood. Over the years that Roam had known his magic, he had managed to remain a hidden mage. So when a particularly upset witchfinder came searching in his quaint little town in 958, Roam attempted to flee in what he thought would be a very clever way. Ever a lover, not a fighter, Roam knew he did not stand a chance against a band of angry witchfinders. In an effort to protect himself, Roam painted a self portrait of himself, and with some difficulty overcome by a far greater talent with the brush, entered his own painting. Once the witchfinders were gone, Roam had intended to leave the confines of his oily frame, yet found no way to do so.

About 276 years have passed since that fateful day, and after a few years of hanging on the library walls of Namarast, then being auctioned and sold off to a rich noble house, Roam still remains trapped upon his canvas. Though at first displayed proudly and used by house Wickham within their manor keep for several decades, Roam’s propensity to never be quiet soon wore on the dwindling family’s nerves. By the time the house’s final descendants owned the gothic manor, the painted mage was moved to spend what felt like an ongoing eternity alone, his painting covered and unable to leave, down in the wine cellar. [692]