Siebold Wilfong

"'I think you’re going to be exemplary.'""- Cang Du, to Siebold Wilfong"Siebold Wilfong is a human male Wizard/Figher, and one of the original Heroes of Strathmore.

Appearance
Siebold is a youthful but modest 25 year-old man of slender build and average height. His messy, wavy black hair goes just past his shoulders, with bangs he keeps to the right with an elegant pinwheel hairpin. Typically sitting almost to the tip of his nose are his small black-framed glasses. Clean-shaven and neat, Siebold wears a white collared shirt with a black ruffled tie. His coat is dark blue, unbuttoned and extending just to his thighs, and he wears black pants with grey, heeled boots. When teaching, he ties his hair back and trades his coat for a brown apron.

Personality
Siebold is a very timid, helpful, and polite man, although as a result of his history he can be insecure, reserved, and not self-expressive. Siebold is also very diligent and strong-willed. Since he greatly admires the great mages of antiquity and has always dreamed to be like them since his childhood, he developed a habit of writing down notes about interesting spellcasters he meets. Because of this practice, Siebold has developed a great analytical mind and is easily able to form complex plans in short amounts of time, often taking advantage of his allies. Another result of this is his tendency to overthink anything that grabs his attention, which typically presents as mumbling or zoning-out.

Siebold is relentlessly caring and will never hesitate to help someone in danger, even if he knows that he might not have the ability or strength to do so. This is particularly evident with children or his students.

Recently, Siebold has become more withdrawn and bitter as a result of the loss of his close companion, Darren Eacker.

Background
Siebold is the only son of Alder Wilfong, head of the Wilfong clan of mages and a member of the circle of regents, governing Io’Nen along with the King Marwood Atherton. By the nature of his inappropriate pedigree, Siebold was raised away from the Wilfong clan by his mother Sybil, who belonged to a baking family in the financial district of Westspire. He matured knowing his father was a renowned mage, and although meeting him rarely, he craved for his father’s attention.

Siebold poured himself in tomes and magical texts, hoping to become a mage of the ability and knowledge worthy of a Wilfong. But while he gave it his best efforts, he struggled in mana generation—he couldn’t perform the spells he saw his heroes, his father included. Although he had total mastery over magical theory, his overall spellcasting was judged to be mediocre at best, earning only average marks in his practicums at the Royal College of Westspire. But whereas most working wizards memorized and recited spell incantations, Siebold studied their syntax and diction. He excelled in manipulations of known spells, often changing their incantations to change their dimensions and directions. Siebold would spend hours rewriting and optimizing spells, including the barrier magic his clan was so known for.

Eventually, Siebold’s conviction was recognized by a prominent mage and educator by the name of Cang Du. Mysterious and reclusive, Cang Du was the chancellor of the Hod Institute, a renowned magical school for young mages eager to commence directly to the Royal College. For three years, Siebold taught younglings who had much more inherent magical ability then he, 14 and 15 year-olds that could cast high level spells from memory. Never bitter and never vindictive, Siebold treated the group of 20 children under his tutelage like his own, and they grew to love him. He was particularly close with the highest ranked student of the class and heir to the illustrious Lanvaldear clan, Elisa. Elisa was at first irritated by his perceived mediocrity as a mage, baffled as to why someone who couldn’t abbreviate a single incantation. However after seeing the depth of his magical knowledge and his ardent concern for the well-being of his class, she came to admire him, albeit teasing him every chance she could.

One summer night, Elisa was unusually tasked to meet the chancellor in a grove behind the Institute. Noticing that she had dropped her pinwheel hairpin in his office after helping him clean, Siebold searched the Institute’s forest for her to return it. Then, a muffled scream. He followed the sound and came upon a grove, and there he found Elisa in Cang Du’s arms bleeding out of her left wrist. As Siebold sprinted towards Cang Du, yelling to ask what had happened, he brought to his knees by a hail of magical bolts and a flurry of fire. And before he could advance or retaliate, Cang Du was gone and Elisa with him. An hour later he arrived at the Wilfong clan home in tattered and in a bitter rage, pounding at the door. After repeated refusal by the servants to let him in, he blew open the door burning with anger. When Alder came to address him, Siebold threw the hairpin at his father and simply said, “Cang Du” Almost without hesitation Alder returned with Dreamlantern, their clan’s heirloom and threw it to his son. When Siebold caught the bladed, twisted wooden staff and looked up at his father at the top of the staircase. “Find her.”