Mirren of the Archmages

Mirren was a highly talented Thaste mage and researcher born to the Archmage family. She held the role of Archmage for many years before meeting her end during the Cronem Incorti, and is the mother of Luxanne, the current Archmage. She had pink hair, worn in a signature recognisable style of three side-by-side ponytails, and deep indigo eyes.

Personality
Mirren had a very scientific approach to life in general- very much the rationalist and empiricist, she dismissed the notion of neither magic nor the natural forces being mysterious things that “just were”. She had a disdain for the way magic was commonly treated, as some sort of ambiguous intrinsic power. Typically one expects people with strict methodical, rational outlooks on their work to have a certain kind of humourless, cold ‘typical scholar’ personality, as all too many do (especially Thaste). However, this was far from the truth in Mirren’s case. She had a very cheerful, outgoing and friendly personality, and loved to make jokes and mess around with people. She was also a very passionate person, conducting herself with great enthusiasm and zeal whenever she talked about something that interests her. She was also fond of just putting energy into anything she does or says, exaggerating words and actions just for the heck of it.

Abilities
Mirren was an expert in her field, the manipulation of different forms of energy, i.e. electromagnetism, heat, light, and sound. While having a very thorough understanding of all of the above, her preference and speciality was electricity & magnetism. She also had a fondness for practically applying her understanding of light to perform a sort of illusion magic (without “cheating” and supplementing it with mental magic as most illusionists do).

Biography
Following through with her views on the workings of magic, Mirren both furthered modern rational understanding of magic through her own work, and also ensured that this as well as work by previous mages on the same topic was largely incorporated in Academy education. She worked not just as a solo researcher and administrator, like most Archmages, but as a hands-on teacher of many classes as well; she was well-respected and loved, and the impact on her students seems to be a direct proponent of a more rational perspective to magic seen in Academy graduates (and consequently the upper echelons of mage society) in the past decades.

Mirren was widely liked and respected, by some even adored and admired. The only thing to tarnish her overall positive reputation was her decision to marry a Dimian man; this was looked down upon by some due to the lingering idea that the Archmage blood must be kept as pure as possible (in the past this line of thought even led to incest in the name of pure blood, but this was stopped centuries ago). In reality, Mirren had done much of her own research into her family’s hereditary power, and everything indicated that the genetics of the other parent should have no effect on the potency of Archmage power. As is too often the case, not everyone was able to be convinced away from their stubborn ideals to see reason; this frustrated her greatly but ultimately she chose love over the approval of stuffy traditionalists.

After over two decades of teaching, researching, and living out her role as Archmage, Mirren met her end at the hands of the Lorisylum Omnascio, who wanted desperately to understand and harness the power in Archmage’s blood for themselves; killing her in the process of their research. The same chain of events are what lead to Luxanne becoming how she is today, the loss of her mother and means by which it happened having a permanent impact on her. Mirren’s demise was met with much grief in the wider community also; some thousand students, academy staff, and other people both high and low profile she’d met and inspired through her life. The day the news got back of her fate has now become a sort of unofficial annual day of remembrance for her, almost everyone involved in the Academy and many other outside of it paying respects that day, her memory remaining fresh in their minds.