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PLAYER INFO.
NAME: Abilene (Abi)
PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her
ARE YOU OVER 18? Yes
CONTACT:

journeys
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A

CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Christopher Wolfe
CANON: The Great Library
CANON POINT: End of Paper and Fire (book 2), when the protagonists are sent to Philadelphia
AGE: Never stated, but context clues suggest mid-to-late 30s
GENDER: Male

HISTORY: The Great Library takes place in an AU version of our own world—one where the Great Library of Alexandria never burned, but instead grew to become a bastion of learning and knowledge, eventually effectively becoming its own independent state ruled by the Archivist of the Great Library and his Curators, all known as the "Magnus" of their respective disciplines. By the series' beginning in 2031, the Library has become an international power with the knowledge and capability to destroy small countries if threatened; however, the Library works under a banner of impartiality and keeps out of affairs like wars or trade embargoes. Critically, the Library has discovered what is known as the Doctrine of Mirroring, which uses an element of alchemy known as quintessence to link a blank book (known as a Blank) to an archived copy of a desired volume. With the ability to keep original books safe while allowing people to call them up in a Blank to read at any time, the Doctrine of Ownership came into being, making it illegal to own original copies of books.

Christopher Wolfe was born into the Library—his parents were both Obscurists, or individuals with the ability to manipulate and shape quintessence. The number of Obscurists in the world have been shrinking with every generation; by the time Wolfe is born, any Obscurist is hunted down and brought back to Alexandria and the Obscurists' Iron Tower, from which they will never leave. Wolfe was born without the Obscurist's talent, and was taken from his mother and the Tower at age 10 to one of Alexandria's orphanages. (Wolfe's Childhood; author's Wattpad) Brought up by his mother to learn and study and question and think, Wolfe read any book he could get his hands on, even as he learned more practical skills like how to throw a punch and defend himself. At 13, a friend of his mother's (a Library Scholar with a lifetime appointment) offered him the opportunity to join the new class of postulants forming to vie for entry into the Great Library—it is a cutthroat struggle to make it through the training, but the honor of becoming one of the Library's servants is an incredibly high one and demands respect around the world.

Wolfe took the opportunity, joining the postulant class and, by age 18, becoming a gold-banded Scholar with a lifetime appointment to the Library. After becoming a fully-fledged Scholar at 15, Wolfe had written 10 "highly valued" technical works, won multiple awards, and been granted a private office in the Lighthouse of Alexandria (which still exists in this universe). In his own words, "I was eighteen years old, arrogant, and utterly secure in my own importance."

That superiority complex lasted about five days after leaving Alexandria's boundaries.

The Great Library isn't without enemies; it is in a constant struggle to keep original books out of the hands of smugglers. But its greatest enemies are known as the Burners, a group of free-thinkers that think the library's motto ("Tota est scientia", or "Knowledge is all") is a lie and that "a life is worth more than a book." On Wolfe's first excursion as an official representative of the Library, sent to the Serapeum (or branch library) of Moscow, he learned exactly how far the Burners were willing to go to undermine the Library: Not only was he almost killed en route to the Serapeum in a guerrilla attack (only the High Garda Commander's quick reflexes saved his life, at the cost of her own), but the Burners planned to immolate him with Greek fire inside a vault that housed hundreds of original books as a testament of their devotion to the cause. (Stormcrow)

The trip to Moscow wasn't all bad, though; not if you ask him. It's where he met Niccolo Santi for the first time, a young lieutenant in the High Garda who Wolfe immediately fell head over heels for. When Santi, who stepped up as Acting Commander after his superior officer died, went missing, Wolfe began to learn what it was like to care about someone else and found he would move heaven and hell alike for the young Italian man. After their trip to Moscow, the two of them became fast friends, then lovers. Things were good!

But back to the Great Library... the thing about power is that it corrupts. Over the centuries, the Archivists of the Great Library had realized that there was a certain amount of responsibility that was inherent in their role—they had to decide whether knowledge was acceptable to share with the world. As time passed, the Archivists began to interdict research and discoveries that threatened humanity and the world—chemical weapons, for instance. Or inventions that might undermine the power of the Library as the arbiter of the world's knowledge.

In his early 30s, Wolfe struck upon the idea of what he called a press-printer, using a system of movable letters to line up rows of text—such a device would remove the burden of the Library's survival from the shoulders of the Obscurists, he thought. What Wolfe didn't know was that the idea of the press had been proposed again and again, beginning with Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. Each and every Scholar who had voiced the idea had been put to death, their works and existence systematically stamped out from the Library's archives. They were erased. And that's what would have happened to Wolfe, too—if not for his mother, the Obscurist Magnus. As the second-most powerful individual in the Library, she intervened to keep him alive.

It was all she could do to protect him, but in the end, death might have been kinder. Wolfe was imprisoned and subjected to all manner of torture as they sought to find out who else might have known about the press-printing idea. It was all he could do not to implicate Santi, but Wolfe held on and was finally brought back and left at Santi's doorstep in Alexandria, a broken mess of a man. Santi was the one that helped him pick up the pieces again, learning to live without looking over his shoulder every five seconds.

Wolfe lives on the sufferance of the Archivist and the Curators, and he knows it. At the beginning of Ink and Bone, it has been three years since the fateful day he sent his manuscript to the Artifex Magnus, and Wolfe has become a bitter, angry man. He is named Proctor of the incoming class of postulants, forced to mentor 30 aspiring youths that remind him of his own innocent belief in the Library. Wolfe hates every second of it, but he does his best by his students; if he's a prickly bastard, it's because he knows that to survive the Library they'll need to be able to handle this. He guides them through training, devising tests and trials to push them to their limits, but fights to protect them when the Archivist decides to send him and his students into an active war zone to retrieve original tomes from a Serapeum before they are destroyed in the ensuing battles. (Wolfe is damn sure that the Archivist is trying to kill him and his students are lambs being led to the slaughter. He's not entirely wrong.) He and Santi work together to bring their postulants out of Oxford in one piece, even when it means having to make hard choices like leaving an infant behind to maintain the Library's neutrality, but when one of the postulants, a brilliant German boy named Thomas, creates his own prototype of the printing press...

"If I was left alive for a reason, it was this one. To save that boy." Wolfe (Santi by his side) immediately tries to run to Thomas's aid, to prevent him from being arrested and suffering the same fate that Wolfe himself did, but they're too late—Thomas has disappeared, and they are told that he is dead. Wolfe can only give his remaining four postulants their final placements and grieve... but not for long. One of the other postulants, a too-sharp boy by the name of Jess Brightwell, finds proof that Thomas might be alive, imprisoned in the same way that Wolfe was, and his former-postulants begin to conspire to find where Thomas is being kept.

They find that Thomas is being held beneath the Basilica Julia in Rome, and work on a plan to rescue him that is triggered earlier than anticipated when the Artifex Magnus sets them up in a trap. Wolfe, left behind in Alexandria when Santi, Jess, and fellow High Garda soldier Glain Wathen are sent to Rome to act as an honor guard for the Artifex, makes a move to join them by a process known as Translation (an Obscurist process wherein the traveler's body is broken down into its most minute properties, sent through the world's quintessence to the desired location, and reassembled in a whirl of flesh and blood and bone. It's excruciatingly painful), joined by another of his former postulants, Obscurist Morgan Hault. They, along with the last of Wolfe's former students (Dario Santiago and Khalila Seif), manage to rescue Thomas, but when there's no way to escape Rome, the group plunges back into the lion's den, Translating into the Iron Tower.

It's a temporary respite. In searching for somewhere to hide, the group discovers what are known as the Black Archives—a massive dumping ground for all of the research and discoveries the Library had decided the world wasn't ready to have. Wolfe's manuscript is there, one proposal of an entire section devoted to printing in almost every language. They aren't given the luxury of exploring, however, as Wolfe's mother appears and lets them know that the Artifex Magnus was alerted and is on his way. She bids them to take as many volumes from the archives as they can and circulate them, promising that she'll do what she can to help them.

The Artifex arrives before they can make their escape. Disarmed and taken into custody, they can only watch as he sets fire to the Black Archives, destroying thousands of years of research and history and art—the only things to survive are the volumes the group has packed away in their bags. The one saving grace is that the smoke allows them the element of surprise as the group springs a last-ditch attempt to fight and flee; Wolfe's mother uses all of her power to send them to London, where Jess's book smuggler father has been bartered with for safe passage and a place to hide and waits. Callum Brightwell has made a deal with the devil, however, temporarily teaming up with Burners to attack and seize the London Serapeum's Translation Chamber, and at the final hour the Burners turn traitor, declaring that the Library rebels belong to them and threatening to kill Callum if he doesn't leave Jess behind. "Take us to the Philadelphia Serapeum," the Burners' leader demands of Morgan. "We are going to the City of Freedom."

Wolfe isn't expecting to be Translated to Santa Rosita.

APPEARANCE: Wolfe is Egyptian, described as having "nut-brown" skin and dark, shoulder-length hair. He tends to dress simply in a black suit and the black silk robes that all Library Scholars wear, with a worked gold band chased with hieroglyphs and the Library's symbol noting his appointment to the library. He's a Scholar, but Wolfe has had a hard life and knows the importance of being able to survive by his own strength. He won't be winning any prizes for bodybuilding, but he's fit enough to run and climb and fight, even if he'd prefer to leave that to the professionals.

ABILITIES: Wolfe is a Scholar. He always has been and he always will be. Growing up in Alexandria, he speaks Greek as his main language, but he also knows Arabic, English, Italian, Chinese, and Russian (at a minimum; it's very likely he speaks more but I don't have any information to base further guesses off of), and can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. He's a brilliant mind and critical thinker, and it was thought at one point that he would be the next Artifex Magnus, meaning he has a particularly deep understanding of the sciences and engineering. Having gone through postulant training at Ptolemy House, he has been trained in basic combat and firearms use; while Santi can outshoot him any day, Wolfe isn't incompetent by any means. At the end of the day, he's a normal human!

There are, however, two/three item-based regains I would love to get for him at some point. The first/second is a set of his black silk Scholar's robes and his gold Scholar's bracelet. He may be able to find something similar in Santa Rosita, but having your own stuff from home is always nice...! The second item is a bit more complex: Every character in the Great Library carries what's known as a Codex. It seems to be very similar to our cell phones today, but is entirely text-based: It's a small leather-bound book with multiple pages that can load and display text. Each Codex contains the "Core Collection," a list of texts mirrored directly from Alexandria, and can send and receive text-based messages. Official orders and documents (such as Jess's official notice of being accepted for Library training) are almost always sent through Codex; they're ubiquitous throughout the world. I'm open to any limitations that may need to be placed on it!

SUITABILITY: To quote a deleted scene from Paper and Fire, "Wolfe was a complicated man who'd suffered a great deal, and with remarkably little visible scarring—at least, where it could be seen. But sometimes, just sometimes, you saw it in his eyes. This was a man who fought with ghosts." (Source) Wolfe has seen a lot of horrors in his life, but he's resilient. He will not like the oddities of Santa Rosita, but frankly, almost all of it is going to be odd to him. There are creepy zombie-like children outside waiting to attack? Well, apparently his television is normal, so maybe those are too. Wolfe is distrustful as a default state, so he'll be able to roll with the punches as they come and even push back if the time sees right. He probably won't be the first one to call it out in public, though.

PERSONALITY.

● Your character has a chance to undo a terrible mistake, but in doing so, there could be unintended consequences for everyone they know. Is it worth the risk? Or should the dead stay dead?

Gods, does he want to. If Wolfe were offered the chance to undo his greatest mistake—submitting his manuscript on the printing press to the Library—he would want so badly to take it. If he did, he and Santi wouldn't have been through so much. He would still have a future. He would still be able to enjoy researching and learning for knowledge's sake, and he wouldn't have to constantly be on guard for the Archivist.

But if he did, he wouldn't have mentored his students—his children. "Our children are growing up very well," he's told Santi, and he means it. For as much trouble as they cause him and as harsh as he can be with them, Wolfe is proud of his students. If he undid his mistake and lived his life without that hell, who would be there for Thomas when the boy accidentally followed in his footsteps? Who would point out to Jess that he's more than his family's tool? Wolfe would desperately, desperately want to take the chance and undo his deeds, but his children have burrowed their way into his heart enough that he couldn't risk them living that hell in his place.

● If your character had the option to permanently lose the ability to feel certain negative emotions like fear or grief, or permanently forget certain memories, would they take it? What if they will never know that something has been taken from them? Does loss only matter if it's known what's missing?

Interestingly, Wolfe has actually been through something like this! Similar to the prior question, he would desperately want to. If the question was posed even a year earlier than his current canon point, he would say yes without a second thought. But when Thomas was taken, the only way they were able to find him and plan for his retrieval was through Wolfe's memories. Wolfe's memories of his time beneath the Basilica Julia are so traumatic that he's repressed them; he doesn't remember much about those days and he's better off for it. But when Jess comes to him, saying, "I think part of [the information we need] is locked up in your memories, Scholar. …We've tried everything else," Wolfe agrees to try a form of hypnotherapy (performed by a Mesmer) to try and retrieve any information from his repressed memories that may help them. It's torture for Wolfe, and he's left so distraught by the experience that he throws a Blank at Jess and shouts at him to get out, tears streaming down his face.

It was the only way to save Thomas.

So if there were a way that the memories could be recalled, similar to how the Mesmer teased the memories out of him when they were really needed, then Wolfe would take it in a heartbeat. If not... well, he's repressed those memories for this long, and odds are he'll be dead soon enough anyway. Make him the offer again once the Archivist is dead, when he can be certain there are no more pertinent details locked up in his skull that they might need to rescue a loved one, and then we'll talk.

● Could your character ever forgive themselves for something morally wrong that they've done? No matter how much time has passed? No matter how much penitence has been done? Is being sorry enough to be a good person?

Yes. Wolfe has done a lot wrong in his life—he's let High Garda soldiers die for him on far too many occasions, let his life be worth more than theirs. At some points, he even believed it; he thought that the High Garda were just failed Scholars and thought himself superior to them. But everything wrong he's done in his life has been in pursuit of a higher goal. The High Garda that have died protecting him died believing in the mission of the Great Library and his ability to continue it. The infant that he ordered Jess to leave on the ground upon leaving Oxford—the infant that Wolfe himself then passed back into the city, knowing that it was about to be barraged by Greek fire and that it was unlikely the child would survive? He had to do it; had he not, the neutrality of the Library would have been compromised and he, Santi, their students, and the High Garda escorting them would have all been executed out of hand by the Welsh army. With the exception of the first life lost to his arrogance, Wolfe has only ever done what was necessary.

He doesn't consider himself a good person, though. Sorry or not, actions speak louder than words.

● Your character has a secret they have been sworn to, but revealing this secret could save the lives of countless others. Is it worth breaking the promise to save others, or is betrayal never justifiable?

Q: Is the life saved Santi's? His own? If (Y), fuck your secret.

That's the short form, anyway. Wolfe doesn't care if the people around him have secrets. In Ink and Bone he reveals that he's known for some time that Jess came from a smuggling family, just as he knew that another postulant came from a family of Burners and that Morgan was an Obscurist trying to erase any trace of her talent from Library records. He's willing to keep those secrets, because to him it doesn't matter what secrets a person is hiding; what's important is their actions and their goals. However, there are two scenarios where Wolfe will betray a secret, and he won't feel guilty one bit: (1) If they're at a crossroads and revealing the secret will result in the greatest opportunity for success, and (2) if keeping the secret might risk his own or Santi's life. When Santi states that the acting mayor of Oxford is offering extra rations to anyone who brings them to him as hostages, Wolfe has no qualms about outing Jess's smuggling connections and making use of them. Wolfe is willing to let Morgan join the postulant class late (in spite of how he's been sending postulants home for any infraction, or even at the luck of a die toss) and is willing to let her disappear without reporting her as an Obscurist to the Library so that they can take her to the Iron Tower. However, once the Obscurist Magnus knows that Morgan is with them and gives a direct order for her return, Wolfe does everything in his power to ensure that she stays with them. As he tells Jess, "I told you, Brightwell. I keep secrets. But not at the risk of my own life. Not anymore."

● Has your character ever gotten joy out of hurting others, physically or mentally? If they have, does it scare them?

No. While Wolfe is an angry, bitter man, he's been hurt too much himself to enjoy inflicting it on others. The only joy he might get out of breaking something down would be the grim satisfaction of tearing the current corruption of the Library down to the flagstones—and even then, he only wants to destroy it so that they can replace the corrupt Curia with members of the Library who still believe in the dream it was originally founded on. Wolfe can be harsh and intentionally cutting, but to say he takes joy in it implies that his tone is intended to affect the person he's speaking to, rather than just being a reflection of who he is.

WRITING SAMPLES.

NETWORK SAMPLE:
It appears as though I've suddenly moved to this neighborhood. Curious, as the last I knew I was on my way to Philadelphia. Either my mind is playing tricks on me, or I'm forgetting the details of the decision to come here instead.

[It's about as close as he'll come to asking what's going on. If there's one thing Wolfe has learned in his life, it's to play his cards close to his chest.

But there are things at play here that he can't understand; technologies he's never seen outside of the Iron Tower and printed books on shelves in his living room. It's enough to put him on edge, and enough to push him to take a chance.]

I have questions about this community. Should anyone be willing to answer them, I'll be waiting at Mapleleaf Park.

LOG SAMPLE:
It's not Wolfe's fault that he almost doesn't make it to the park after he'd made his request to the network. One of his neighbors had been particularly chatty as he left the house, seemingly not understanding that his short, terse answers were code for "leave me alone." He'd been close to loosing a particularly barbed comment when she'd made mention of the Library—and Wolfe's interest had been piqued.

But Wolfe is a strict man, and he is no less strict on himself than he is his students. He'd stated that he would be waiting at the park, and so to the park he must go... but later that afternoon, Wolfe makes a detour on his way home, following the directions he'd been given until he arrived at the Santa Rosita Public Library.

It isn't the Library. It's not even a Serapeum; Wolfe looks at the sign with distaste for a moment before mounting the steps to head inside. He's used to the beautiful Serapeums across the sea; the Alexandrian Serapeum with its sloped sides and open reading rooms, or soaring dome and spire of St. Paul's Serapeum in London. Perhaps the last Serapeum he'll ever see. Wolfe steps inside the library proper, expecting little more than drab walls and a few tables—but what he sees instead stops him in his tracks, at a loss for words as he takes in the messy shelves, the mismatched spines, garish colors popping out between volumes of dull red or brown. This is a far cry from the neatly ordered rows of Blanks that can be found in any Serapeum, the originals housed behind glass to preserve them. Wolfe strides—almost jogs—to the first case, whisking a book off the shelf and opening it to a random page.

Text. Printed text, just the way he'd imagined. The way he and Thomas both had imagined, and thousands of Scholars before them. Wolfe closes the book, replacing it and pulling another. More printed text. He makes his way toward the back of the library, trying another few books from random shelves as he goes. All printed, all unique, all with different titles and bindings and sizes. By the time he pulls the last book from the shelf, there are tears in his eyes, a lump in his throat as he sees that like all the others, this one is printed too.

"Nic," he whispers, even though Santi isn't here and he has no idea if he's even alive. "It exists. It works."

What he wouldn't give to have Santi here with him right now—what he wouldn't give to be able to share this wonder with him.

NOTES.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS: i'm so sorry you had a book to read for the history :( CURSE NOT HAVING HANDY WIKIPEDIA LINKS

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