Gwendoline Harding

Gwendoline
title
Information
Affiliation	Arcanum Investigation Team
Known Associates	Kord Von Einzberg, Isobel Shaw Buchanan, Leon Elias Malachi
Title	Professor
Magic & Affinity
Hermetic Sigilist, Sorceror, & Conjuror
Played By	Jessi

Gwendoline Harding is a practicing and teaching Hermetic sorceress from Earth-1834 assigned to the Arcanum investigation. She is a Professor of Antiquities at Oxford University, where she supervises archaeological studies and curates the University's artifacts. She teaches Hermetic magic as well as archaeology.

Skillset

Gwendoline is a skilled Hermetic specializing in conjuration. Her knowledge of Hermetic seals is (arguably considered) unparalleled, both due to her intense study and her seemingly photographic memory of them. These seals allow her to create a variety of magical effects, from healing to harm to summoning, binding, and commanding spirits under and above the firmament. Every day of the week she inscribes seals to ensure she has additional ones to replace any she has that are damaged, as some must be applied to parchment. They are written on cloth, vellum, parchment, and thin metal sheets, depending on the requirement of each spell. As the original seals were first created centuries prior, Gwendoline has updated several of them for the current age and level of technology, earning her acclaim in her field.

Gwendoline keeps on her person a Master Vessel to which she binds every spirit she summons and intends to keep in her service. This vessel is inscribed with multiple Holy Pentacles associated with each of the planets to ensure that all spirits bound to it are forced to obey her command and cannot cause her harm. Some of the spirits she keeps are purely useful spirits, while some others are far more sinister.

She has a thorough and, frankly, sometimes annoying knowledge of things ancient, antiquated, and esoteric, rarely sparing listeners from a relevant fact. She is also a Latinist, having studied the language since she entered school, making her adept at incantations, inscriptions, translations, and language-based spells. While she would enjoy expanding her teaching practice to Latin and incantations, one can only do so much and still sleep.

Personality & Appearance

Gwendoline is a sweet and tender-hearted young woman with heavily Victorian values of etiquette and courtesy, though sometimes she overlooks them due to her excitable nature. Despite all she has seen in her practice, she remains a true lover of adventure, and delights in wonder at any new thing she can see or learn. A true academic, Gwendoline is devoted constantly to expanding her knowledge and repertoire. She possesses a great love for antiquity and preserving it. She usually carries a sketchbook in which she practices drawing places and people of interest. Such practice was recommended to her early in her study, as a fine hand is required for properly documenting archaeological artifacts in detailed images, as well as ensuring accuracy in her sigil work.

The Professor's appearance is quite startling, and more than one of her colleagues has wondered if she didn't use some magic to create the effect. She is lithe and willowy with moon-white skin on a sweet face, deep black hair, dark eyes, and flushed lips, as if Snow White herself had sprung off the page and come to call.

Publications

A Modern Revision of The Solomon Seals

Deconstruction of the Perceived Necessity of Religion & Piety in Magics

Unconventional and Effective Summoning Circles

Expansion of the Work of Dr. John Dee

Critique of Henry Cornelius Agrippa: Occult Philosophy for the Modern Age

On Demonic Manners & Expectations

Mannerly Interaction with Angelic Spirits

On the Proper Use of the Enochian Tablets

The Absurdity of Accepted Preparatory Necessities in Conjuring

On the Need of the Establishment to Reexamine the Understanding of the Works of Hermes Trismegistus

On Avoiding Detrimental Contracts with Demons, Fae, & Other Spirits

The Investigation of Imminent Threat

Invitations sent by Heinrich Stratton were answered by Gwendoline, Kord Von Einsberg, Isobel Buchanan, and Leon Elias Malachi. After a brief test of their skill and ability, Heinrich explained that they were hand-selected by the Arcanum to investigate a threat detected within the Nexus. The Nexus forms a crucial axis point between other worlds and a threat detected within it has the potential to spread across the entire Multiverse. To that end, their group was selected to investigate and report back.

Departing from Zbraslav Chateau in the Czech Republic by way of Zeppelin, the group travelled to Warsaw, Poland for their entry into the Nexus.