Cassandra Thyme
Shares a body with Orion Stone.
Cassandra Thyme was raised in a very wealthy family in the affluent city of Zadash. Zadash was once home to the Julous Dominion, the first territory to be conquered by the now expansive and restrictive Dwendalian Empire two centuries ago. Zadash accommodates heavy traffic through its winding streets, serving noble diplomats, countless trade caravans, and rushing messengers from all across Western Wynandir and the Menagerie Coast. The city’s ruling class is comprised of powerful merchant lords and ladies who oversee the guilds that control the markets throughout the city.
Cassandra is the daughter of one of the three central rulers of Zadash, high-richter Dolan Thyme, who works closely with Starosta Wyatt Fedar and Lawmaster Orentha Stonegrasp to manage the majority of day-to-day business and politics that come with overseeing a sprawling city. Her father Dolan is an ambitious and cutthroat man, in his position and in his personal life, seeing every interaction in public as a chance to advance his status. It has long been well known that Starosta Fedar is heavily corrupt and Dolan has not been quiet about his desire to take the top position in the city so he could set his sights on an Imperial Appointment.
Due to her father’s ambitions, Cassandra’s childhood was not exactly a breeze. Schooling was done at the most elite establishments, surrounded by other children of rich family’s who were there to network instead of learn and taught by Imperial tutors who mostly graded on potential rather than an understanding of the subject. Likewise, time away from school involved developing manners, conferring with insufferable nobles, or attending the week’s biggest and best party. While her siblings fit in well with this world, Cassandra struggled to relate or care when all she would rather do is curl up with a good book or attempt to solve an ancient logic puzzle not even the greatest minds could solve. When she was 13, Cassandra’s magical abilities manifested in strong and startling way. As a thirteen year old child, she was able to create startling illusions of her or other people’s greatest fears. Unfortunately, this gave her father a reason to roll her out as a party trick.
This lasted for a few intolerable months before the sickness came. Her magic was still there, but prolonged casting’s would cause her to vomit or pass out. Healers from the Cerberus Assembly examined her and declared her powers and her illness to stem from a tumor in her brain, allowing her to access the weave without a focus, using her body as a conduit and it was tearing her apart. This illness made her useless to the Cerberus Assembly, but her obvious potential was noticed by the monks of the Cobalt Soul, who inducted her into the order as a junior archivist, the youngest in the order, at 15.
After several years with the Cobalt Soul, her supervisor, Deldrach Petran, noticed her interest in the unusal and wild depths of magic, and assigned her to the library of the Mirkwood Academy of Magic and Alchemy, where she was to operate quietly as a member of Cobalt Soul and archive the library for the Cobalt Soul’s own archives as well. She moved there full time several years ago, and has quickly grown to love the library and it’s students. Their new discoveries every day lead her down researching rabbit holes that she’s always dreamed of, and the professors often ask her to seek out new books and scrolls from across the Menagerie Coast and the Empire, which allows her to travel and speak to numerous scholars and archivists. About a year and a half ago, Cassandra was asked by Professor Benedict Guisser to sit in on an “independent study” he had with a student. They were attempting to recreate an incident where the student, Della, accessed Wild Magic, to open a rift to another dimension. This is an abnormal display of Wild Magic, since Wild Magic is typically tied to this plane and the caster’s abilities. Della being able to open a rift like this is an unprecedented display of Wild Magic ability, so Benedict wants to try to recreate it, asking FP to sit in and record their tests for posterity and document this potentially revolutionary development.
Cassandra and Della grew closer through these studies and Cassandra would assist her outside of Benedict’s classroom as well, navigating the library with her for any instance of Wild Magic strangeness. Della began shirking her classes and responsibilities too, focusing her time in the library whether Cassandra was there or not, but the Rift never reappeared. However, Della was affected, driven to the point of madness by obsession and talking about dreams where the rift spoke to her. It wasn’t surprising when she was kicked out, with the Academy stating it was because she failed to complete her classes. Soon after, Benedict was sent on sabbatical and Cassandra’s research project was on hold. This is the last thing she remembers.