("The Eastern Quarter")
filius Collacteus, of House Cristofer
apprenticed 343; mage 357
Plenliunium Album: 343-370
Bethelion: 370-422
Annalum: 422-
Raised at Plenilunium Album in Amicitian Fellowship alongside the students of the Power Trio by Collacteus, Nocturnus, Alcedo and Quernus from 343 to 352. When the Power Trio left Plenilunium Album to found Covenant Mille Lacus in 352, Collacteus was invited to join them, but decided instead at the last minute to remain at Plenilunium Album, where he could play a stronger hand in Order politics. From 352 to 357, therefore, Quartus Oriens completed his apprenticeship under Collacteus alone, although he was to remain in close contact with the Mille Lacusian founders for many years. As an apprentice he was indeed most unhappy with his parens' decision to separate him from the rest of his Fellowship: he sulked over having been left behind for so long and so ostentatiously that Collacteus gave him the name Quartus Oriens, "the Eastern Quarter."
It was always Quartus Oriens' intention to leave Plenilunium Album for Mille Lacus once mage; in 358, he had already made plans to join up with the Manereans of Fumus et Specula, who would be making a brief stop-over at Annalum before heading back to the Twilight from the 28th Manere Conjugation. He did his best to ignore the fact that the conjugation seemed to promise a second Manerean schism. He looked the other way when, as soon as the conjugation had ended, the Prima Manere Vespera fell into a Twilight from which it seemed likely she would never recover. He continued grimly packing all through the dispute between his parens Collacteus and the filia of Vespera over what was to be done about the situation - a dispute which caused Collacteus himself to leave the covenant for Antrum. He finished packing his bags, got halfway down the Eleneth Valley, sighed, and then returned to Plenilunium Album, where he was to work in conjunct with the filia of Vespera in concealing their parens' death from the rest of the Order and working for a Manerean peace for the next seven years. He never joined Mille Lacus.
In the 360s, Quartus Oriens allied himself with Derleth and Vyreth, helping them to establish good relations between the Order and the King of Tyr. He was one of the founders of Bethelion in 370 and is the most prolific teacher in the Order since the days of the founders: he has trained five students to magehood. He takes a certain degree of pride in the fact that although all of his students are Derlethian, not one of them has chosen to renounce House Cristofer. He retired to Annalum in 422, after 52 years as one of Bethelion's senior members.
Quartus Oriens is an intensely political mage, at ease in both mundane and magical society. He wields immense power and is not to be trifled with. Like his filius Calamus Mollis and his grandson Quentin, he seems to many people to represent the entrenched power of the Plenilunials within the Order. The fact that one of his many filii, [C97a], was one of the founders of the highly suspect Dawn Covenant Lord of Misrule in 407 is often used by his political enemies as a means of casting aspersions on his orthodoxy and that of his allies.
Students:
- Desirus, 370 to 385
- Calamus Mollis, 377 to 392
- [C97a], 389 to 404
- Nil Admirari, 404 to 419
- [C125a] Loriatus, 407-422
