filius Fax Lunaris, of House Savacion
apprenticed 330; adopted by Aculeus 341; declared mage 345; died 405
Stony Hill: 330-341
Felchester: 341-345
Talchester: 345-405
The charming if somewhat passive apex of the Talchester Trio. He was popular with women, but not at all popular within his own House of Savacion, whose members denounced him as an effeminate coward.
Julian was raised at Covenant Stony Hill, where he was extremely popular with the elder magi, a fact which was somewhat resented by his older brother Falx Astartis, who thought that he banked too much on his charm and shirked far too many of his duties to the covenant. In 341, believing himself the last survivor of the battle in which his master was killed, he fled Picantaea and made his way to seek refuge at the Covenant at Felchester, where he reported the covenant destroyed. There, Felchester's Savacion founder Aculeus agreed to undertake the remainder of his magical training. There he also met Pronuba and Rosamund, with whom he would find that he could work in conjunct. The three joined to form an Amicitian Fellowship; upon their ascensions to magehood in 345, they left Felchester to found a new covenant at Talchester.
See: The Talchester Trio
When the Order learned that the last battle at Stony Hill had not in fact been utterly lost at the time of Julian's flight, he became known as a coward within House Savacion, a situation greatly exacerbated by his brother Falx Astartis, who after his return to Cholaeic lands in 345 waged a tireless war of slandar and harrassment against the magi of the Castrian covenants in general, and against Julian in particular.
See: Falx Astartis and the Castrian Savacions
Julian's steadfast refusal to defend himself against any of his detractors' charges was to dog him for the rest of his life. Why, precisely, he did refuse to behave in a properly prickly Savacion fashion is anyone's guess. It would seem, though, that what may indeed have begun as...well, if not precisely cowardice then at the very least as sensible prudence--word of his brother Falx's new role as the Mad Butcher of Picantaea had come back to Cholaeic lands long before Falx himself had--soon turned into pure and simple obstinacy. He was unwilling to lose face by allowing others to dictate his actions.
Whatever the reason, though, Julian's foster-father Aculeus found his refusal to step up somewhat exasperating, not least of which because it meant that he felt that it had now become his job to act as the protector not only of his own covenant at Felchester, but also of the new Covenant at Talchester as well. Years later, when Anguis Proditor would come to fill much the same role at Felchester, he would find himself similarly frustrated by Julian and Julian's descendants.
Julian's first student, Duncan of the Morchester Trio, was targetted for particular attack upon his ascension to magehood in 368, when a coalition of conservative Savacion magi challenged the recognition of Amicitian-raised students within the House. His second student, Jarvis, would prove similarly unpopular within House Savacion.
Like the magi of neighboring Felchester , Julian initially refused to join the hunt for the rogue Siccoculus in spite of taunting and harrassment by the rest of the House. In 388, however, when even his own filius Jarvis denounced him for his refusal to join the hunt, he reluctantly gave way. He was later to berate himself mercilessly for having finally ceded to this pressure--and to berate even more the rest of House Savacion for having applied it: it was because he had finally ceded to pressure to leave his covenant that he had not been on hand to protect it in 390 when Siccoculus finally did attack the Castrians.
There was absolutely no good answer to this. Nobody had questioned the necessity of any other similarly- situated Savacion mage remaining behind to protect his home covenant during the rogue hunt. Julian's criticisms were recognized as valid, and a few magi were even somewhat abashed; 390 saw the end of the more blatant manifestations of the House's harassment of the Castrian Savacions.
In 403, Julian backed his filius Jarvis' refusal to return his Inceptum-found student [S125] to the Inceptum for investigation or further training. When the young man was nonetheless abducted from the covenant in 405, he left Talchester to search for him. He met with misadventure on his travels and never returned; the other Talcastrians confirmed his death late that year.
- Duncan the Elder, from 353 to 368
- Jarvis, from 373 to 388
- (also other members of those Fellowships: see The Talchester Trio)
