Cobalt Fairfax - Professor of Transmutation

A professor with a tenure of a decade at the University of Canos, Cobalt Fairfax originally hailed from Draksborne’s North, teaching at a small academy in Eredel before being offered his job in Canos. Whilst the bustling city on the water was far from the comfort of his mountainside home, the pay and resources offered to him far outweighed anything his previous humble employer could provide. Cobalt had long researched the arcane art of transmutation: altering the physical properties of organic and inorganic material, using Minera’s Breath to transform a subject’s being. In Eredel, the materials he was presented with were limited: stones and gems from mines, critters from the woods. In Canos, he had a wealth of materials, even able to work with live prisoners bound for the gallows to test some of his research on humans. It was this that allowed him to unlock the secrets of some permanent transmutations to humans, particularly the feat of stoneskin. The prisoner that he had tested it on could no longer be hanged, and instead faced a gruesome end at the point of a pickaxe. When Dragonblight gripped the kingdom of Draksborne, and Canos was thrown into chaos, Cobalt was one of the first mages in the city to aid in setting up the quarantine. He was able to identify asymptomatic infected, and in doing so stopped the city from being further consumed by outbreaks. Yet in this defense, he himself contracted the disease after being struck by one of the plague beasts. Realising that the illness seemed to spread through skin and tissue, he made the difficult decision to undergo his permanent stoneskin transmutation, turning his flesh to rock. He was unsure whether it would work, so still voluntarily exiled himself to the quarantine zones, where he witnessed the worst horrors that humanity and the disease could conjure. Yet the blight never claimed him, and when the curse was lifted, he was able to return to walk among his kin once again, though each held him in suspicion, as though he might turn any minute. In truth, Cobalt is unsure what might happen should he somehow reverse his transmutation. The biological function of his organs have all but ceased, with him now closer to a construct than a man. No requirement of food, water, or sleep. He has begun researching himself as a potential means to replicate immortality, but with no more pleasures in his life, he wonders if it would even be worth such a cost. In between his studies, he must humour his employers with classing aspiring students, having grown himself a sour reputation since the school reopened. Most students are deathly afraid of him, and groan when they see his name assigned to their timetable.