Editing Treachery:Magic (section)

==Background==

It is a rare person that combines both talent and passion for the same thing. It is even rarer to find both qualities in life-threatening abundance. But Oltan Visage was never ordinary, and rarely desired to be so. Since his infancy, he believed in magic, and pursued it to the exclusion of everything else. 

Needless to say, this left him with very few friends, very little in the way of family support, and next to nothing in the way of cash. This was made even worse by the charlatans that took advantage of the true believer. Still, he learned much about magic, including the secret rituals that allowed him to strengthen his mind and body in proportion to his soul. He was proud of the fact that he followed the principles of Internal Alchemy, which states that a person can only be as developed in magic as they are at all other things. 

His triumphant moment came when he learned how to summon the "truest Angel" in charge of magic. This 'angel' was, needless to say, less than thrilled by being summoned and bound. In a moment of cruelty, he gave Oltan the wrong formula for immortality, despite being abjured into honesty, and Oltan died many times, writhing in agony. 

However, Oltan held on, and after the ritual was done, he was immortal but somewhat diminished in mind and body. As he had been wronged, and as the Imperator Ram-Kvashtra was impressed with Oltan's devotion to one of his Estates, the Imperator made the former Noble of Magic a regular human and made Oltan the new Viscount. (Ram-Kvashtra was growing concerned with the former Noble's dabblings in High Summoning, anyway.) Oltan made the former Noble an Anchor as punishment, and he now goes by the name Kevin Stark in Prosaic Reality. (He's an accountant in a large, faceless corporation.) 

Oltan's form is more magic than meat, due to the ravages of the formula, and thus does not perform at the average level of one of the Nobilis. However, he is Immortal, which gives him what he most desires: the time to fully understand and embrace his Domain. However, his ascension into Nobility had a nasty side-effect: now everyone associates magic with fragile, socially-awkward eggheads (a claim he feels is better made to the devotees of science.) 

Oltan is the gatekeeper of earthly magics, the minor quasi-miracles that humans are allowed access to. He is the channel from which human rituals reach divine ears. He takes this position very seriously, and makes sure that magic is taken seriously as a way to understand the world. He fights whenever possible to put magic ahead of science and faith as the dominant paradigm. He has green eyes, reddish hair, a flowing reddish beard, and tends to wear clothing that is covered in arcane symbology. His is an odd egotism: He believes his Estate is the most important of all, therefore as it's representative, he is the most important person of all, save for his Chancel-mates and his Imperator. He has a flair for the dramatic, and a dry, rarefied sense of humor. He likes cats. He is fastidious, and ritualizes things to an almost obsessive-compulsive level.