Shivanna Takhmani

Shivanna Takhmani is the current sitting Counselor of Magi on Osir's Senate. Originally from the town of Ashbah located in the Sinharaja Jungle in the northernmost region of Osir, she was accepted in to the Guild of Magi at a relatively young age. With a mix of intellect and networking, she was able to gain standing within the guild and was elected to be its counselor in 1770.    

Education

Takhmani was primarily educated at the local Mage's college in Ashbah until her academic excellence earned her a sponsorship to study at the Madrasat al'Sahr. While studing at the Madrasat, she gained an apprenticeship with the Guild of Magi, and was quickly accepted into the guild when she graduated with honors in 1712.   As an apprentice and a member of the Guild of Magi, Takhmani's research was primarily focused on the fundamentals of magic. She published several articles theorizing about the fundamental nature of magic and its connections to the other Planes. After becoming counselor of the Guild of Magi, Takhmani's personal research projects slowed, but under her leadership, the guild and its lower guilds took on a much more academic focus.  

Senatorial Status

After being elected as counselor to the Guild of Magi in 1770, Takhmani leveraged her networking skills to gain favor among the other senators for the Guild of Magi. Since then, and especially since the Cataclysm, the guild's status has been much more tumultuous.  

Politics Pre- and During Cataclysm

While Takhmani always leveraged her networking abilities and social prowess to make connections and gain favor among Osir's senators, she was always a controversial figure. Unlike many, she was a major proponent of ongoing accords with Cesarica and often espoused the benefits of sharing academic research and the free flow of information and ideas between nations. As a result, some of her collegues in the senate suspected her of actively or potentially sharing government secrets with her academic contacts abroad. Her active encouragement of guild members to travel abroad for research did not assuage any of these suspicions.   As tensions with the Cesarican rose as Empress Antient II's reign came more into question, more and more senators began to question Takhmani's loyalty to Osir. Many of the connections and alliances that Takhmani had made with other guilds were beginning to fall apart. Serious questions about the future of the guild were beginning to arise when the Cataclysm hit.  

Cataclysm

Irvenne was hit hard by the Cataclysm. The opening of the rift to the Plane of Fire above the Zuzarji Desert resulted in a massive inferno that melted much of the desert into a sea of glass. Similarly to the rest of the continent, many of those that had a closer relationship to the gods were severely injured or killed by the sudden loss of divine magic. Among these losses were multiple senators.   The chaos caused by the Cataclysm within the senate offered an opportunity to regain some of the lost influence of the Guild of Magi. After the rifts were mostly stable, Takhmani leveraged her previous research and expertise on the planes to organize excursions into the Plane of Fire with the aim of communicating and attempting to cooperate with the denizens of the Plane of Fire to leverage their resoures and abilities against the Cesarican Empire. While some Senators believed her efforts to be a waste of resources given the non-magical technological advancements being made by the Artificers' Guild, her efforts were able to assuage many questions about her loyalty to the Osir government.  

Post-Cataclysm

Takhmani's efforts to communicate with the Plane of Fire were cut short by the sealing of the planar rifts in 1797. With magic gone from the continent, the Guild of Magi and its lower guilds found themselves out of favor once again. Now without even the practical applications of the arcane arts to back up their work, many senators consider these guilds to be obsolete.   While Takhmani and the Guild still have a few allies in other, mostly lower, guilds, Takhmani's focus has been on returning to her original research into the nature of magic to determine if there is a way to return magic to the continent. Despite the ongoing conflict with Cesarica, she has been reaching out to other researchers outside of Osir conducting similar work. This has included attempting to treat with Orini in an attempt to allow members of the Guild of Enchanters to study the mysterious nation's unique enchantment practices. She has also been collecting data on the rumored appearance of new warlock pacts scattered throughout the continent.