Black Centaur Castle

Black Centaur Castle is the Mage University of Lutianen. It is probably the most important institution on the Estate City.

Long time ago Lutianen had a different Mage University.

The time when the Insular City was founded is hidden from Divination spells for the Xar waves created by the event that destroyed the city in the Continent, forcing the survivors to escape to the island of Lutianen. The waves of polluted Xar travel back in time, as much as forwards and because of that we cant say much about the ancient city, or about the early days of ours. There is little information about the former nation beyond the fact that it was capital of a large nation in the later Imperial Age, before that form of political organization fall apart and the Estate Cities take its place.

However, the legends do mention a golden castle floating above a park in the middle of Lutianen, close to where today is the Market. The Golden Wing Temple. This castle was destroyed, and most mages of Lutianen killed, during an invasion from some powerful enemy now forgotten.

Without a mage University Lutianen would not be able to form new generations of mages and would have been reduced to a small and irrelevant nation, or destroyed. Shirshan was already there, it is much older than Lutianen, and never accepted well the competition with the Insular City.

About five thousand years before the destruction of Golden Wing the vortex was tuned with a planet where the dominant specie was the centaurs. Those centaurs had little notion of magic, and if they knew any science it was lost by the first generations after the vortex stop bringing people from their home planet.

One place where they thrived was the Kailau Mountains.

Those centaurs where white as snow in their human upper-bodies, with green or pink eyes. In the cold, which is constant on the high lands of Kailau, their low bodies covered themselves in long white hair.

They earned respect as warriors and hunters, but could not join in large enough numbers to influence the regional politics. That ended when Rumo was brought by the vortex.

The centaur came from the same Vortex Line Altair stepped on when he was brought to Sharitarn. His body was all black, hairless; he had red talons as sharp as magical daggers, and as white as the other centaurs’s fur. A line of red spikes covered his entire backbone and continued up to the top of his head. Stripes also red appeared on his skin when he was furious: as hot as molten lava, say the poetic registers. He was also a little larger, and far stronger, than the other centaurs on Kailau.

Identified with other centauroids of Kailau Mountains, in a world ruled by humanoids, the powerful mage formed a nation around himself.

Rumo did not came from the same world the other centaurs on Kailau had come. He was from a Universe rich in magic, and was a master in it even for their standards. So impressive his knowledge was that even the Mage’s Brotherhood noticed him. The involuntary immigrant was accepted by the Mage Caste of Urshawa City, on the Magnetic North Pole of Sharitarn.

He then left his centaur followers during years to became a archmage: very few non humans in History received that tittle.

The centaur archmage, and king of his people, never wanted to stay in the wilds. Once back to Kailau he looked for a place where he could build_ or take_ a city.

What he found near to his territory was Lutianen. That was the first year after Golden Wing fall, there was still enough magical power on the Insular city to make the conquest unlikely.

In case of victory, Rumo would have few centaurs left to found his new nation and would hardly have a chance to endure the inevitable attacks from Shirshan. On the other hand Lutianen was desperate for a way to rebuild it’s Mage Caste. There was none to be found.

The Black Centaur made a deal with Insular City: he would make a new magical university in exchange for citizenship for himself and for his people. The centaurs came, and helped to rebuild what had been lost during the recent war. Some how Rumo managed to build a university having only a handful of mages left to help him.

Not all centaurs followed the Black King to Lutianen Island. Those who did became respected citizens with status of High Caste.

That situation continued for dozen generations or more, but things changed gradually after that. The centaur lineages faced extermination or banishment; or decided to move away to avoid one of those. Few families remain in the island, most of them as Peasant Caste. Six kept the status of High Caste and influential positions on the city. They got titles of nobility and now are part of the Noble Caste, but are paying a price for it.

All centaur families living on the island join together to a festival, every year, in a secret place on the Mountains. Up there they practice a ritual to assume the human form. The transformation last up to the next festival, or until they wash themselves in the magical lake next to the festivities.

Peasant families take back their true forms in the next morning, except for one member or two in each family who accepts the obligation of represent his family in the city when necessary. The ones who live inside the city walls on the other hand must stay on two legs for all year. Except for the period of festival before the ritual they can not enjoy their true form.

Only Mage Caste and alchemist centaurs have the comfort to use magical jewelry or spells in order to transform back when they feel like. Other centaurs are unable to do so, and when for any reason the spell brakes they must stay in the fields up to the next festival.

Most low caste citizens of Lutianen don’t even know the existence of centauroids among them. The main symbol of their city is a back and red centaur, but it is so familiar than they do not think about.

According to one legend Rumo never died. He transformed himself into stone, and remains on a garden inside Black Centaur Castle. There is many statues of him up there, and no one knows which one is the real archmage.

Others say that he was betrayed by his favorite disciple and by his lover. They joined forces to capture him in a dungeon somewhere. The Black Centaur still is locked in a cell, hidden somewhere in Lutianen, under a mage’s house. The speculations about what family sleeps above the archmage’s prison sometimes keeps conversations between sigraxes going on up to sunrise, in the pubs of Lutianen.

Some say that the more important founder of Black Centaur Castle abandoned Lutianen, to the city’s own luck, when the relationship between humans and centaurs deteriorated. Or maybe short after one of his sons was sentenced to death, accused for a false crime. To this people the Black Centaur is somewhere on the Mountains, running through the nigh. Cursing with his magic any human unlucky enough to cross his path.