Gnoche Richdane, often simply called Professor, is the Lord of Nypenc and Headmaster of the Richdane Academy of Sciences, best known for his efforts to standardize archaeology, ancient translation, and historical field research in Atlania. Raised in Nypenc, a city surrounded by ruins and blessed with one of the finest libraries in the region, Gnoche became fascinated by the contradiction at the heart of Atlanian history: his people possessed a rich writing tradition, yet many of the ancient structures scattered across the countryside had never been properly documented. Their stories survived in fragments, oral histories, local superstition, shrine traditions, and inherited guesses rather than careful records.

Driven by curiosity and no small amount of academic pride, Gnoche set out to collect those scattered accounts and put them into a usable scholarly form. Over time, his research, lectures, translations, and field reports earned him fame in academic circles, drawing students, patrons, rival professors, and curious nobles to his work. Eventually he founded the Richdane Academy of Sciences as a place to collate records, compare evidence, train researchers, and give archaeology a firmer intellectual foundation than treasure hunting, noble antiquarianism, or temple rumor.

Gnoche is an extremely talented researcher and writer, fluent in multiple languages and capable of translating ancient texts into more modern Atlanian forms. He is also fussy, overconfident, somewhat sickly, and often difficult to persuade when another scholar’s notes contradict his own. His desk-bound habits have left him less vigorous than many Atlanians, and he is frequently troubled by coughs, sniffles, or allergies, making him seem more fragile than the warrior-nobles around him. Yet beneath the foppish comb-over, mustache, and bookish manner is a stubborn mind capable of reshaping how Atlania understands its own past.

His great academic crisis comes during his research into Gurdacrest, the long-empty fortress of House Duron. Gnoche begins his work armed with years of theories, old texts, oral accounts, and scholarly confidence, only for Andrew Hayes and Lord Lisbith Duron to return from the Grey Wood with direct firsthand knowledge that shatters many of his conclusions. This does not ruin him, but it does expose the central tension of his life’s work: Gnoche wants history to be organized, footnoted, and made sensible, while Sol Saris keeps producing living legends, immortal witnesses, divine residues, and inconvenient facts that refuse to stay in the past.

Professor

Lord of Nypenc and Headmaster of the Richdane Academy of Sciences

63

Male

Gnoche wears a carefully maintained mustache, one of the clearest parts of his foppish academic image. It is groomed with more pride than practicality, giving him the look of an old-fashioned professor who wants to appear distinguished even when buried in dust, manuscripts, and half-translated field notes. The mustache helps soften his slightly sickly, bookish appearance into something more theatrical and self-important, fitting a man who is both a serious scholar and very aware of his reputation. Combined with his comb-over, formal clothing, and scholarly affectations, it makes him immediately recognizable as Professor Richdane.

Gnoche wears his chestnut hair in a foppish comb-over, carefully arranged to look dignified, scholarly, and more impressive than it actually is. The style is vain without being fashionable, giving him the appearance of an old-fashioned professor who has spent too much time in libraries and not enough time worrying about whether the wind will ruin his efforts. It is usually maintained with deliberate care, though long days among manuscripts, ruins, and lecture halls can leave it slightly displaced. Combined with his mustache and academic dress, the comb-over makes him look both distinguished and faintly ridiculous in exactly the right way.

Chestnut

6'

120

a mustache

Gnoche has the underlying height and frame of an Atlanian man, but his build has softened from years spent behind desks, in libraries, and hunched over manuscripts rather than training yards. He is tall at six feet and still carries some natural Atlanian muscle, but it is hidden beneath a slightly pudgy, under-conditioned scholar’s body. He looks more like a man who once might have been sturdier, but chose books, ruins, lectures, and alchemy over regular physical discipline. This gives him a faintly comic contrast with the warrior-nobles around him: still recognizably Atlanian, but far more professor than fighter.

Gnoche has lightly tanned skin, fitting his northern Atlanian background and his largely indoor life as a scholar, headmaster, and researcher. He is not pale, but he lacks the deep sun-darkening of southern nobles, sailors, or soldiers who spend years under harsher open skies. His complexion suggests an Atlanian who does venture into the field for ruins and surveys, but who spends far more time in libraries, lecture halls, archives, and manuscript rooms than on campaign. This lighter tan also suits his slightly sickly, desk-bound appearance, helping separate him visually from the harder warrior-nobles around him.

Atlanian

Green

Gnoche is dismissive of unsourced claims, temple explanations, noble family legends, and “adventurer archaeology.” He tends to assume that if something has not been documented, translated, cross-checked, or properly catalogued, then it is probably exaggerated. This makes him unfairly condescending toward oral historians, rural shrine-keepers, old soldiers, and local guides, even though many of them preserve truths his books missed.

In sharp contrast to many Atlanians, Gnoche is almost always a little sickly, usually troubled by a cough, sniffle, irritated throat, or some inconvenient allergy that flares up at the worst possible time. It is not enough to make him bedridden or truly frail, but it adds to his bookish, desk-bound impression and makes fieldwork more unpleasant than he likes to admit. Dusty ruins, old manuscripts, moldy archives, pollen, alchemical fumes, and neglected underground chambers all seem determined to offend his constitution. Gnoche insists this does not interfere with his scholarship, though students and colleagues quickly learn to recognize the sound of Professor Richdane clearing his throat before correcting someone’s theory.

Gnoche behaves like a classic bookish professor: precise, fussy, easily distracted by scholarship, and prone to turning ordinary conversations into lectures. He often adjusts his mustache, comb-over, collar, spectacles, or monocle while thinking, especially when preparing to correct someone. His speech tends to become more formal and animated when discussing ruins, translations, archaeology, or ancient Atlanian records, and he has a habit of citing sources aloud as though every conversation were an academic debate. Though he can seem pompous, he is genuinely passionate about standardizing archaeology as a proper field of study, and his excitement often shows through in rapid explanations, stacks of notes, ink-stained fingers, and a tendency to forget that not everyone finds old foundation stones as thrilling as he does.

Gnoche is motivated by knowledge, especially the desire to uncover, organize, and preserve the forgotten history of Atlania. He wants archaeology to become a respected discipline rather than a loose mixture of treasure hunting, noble family legends, temple rumor, and half-remembered oral tradition. The ruins around Nypenc made him painfully aware of how much Atlanian history had been left undocumented, and much of his life’s work is driven by the need to correct that failure. Beneath the scholarly pride is a sincere fear that if someone does not gather these records properly, whole ages of history will collapse into myth, error, and patriotic nonsense.

Gnoche’s greatest flaws are overconfidence and a deep mistrust of other people’s research. He is brilliant enough to know he is usually the smartest person in the archive, which makes it very difficult for him to accept that someone else may have found better evidence, preserved a more accurate oral account, or understood a ruin before he did. He can be dismissive of paperwork he has not personally reviewed and tends to treat unsourced claims, family legends, temple stories, and adventurer reports as unreliable until proven otherwise. This makes him a stronger scholar in some ways, but it also blinds him to truths that survive outside formal records, especially in a world where living witnesses, old spirits, and immortal troublemakers like Andrew Hayes can still walk in and ruin a perfectly good theory.

Gnoche is an extremely talented researcher, writer, translator, and academic organizer, with a rare ability to turn scattered fragments of history into coherent scholarship. He is especially skilled at comparing ancient texts, oral histories, ruin layouts, inscriptions, and local traditions to build larger theories about Atlania’s past. His writing is clear, persuasive, and respected enough to draw students, nobles, and rival scholars to his lectures, even when his conclusions prove controversial. He also has a strong talent for institution-building: founding the Richdane Academy of Sciences gave his work a structure that could outlive him, turning archaeology from one man’s obsession into a formal field of study.

Gnoche’s hobbies are translating ancient texts, practicing alchemy, and pursuing whatever scholarly puzzle has most recently offended his sense of order. Even outside formal work, he enjoys comparing old languages, correcting mistranslations, restoring damaged manuscripts, and arguing with the margins of other scholars’ papers. His interest in alchemy is more academic than reckless, though he likely enjoys small experiments involving inks, preservation compounds, cleaning agents, and substances useful for field archaeology. For Gnoche, leisure rarely looks relaxing to anyone else; he rests by moving from one kind of research to another, preferably with tea, fried dough strips, and a stack of documents no one else is allowed to reorganize.

Gnoche is a poindexter in the most scholarly and self-important sense: bookish, precise, fussy, overconfident, and deeply invested in being the person who understands the past correctly. He can be pompous, dismissive, and difficult to impress, especially when dealing with poorly sourced claims or rival theories, but his arrogance comes from genuine expertise rather than empty vanity. Beneath the comb-over, mustache, coughs, and academic theatrics is a serious mind with a sincere devotion to knowledge. Gnoche is the sort of man who can be ridiculous in conversation, unbearable in debate, and still absolutely essential to the preservation of Atlania’s history.

Lalaggia (fried dough strips)

Badgers

Knowledge

A manuscript that details ancient Atlanian and Vala into more modern Atlanian

Magenta

Gnoche is the Headmaster of the Richdane Academy of Sciences, Lord of Nypenc, and one of Atlania’s leading scholars of archaeology, translation, and ancient history. His occupation blends academic leadership with noble responsibility, though he clearly prefers lecture halls, archives, field notes, and ruined foundations to ordinary lordship. As headmaster, he oversees research, teaches students, organizes expeditions, reviews translations, manages rival professors, and works to make archaeology a respected formal discipline rather than a pastime for treasure hunters and eccentric nobles. As Lord of Nypenc, he also has a duty to protect the region’s libraries, ruins, and scholarly reputation, even if he often treats governance as an unfortunate interruption to more important research.

Gnoche is mostly oblivious to kingdom politics, not because he lacks intelligence, but because he considers academic rivalries, funding disputes, archaeological standards, and the antics of other professors far more immediate and troublesome than court maneuvering. As Lord of Nypenc, he has enough status to be pulled into noble affairs when necessary, but he generally treats politics as an interruption to real work. His loyalties are practical and institutional: protect the academy, preserve access to ruins and records, keep patrons from meddling too much, and make sure no ambitious lord turns important historical sites into quarry stone or propaganda. In courtly matters, he is often out of step, but in academic politics he can be surprisingly stubborn, territorial, and difficult to outmaneuver.

None, he doesn't believe in such nonsense

Headmaster of a college

Mid Dry Season

Gnoche Richdane grew up in Nypenc, a northern Atlanian city famous for its great library and the ancient ruins scattered throughout the surrounding countryside. From a young age, he was fascinated by the fact that these structures were everywhere and yet poorly explained. Atlania had a rich written tradition, but many of its oldest ruins survived only through local stories, shrine traditions, family claims, and uncertain oral histories rather than proper records. This contradiction became the center of Gnoche’s life. He began hunting down those fragments, interviewing locals, comparing old accounts, translating ancient texts, and trying to turn scattered memory into organized scholarship.

His work gradually earned him fame in academic circles, especially as he began challenging older assumptions about Atlanian ruins and arguing that they deserved systematic study rather than speculation, treasure hunting, or noble mythmaking. Scholars, students, patrons, and curious nobles began coming to him for lectures, translations, and opinions on new discoveries. Eventually, Gnoche founded the Richdane Academy of Sciences to collect this work in one place, train researchers, preserve records, and standardize archaeology as a serious field of study.

His most ambitious project became the study of Gurdacrest, the long-empty fortress of House Duron. Gnoche approached the site with years of theory, research, and confidence, believing it might become the crowning work of his career. Unfortunately for his pride, his investigation began just as Andrew Hayes and Lord Lisbith Duron returned from the Grey Wood with firsthand knowledge of the fortress and its history. Their arrival shattered many of Gnoche’s carefully built theories, forcing him to confront the uncomfortable truth that in Atlania, history is not always dead, buried, or safely academic. Sometimes it walks back through the door and corrects your footnotes.

well educated, founded a shool