Mad Hatter

There is perhaps no individual in all of Teleria more aptly named than the Mad Hatter. In his own words, he is ‘indeed rather quite mad’ and wears an ‘undoubtedly fetching hat’. The Mad Hatter is a dark sorcerer and potion brewmaster whose techniques would draw snorts of derision, horrified cries, or demands for his permanent imprisonment and even execution, from experts if they knew of it. Generally considered foolish or dangerous by most Knights Revenant, the Hatter was without direction for a time, until the Queen of Hearts discovered him. Too insane and obsessed with his ‘special works’ to be a threat to her position, yet highly skilled enough to be a useful asset, he was an ideal wizard to serve the vain and impulsive Queen. Excited to finally be acknowledged by someone, the Hatter gladly took to forging a key with a queen’s crown symbol as a handle. He tied it to his hat as a sign of her ownership of his creations and his ‘locked-in like-kin’ loyalty to her. The source of the Hatter’s madness is, at least in part, his hat. It was an element of his most formative experiment and it is magically fused to his head. Ensorcelled with dozens of spells and soaked in potions of magical protection and absorption, the hat was devised by the Hatter to protect him on a quest in the Lost Isles long ago. He traveled to the great volcano known as the Throat, home, rumor had it, to a monstrous power that defied reason. Little did the Hatter know that the ineffable beast that calls itself the Demon Lord was there. His magical protections were nothing against the Demon Lord’s reality shifting and mind-bending radiations. Thus the Hatter was made mad, and his hat was rendered irremovable. Mad the Hatter may have become, but that only fueled his imagination, changing everything about the way he devised spells and tested recipes for potions and tinctures. He created what have become his most crucial tools: a clawed staff above which rotates a small, magically suspended, self-heating cauldron, and a teapot. The latter is no ordinary household object. It is completely sentient, screeching and screaming whenever the Hatter’s latest brew is complete. Otherwise it babbles and whitters with the Hatter for hours, suggesting alternative ingredients, cracking lewd jokes, or making terrible puns. In public, it enjoys insulting passers-by before pretending to be completely inanimate so the Hatter gets the blame. How the Hatter devises his creations and concoctions is unique every time he sets to task. He follows no rules or regulations. For some recipes he adds amounts of selected ingredients according to card draws. A seven will means seven sprinkles of kidney stone dust or seven crows’ feet, for example. Careful to shuffle the deck in several different ways before each draw, it is all but impossible for him to repeat a creation, for chance directs him as much as his – and his teapot’s – insane genius. The Mad Hatter’s timing methodology also deviates much from the norm. He carries a large pocket watch – better to always be punctual for the Queen of Hearts – that gives him the time of any location in Teleria on command. When a potion is brewed can be crucial. He is full of such notions as ‘lunch in Kaerok, dinner in Krokhan, always makes a spell a-broken’ and ‘never brew ‘em when sun sets in Durham’. The Hatter knows that for some creations, crafting them when it’s tea time in the Sorrowlakes, or midnight in Nyresa, is optimum or worst. It was the Hatter who informed the Queen of Hearts of the immense insectoid power residing in the heart of Durham Forest. Why did he do such a thing? Because he knew his ‘mighty, splendiferous, beautiful, wise, and true Queen’ would want to know and want to claim what she could. She was the only one who understood him, as much as anyone could. She let him build some of her great palace, including her chess board-inspired court hall and a croquet court, complete with ponds and lakes that easily outshone any other in all Teleria. More selfishly, he wanted to go to Durham too. He and his teapot had fantasized for years about what they could do with the stingers, chitin, claws, venom, petals, pollen, and mushrooms from a hundred thousand varieties of lethal species not found anywhere else. There was no limit. Not one. And what if they could learn from the Insect Lords themselves? It was enough to make the teapot boil over with excitement. The Hatter giggled and jumped up and down on the spot as they speculated over cups of tarantula fang and mint brew.