The head of the Magical Society of Talin is driven by a sense of ruthless ambition that has won Hazel few friends amongst the commonfolk, whom she despises anyhow, and only slightly more allies from Talin’s equally haughty nobility. Hazel became obsessed with the promises and powers of magic as a youth, to which she has devoted her life – particularly in the pursuit of forbidden elder magicks such as the “ritual of the one-eyed god”, a notorious summoning over which she lost an eye to no profit. Hazel’s insatiable hunger for more powerful sorceries has refocused her ambition inevitably on the Talinese royal house, keepers of some of the world’s most arcane tomes within locked royal vaults.

Desperation makes for strange bedfellows. Hazel’s hunger for forbidden knowledge inspired a secret alliance with none other than the Hirschbuck’s Pontiff, Edicris. Edicris and Hazel have thus worked hand-in-hand for a number of years to destabilize Talin’s relationship with the empire outwardly and sow the seeds of civil discord inwardly with false rumors of treachery against Queen Tia – rather ironic considering Hazel’s own treacherous willingness to bring Talin under the Empire’s thumb. Talin’s recent outbursts of civil disorder have become yet another match set to the powder keg of an increasingly destabilized Aurelica.