Polymanis

"The Labyrinth in inescapable and that is its conceit. It is the prison of the self, the way in which our thoughts bind us, define us and control us. We seek transcendence, but such ambitions are impossible."

— Polymanis

Polymanis o Nocros, sometimes known as the Father of Philosophy, was a highly influential thinker in Thripia who first defined the metaphor of the Labyrinth to explain the function of the human mind and the trappings of destiny. He was also fascinated with ichor and spent much of his later life attempting to understand it; it is known, however, that he suffered from ichor blindness in the years prior to his death. The founding of the famous School of Philosophy is often attributed to him.

Appearance

It was often quipped of Polymanis that he had been an old man all his life. He had a wizened appearance from an early age with thin eyes, stern features and short hair which, after a time, he would shave completely bald. In his middle age, in which he published his most influential works, he was famous for his scraggly and pointed pale-white beard. Polymanis also had heterochromia with his left eye being green and his right eye being light brown.

History

Early Life

Relatively little is known about Polymanis' childhood life. He was born into the Nocros family who were moderately wealthy middle class merchants. He had four older siblings; one sister and three brothers. With no hope of inheriting the business, he spent most of his time studying and assisting his more charismatic eldest brother with mathematics and economics with which he was extremely gifted and largely self-taught. He received little credit for his participation in the trade of his family, however, and so would abscond to pursue a different passion. Always fascinated with metaphor and symbolism, he immersed himself in the world of poets and thinkers which was thriving at the time thanks to Thripia's prosperity. He often presented his thoughts to them but was dismissed each time; by writers for his poor grasp of mythology and story and by philosophers for his all too abstract conceptualizing. As well as this, he became a subject of ridicule among his family and was not welcome to return to them, forced to live with friends and colleagues in his youth.

The Labyrinth

Having failed to achieve acclaim, Polymanis abandoned his efforts to conform to the norms and unspoken rules of his contemporaries and instead began to focus purely on the self-motivated study of subjects which truly interested him. Ichor became one of his principal focuses. Very little academia at the time had truly made an effort to understand the properties of the substance and most discourse relied on mythology and theology to explain its inner-workings. At some stage, Polymanis had an ichor vision unlike any he had experienced before. Though he would never describe exactly what he saw, it said that he was consumed by frenzy and produced, over the course of a month, a text on a metaphysical, psychological concept he called the Labyrinth. It argued that the human mind was a maze in which ideas took the form of corridors.
At the urging of his friends and colleagues, he presented it to intellectual circles. It quickly became a controversial piece. Those who were taken with its ideas and connotations with regard to concepts such as old age, destiny, insanity and the gods praised its remarkable observations. The larger majority, however, considered it the ravings of a man drunk on ichor and found the praise it received vastly disproportionate. Regardless, the discource around the text made Polymanis' name prominent, spoken by poets, thinkers, philosophers and nobles alike. The Dynasty King at the time, Apheron, considered himself an intellectual and thus Polymanis' ideas on the Labyrinth eventually made their way into his hands. Fascinated and engrossed, he declared it a masterwork in philosophy, much to the surprise of academics, and asked that the author be invited to the Old Palace that Apheron might discuss it with him.
This recognition from the highest seat of power in Thripia did much to bolster Polymanis' reputation and new respect was afforded to him. Over the next decade, he would go on to expand on his ideas, present new ones and take on many students, particularly of the wealthy upper class, who wished to be tutored by him. Of these students, Polymanis largely tired, believing of many of them that their only virtue lay in the happenstance of their birth. As his own fortune accrued, he preferred to take on more promising pupils irrespective of their wealth and status, and over time the criteria for his selection became more and more exclusive. His reputation reflected that he was a secretive man of high standards, bright ideas and strange temperament.
His fascination with ichor, and the myriad of unanswered questions still posed by its existence, only intensified towards the end of his life. In particular, he performed a great variety of experiments with the aim of altering what visions he experienced and documenting how accurate they were or were not in events that would come to pass. In the final decades of his life, he was scarcely seen outside of his abode and spent vast portions of his wealth on acquiring more ichor. It was said by many in hushed tones that he had been afflicted with the gold hunger. Ultimately, he would suffer from ichor blindness up until his death, a fact he greatly lamented. It did not, however, dissuade his efforts as he would continue to perform his experiments on subjects rather than himself. His health began to rapidly deteriorate from that point onward, however, and he would eventually die in his sleep.

Quotes

"I've been beheaded, my link with myself severed."

— Polymanis on his ichor blindness.

"All men search for a way out of the Labyrinth, and yet there is none to be found, even by those who have wandered for an eternity."

— Polymanis on the Labyrinth

"When the mind opens, learning flows, but its stream will pool and flood without the banks of wisdom to guide it's direction."

— A saying attributed to Polymanis.

Legacy

Of all the intellectuals to have lived in Thripia, Polymanis' legacy stands the tallest. His method, focusing on the use of metaphor and symbolism to communicate abstract and complex ideas, was revolutionary and largely reinvented the way philosophy was conducted in the city. Popular discussion and discourse of the era shifted away from more practical issues and began delving into broader, more existential questions about the nature of existence and man's role within it. As well as this, his idea of the Labyrinth has been ingrained in Thripia's culture ever since its presentation such that it is considered fact by most and taken for granted as the truth. Polymanis' students would also go on to found the School of Philosophy inspired by his teachings and method; an institution which endured into the modern day.

Conditions

• Ichor Blindness
• The Gold Hunger

Ethnicity

Thalassians

Honorary & Occupational Titles

The Father of Philosophy

Life

81 AL 157 AL 76 years old

Birthplace

Thripia

Gender

Male

Eyes

Heterochromic; green in the left, brown in the right

Hair

White, bald, with a long beard

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale brown