Lauri (known as Lorra in her first decade) was a Surin human woman from the Boen-occupied region of Vivien. She was known for her founding role in the University of Mountainport, and for her involvement in the Andan Auxiliary program.

Growing up and academic career

Lorra was born in a small southern Vivi village in 58 OW. Her mother was a scribe at the local Guard office, whereas her father worked as a roofer and part-time town watchman. He was suspected of aiding insurgents in 59, enslaved by the Boens, and taken to the mines. Lorra’s mother refused to process the papers condemning her husband, and almost got into trouble because of it as well.

The Vivi people still adhered to the pilgrist faith; it brought them some safety, in the harsh world of orcish rule and fierce orcish gods. The values of an “inner paradise” and modesty were a bedrock of hope for the people. Orcish occupation in Vivien ended in 62 OW, but Lorra’s village was left relatively unaffected by the change. The power vacuum was filled locally by an inspired mayor, and for the region by a self-appointed king (one of the elite humans from Boen rule).

Lorra, called Lauri now that the need to adapt to orcish governance was gone, entered the local elementary school in 63 OW (it functioned the same way as it had for decades before; the teachers were all human, just the occasional visits by Guards and shamans were missing). She spent three days of the week in school, and the remainder mostly playing in town but sometimes also helping her mother’s or other villagers’ work. Her mother was employed by the royal tax office (the only regional institution to have a presence in the village).

Lauri enjoyed learning, and she adored spending time with an old orc sage who’d come to the village in 62. He taught her many things, from math to cosmology to Orcish poetry. In 70 OW, motivated by him and encouraged by her mother, she wrote the entry exam to the college of Mountainport, the nearby coastal city, and succeeded. Mountainport was a free city, independent of the rural kingdom.

For six years, Lauri studied six days in town, staying with many of her colleagues in the school dormitory, and returning for the three-day weekend to her home village.

Life in town was very different and exciting for the teenage girl. The people there were smart, and dressed nicely, and they were always busy. Lauri, used to wearing long dull-colored dresses and gloves, was obviously different from the religiously much more open city folk; few of them really adhered to pilgrism. Lauri took to wearing the lighter, more colorful dresses of Mountainport fashion, but she continued wearing gloves most of the time, and she donned her full dress whenever she went home.

In 76 OW, having successfully completed college – her main work was a discussion of religious practices in post-Boen urban pilgrist communities – Lauri applied for higher education; her mother had paid for college, and she had earned some money working as a weaver and a church attendant on the side, so she had enough for tuition. Her college was partnered with the Andan Greentree University, and thus arranged for her to travel to the islands in the south for her studies at the Department of Society.

Greentree University, alongside the Military Academy of Greentree, was founded in 63 OW, out of the former wartime Andan officers’ school and military research complex. The University was largely funded by the Coalition education fund, one of the reinvestments of the military alliance’s financial means; this is the only reason it existed as a public school separate from the Military Academy. The Andans intended to use it as a way to gain influence and profit from the interracial intellectual elite, attracting the diverse orcish, goblinoid, and human population of Greentree and far beyond.

Lauri enjoyed her studies at the university. She stayed at the former barracks dormitory. Her lectures were taught by rather diverse individuals, in the aim of offering an as general understanding of different societies as possible, while much of the course consisted of practical work in smaller groups, sometimes even participating in research projects.

Early on, Lauri decided she wanted to channel her energy and fascination for people into a didactic career; she wanted to teach the sociology she’d learned to college students back home. Thus, her aim after the journeyman’s degree – which she completed in 79 OW, at 21 years of age – was to achieve a teaching diploma. However, to enroll into this master’s course, she needed to be at least 22, and have some practical work or research experience behind her.

Stay on Silur

Coincidentally, one of the researchers she’d worked with during her courses was part of the group of Tyerkye (a Colleague at the Military Academy), and was looking precisely for a young woman to participate in Tyerkye’s research; the project was exploring the ancient Human Auxiliary practices, trying to produce fey magic in humans.

Lauri agreed to participate as a subject for three or so years, in exchange for good pay at the end and a direct entry into the teaching curriculum. To make it possible, the researchers had to circumvent some barriers, documenting her as religiously trained Andan property, as was required for participants. And so she found herself on Silur, in the hallowed region of Enellan, living in a small group with two other women for several years to see if any spiritual connections magically appeared.

This was a harrowing time for Lauri. The isolated life and strange rituals to coax out spirits were well outside her comfort zone, she did not like being constantly secretly observed by hidden researchers, and she did not get along too well with her companions. Nonetheless, she forced herself through this.

The experiment ended in 82 OW (with inconclusive results) and Lauri expected to be paid as agreed. However, there were some administrative hiccups – the project ended rather abruptly, with the lead researcher Tyeryke simply dropping everything as is and letting an assistant handle the cleanup. The three women, all listed as public assets, were simply turned over to the state; Lauri’s special situation was overseen, and she did not notice any part of this administrative procedure while she stayed isolated at Enellan-Tyerkye. The state, looking at the reports and experiment results, judged that her colleagues were promising enough to continue using in the Auxiliary program, but Lauri – with a missing past and no signs of fey abilities – was instead sold off to recoup some of the project’s costs.

She was purchased by the sun elven House Hannan, a fact she only learned from her owners when arriving at her new home. She was surprised and angry, but there was little she could do about it, and the past three years had left her too emotionally scarred to undertake much.

The elves’ main interest was first to see if Tyerkye’s experiment had produced any interesting effects, but the case was more interesting to anthropologists and psychologists than it was to theologians and mages as it was hoped. Second, they also wanted her for all the knowledge she could give them about the Andans, including their mode of operations and the structure of their institutions in Greentree. And finally, she helped complete historians’ records of the War in Numanôbar with what she’d learned in Vivien.

Noticing Lauri’s ability and interest, Hannan assigned her an assistant’s job in their school and research facility, helping teach young elves and maintaining the place’s considerable library and scientific tools. Lauri thrived in this role, and found her old self again.

In 88 OW, House Hannan thanked Lauri for all that she had given them, and allowed her to buy her own freedom.

Vivien and the Mountainport University

Lauri returned to her hometown in Vivien, in search of the mother she hadn’t seen for over a decade. To her joy, her mother was still in good health living in the same old town, and was overjoyed to see her. Lauri began work as a second-rate sociology and theology teacher at the College of Mountainport, moving to the city and finding an apartment for herself and her mother. Lauri’s experience and her teaching style were very appreciated, and she became an important name in the intellectual circles of the city.

Lauri’s mother passed in 96. Talks about establishing a university in Mountainport became serious that same year; the one in Vivi, run by the Order of Saint Astra, was small and notoriously bad, so the only real option for Mountainport folk remained non-pilgrist religious academies or the Andan Greentree University, both of which were not popular options among intellectuals – forefront among whom was Lauri, of course. The imperial universities were too further away, and much too expensive.

Funding was secured through two channels, both of them religious: the Serensk Order, and the pilgrist church in Vivien.

The new Mountainport University was a proudly pilgrist institution, with some courses and faculty members under control of the Serensk Order; for instance, courses in Calm theology were also offered, and there were partnerships with Calm institutions such as the Saint Saviour monasteries.

Lauri was involved in the founding talks, in the construction planning, and in the founding faculty. She was an advisor and guest lecturer at the Department of Society, and on the university’s administrative board.

She retired from her official functions in 113, but continued to live in her rooms on campus. After her passing in 119, a bronze bust of her likeness was built near the campus’s pilgrist church.