Blair Renault's page

Events: Blair was born in Windsor, Ontario to Michael and Rebecca Renault. With the rising strength of the auto industry in the 50s and 60s, Blair’s parents immigrated to the US and settled down in the sleepy suburb of Troy where his father quickly found work as an automotive engineer. Blair grew up in the quiet suburban neighborhood and after remaining in the country for a few years, all three became US citizens. Blair was an avid student and his parents were very encouraging of his academic pursuits. Three months after Blair’s fourteenth birthday he blew out all of the computers in the school’s new computer lab. Nobody, not even his parents believed that Blair had done nothing to the computers. Thousands of dollars of damage, school and neighborhood condemnation resulted in Blair being expelled.

Feeling persecuted by his family, friends and school acquaintances, Blair ran away. This was a difficult time for Blair. For nearly a year, he was hungry, exposed to the elements and things seemed to never go right around him. Shame at running away, shame at failing, shame at the recriminations kept him from returning home. The accidents continued away from home and the school however. Small fires broke out, tree limbs crashed into the tents of other homeless, cars and generators sputtered to a halt around him. Blair started to wonder if he was jinxed.

A young homeless worker and a sensitive caught wind of Blair and brought him in to a shelter before the Michigan winter began. That fall, he was introduced to the concept of magic and was tested for his aptitude. He tested well and was accepted as an apprentice of Ibram Goldstein.

Events: Wizard Goldstein took Blair in as his second apprentice. His first was the slightly older Antonio Tremaine. Tony was already beyond Blair in his training and took every possible opportunity to lord over Blair. His training was disrupted, his homework burned, his clothes soiled. Tony would constantly inflict small harms on Blair at any opportunity, no burns or bruises ever showed, but the treatment only got worse.

Blair learned however. The constant challenges posed by Antonio’s constant assaults pushed Blair to learn faster and faster. Ibram didn’t understand how Blair was progressing so quickly and began to slowly distrust Blair. As Blair’s abilities to manipulate magical energy bloomed, Ibram settled on a belief that Blair had made some sort of deal with a power.

As Antonio’s assaults on Blair began to be stopped by Blair’s growing understanding and skill, Ibram, without meaning to was discussing his youngest apprentice to members of the White Council. It wasn’t long before others began to distrust Blair as well.

As odd as this seems, these years were the happiest of Blair’s life. He felt connected to a larger society. He was able to tell his parents that he was alive and in a special school. Most important of all, he fell in love with the study and essence of magic. He found beauty in magic for its own sake. He began to hear magic wherever he went. Unfiltered and raw like the white noise from an unturned radio that rose and fell in waves with the ambient strength of the magical field. From that, Blair would spin music. Simple things sounded like a violin, or a clarinet, or an oboe. Others had multiple weaving strains of melody. Once he was even able to weave together something that sounded like a string quartet.

The end came when Antonio was made a full wizard. Perhaps Antonio said something to Ibram, perhaps there were whispers among other members of the Council. Blair was pulled before the Council and questioned. He was questioned about his magic, questioned about his strength. Accused many times of consorting with powers. In the midst of this inquisition he became aware of Antonio questioning him as well, and though others did not see it, Blair saw the hunger and the anger in the newly minted wizard’s eyes. Blair knew then that he could never be a member of their family. He would never trust them, those that would blindly accept a monster like Antonio.

Blair told the wizards what they could do to themselves, in no uncertain and distinctly scatological terms. Ibram raged as Antonio smiled, broke his apprenticeship, took his robe and denied him assistance, rest or surcease from any member of the White Council. He was cut off.

Blair was an older and wiser young man when he was dropped off on the streets of Detroit. It was the early 60s. Blair started working at the Mack Avenue Ford Assembly plant (known as the Mack Plant back then). He learned to keep a tight rein on his magic and his emotions, but he bored of working at the plant after a few years and put himself through night school, becoming a high-school teacher at a private school in Detroit.

On visiting his old friend in the hospital Blair learns from the doctors that they can find nothing wrong to explain the coma that he is in. Blair uses the Sight and finds that the victim's psyche underwent some sudden trauma. So Blair shows up on Simon's doorstep as a very suspicious person and after figuring out that Simon is a real practitioner and not a charlatan, accuses Simon of being a bad guy and warns him of *dire consequences* (breaking the laws) for hurting Blair's friend.

Blair believes that Simon is the culprit, but cannot fully prove it, so he starts investigating. Blair rocks the boat a bit, going to the plant and the hospital, asking questions, and he gets attacked while .

Simon, saves Blair, and the focus of the investigation becomes a contract negotiator for the auto industry plant. The shift worker is a minor sorceror, Abraham Verghese, that has been psychically invading union leaders to undermine ongoing contract negotiations. He enters the minds of the leaders through their dreams and makes alterations. Blair knows that it is only a matter of time before he is attacked through dreams as well, and enlists Simon's aid. With Simon's help and instruction Blair is able to create a battlefield in his mind. Blair and Simon fight in Blair's dream, and Blair is able to work some thaumaturgy to trap Abraham's psyche in the Nevernever.