Igneos ex Verditius
Hermetic Name: Igneos ex Verditius
Roman Tribunal
Reputation: Skilled but critical volcanic Magus 3 (Roman Tribunal)
Preferred Topics: Ignem, Terram, commentaries
Igneos was a Sicilian magus of the Verditius who was very skilled with both Terram and Ignem. A personal field of study for this magus was volcanic action, and he claimed to have the blood of Vulcan in his heritage. He was known to be quite a braggart, and a caustic character in the Tribunal's social field. He had a terrible habit of finding ways to attribute any serious setbacks in his experiments to 'bad information' spread by the other authors he had read. This did not stop him from voraciously reading every book he could on the subject, if only to find more faults.
Igneos was very prone to accidents and risks in his work, establishing a number of hidden laboratories to do different experiments, and often finding a lab exploded or burned down (or buried in rock, or turning everything inside it to duck soup) two or three times every decade. He was a prolific writer of commentaries on other books that were in common circulation.
Fire and the Forge by Igneos ex Verditius, Ignem Tractatus in Latin, Quality 8
Igneos's first self-inspired work, he still spent a significant portion of the book delivering scathing critiques and reviews of other Ignem tractati he had recently read. It actually has some interesting insights into the mixture of Ignem and metal used in forging, and a lot of Verditius enjoy this particular work. Many of the copies of this book in Verditius libraries have extensive side-bar commentaries about which sections to skip or re-read to help the readers.
Metal and the Forge by Igneos ex Verditius, Terram Tractatus in Latin, Quality 8
Similar to Fire and the Forge, this particular book is a study on how forging materials can be transformed in the process. It shows heavy analysis of forge temperatures and different metals. Igneos reportedly had a pair of enchanted eye-pieces that let him see temperature scales, and the book references the visual scale he had - This book makes it clear that Igneos's mind was clever but did not work in ways that could be easily translated. Most Verditius who have copies of this book have transcribed their own metal-forging tables next to the ones in the book. This book is also often sold used, with a Ignem-resistant enchantment for an extra vis.
Use of Craft and Artifice in Laboratory Work by Igneos ex Verditius, Magic Theory tractatus in Latin, Quality 8
Igneos became very untrusting in his longer years, and stopped allowing other crafters to create anything that he would utilize in his laboratory, believing they would inevitably fail at a terrible time. This thoroughly illustrated book (he did not do the work himself, since its success did not affect his lab work) describes a large number of personalized and customized lab equipment he had in one of his labs. Unmentioned was the fact that he did not release this book to his sodales until after that lab exploded.
The Heritage of Verdi by Igneos ex Verditius, Ignem and Terram summae in Latin, Level 16 Quality 8
His 'grand opus', Igneos reportedly wrote this entire book four or five times, because before he had it bound and published, it kept burning up or turning into mud before he had it finished during lab explosions. Each time the book draft was destroyed, Igneos became more dedicated on finishing it, and more reckless in his experiments to 'get it done before something goes wrong'. This book is a massive tome, and the known copies are all enchanted with flame resistance (making them more expensive). Mechanically, this book is two separate summae, but are sold as a single book.