Symphorien family

The Symphoriens are a wealthy mage family specializing in steam power, automation, and artificial intelligence. Refined and guarded for centuries, Symphorien proprietary techniques have influenced the technological development of magical society worldwide. However, their unfortunate habit of trying to invent immortality every few generations has inconveniently impacted their public image.

The current Symphorien matriarch, Giovanna, took over the family business at the nadir of its reputation and made it her life‘s work to restore its clout. She intended for her to continue her mission and elevate it to ever greater magical heights; hope has long since been lost for her disappointing son Wolfgang, and those expectations have fallen solely to the high-achieving and people-pleasing Rosalind, who is developing doubts of her own.

Magical characteristics: 

The Symphorien family produces powerful scientists and engineers whose personal values range from strict utilitarianism to luxurious excess. The family’s fortunes were built on machines of industry and war, furnishing the twins with lavish privilege but conflicting with both of their ethics. Rosalind’s dream is to turn her magical resources toward space exploration, while Wolf wants nothing more than to make toys and pets and frivolous devices.

Symphorien inventions, including machine schematics and proprietary runic code, are hexed to prevent them from being leaked outside the family. Wolf is working to modify the code for open-source distribution, but must be cautious about the project while still financially reliant on his parents.

The family name is also hexed and sticks to anyone who bears it. Anyone marrying or born into the family adopts the surname, and Wolf was unable to change it upon changing the rest of his name.

Home and history:

The ancestral Symphorien manor, where the twins grew up, is an architectural marvel containing immorally large hoards of magical wonders: a rooftop observatory, an orrery room, display closets of exquisite clockwork, multiple armories, and a whole bunch of ghosts. The manor is patrolled by units of the Automated Domestic Assistant (ADA), a Symphorien robot briefly in vogue among well-off wizard families before it became clear that they were too creepy to be a long-term commercial success.

Wolf and Rosalind also spent time at the family summer home, located in a lake district full of flowering trees, where they used to play imagination games.

Although some (Giovanna) consider it overly sentimental, Symphorien artificers sometimes create automaton familiars. Wolf, adapting schematics from a deceased great-uncle’s pet projects, began building animal robots at the age of nine. [Heads up this next sentence is sad.] In response to some childish offense, his mother took the air out of his robot dog and a number of other animals he made; he was too inexperienced to be able to restore them. He later used some of the scrap to create his butler-themed corvid familiar, Aille, who has a vigilantly updated digital backup in case of damage.

Studying the family tree is a long, onerous process. The ancestor Wolf and Rosalind were most interested in was Isabella Symphorien, a brigadier general revered for her prowess at tactics and command. Wolf learned as a child that Isabella had a brother, Gustave, who attempted to seek immortality and whom she ultimately took up arms against and—incompletely—destroyed. His ruined suit of armor contains remnants of his soul and is still stored in the manor’s basement armory.

Aside from the twins, Symphoriens currently living include: There is also at least one extant Symphorien lich living in the manor, the twins’ triple-great grandmother, so far gone at this point she’s basically grumpy, creepy furniture.
 * Giovanna, chief executive and nightmare mom
 * Sigrún, her eldest sister, a motorcycle valkyrie
 * Veloura, their middle sister, vain and unhinged
 * Florian, Giovanna’s ineffectual husband