Patia Por'co

Patia Por'co
Official art of Patia Por'co, by Hannah Friederichs.
Type	Player Character
Actor	Marisha Ray
Character Information
Pronouns	she/her
Titles	Archmage
Creature type	Humanoid
Race	Elf
Class	Wizard (School of Enchantment)
Age	Around 300 (on the eve of the Calamity)
Languages	Common
Places	Torumunda, Domunas (originally) Avalir
Family	Imyr Por'co (grandfather)
Connections	Ring of Brass (member)
Profession	Keeper of Scrolls Archmage of the Librarium Incantatum
Status
Status	Dead
Causes of death	Blasted by the explosion at the Tree of Names Killed by a Taxman construct
Death episode(s)	"Fire and Ruin" (E3x04)
Stats
Level	14
HP	86
AC	16
DC	18
Str	11
Dex	16
Con	15
Int	20
Wis	15
Cha	18
Reference(s)
Appearances
First seen	"Excelsior" (E3x01)
Last seen	"Fire and Ruin" (E3x04)
Stream	Exandria Unlimited: Calamity (4 episodes)

Patia Por'co (pronounced [ˈpeɪʃə pɔɹˈkoʊ]) is an elven wizard who serves as Keeper of Scrolls and Archmage of the Librarium Incantatum in the city of Avalir. She is played by Marisha Ray.

Description

Fan art of Patia Por'co, by Horichalcum.

Appearance

Patia has clear, ivory skin and somewhat reflective, silvery white hair, threaded through a sun-ray-like fascinator. Around her neck is a rigid golden ring. She wears a collared, breasted coat that stretches down like a gown and has a silken, emerald green sheen. Underneath that is a dress, the color of which depends on how the light hits it: teal, blue, or indigo.

Protecting Avalir in its final hours, Patia touched the Tree of Names to learn its secrets, fusing her right arm with its glowing bark and severing it below her elbow.

Personality

"Patia is the epitome of 'boss bitch', who is prepared for anything – and if she isn't, she sure as hell isn't going to let you know that. ... She might be the walking embodiment of 'Fake it till ya make it.'"

Biography

Fan art of Patia Por'co, by shalizeh7.

Background

Although she mentioned her grandfather often and with pride, Patia never talked about her parents. She later discovered that Imyr Por'co had taken away her memories of them when she was a young girl because he regarded them as failures and had higher hopes for Patia.

"Excelsior" (E3x01)

At the Archsept located at the summit of Avalir from which the seven archmages of the Septarion rule the flying city, Patia Por'co, the Keeper of Scrolls, met with Loras of the Weaver's Mask, a member of the Ring of Gold (the apprentices to the Septarion). Loras arrived accompanied by his master, Eldamir the Wise, and when Eldamir left, Loras told Patia that she was under consideration for an empty seat on the Ring of Gold.

Patia hosted a large party that evening, the eve of the The Replenishment, for the important movers and shakers of the city, which was attended by the members of the Ring of Gold although not by the Septarion itself. There, Nydas Okiro told her that people who should not know of their transactions in the city's store of Ether did have that knowledge. Angered, she cast Detect Thoughts to attempt to learn more from the party-goers, and overheard a non-sentient hodmedod thinking "Ghor Dranas".

"Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02)

Patia determined that earlier that evening, a hodmedod porter had arrived with a gift from Dean Lacrytia Hollow which proved to be a non-magical vial of poison, with the note, "When the time comes, this will be the easier way out. All things end: Lives, stories, even ages." Patia learned that one of the party-goers had her memory modified by Micah Cormorant while an invisible Lacrytia Hollow pursued Purvan Suul meaning to kill him.

Later, Patia and Laerryn went to the office of Micah Cormorant and killed him when he attacked them there. They found tampered-with Teleportation Circles with an Infernal rune Cormorant was using to secretly invite people in, along with many records about the Arboreal Calix and the nature of the Pact with the Drashari. They also found an ancient letter written on birch bark around the time the Calix was created, signed by the Head Druid of the Gau Drashari of the Temple of Toramunda, suggesting that the Drashari distrusted enchantment and the motives of the wizards of Avalir, and could therefore not share the tree's purpose.

"Blood and Shadow" (E3x03)

In the battle against Lacrytia Hollow, the hostility between the two mages was clear. At its conclusion, Patia held the spell Otiluke's Resilient Sphere and calmly walked into the center of the battlefield, hoping to entice the invisible Lacrytia to appear. Lacrytia indeed re-appeared directly in front of Patia, saying, "I've always hated you." This triggered Patia's held cast, encapsulating Lacrytia and forcing her cast of Circle of Death inward onto herself since there was nowhere else for it to go. Patia then crushed the orb, killing Lacrytia.

After the battle, at his request Patia restored Zerxus's memories of what had actually happened to Evandrin Alterra (his husband). Together, Patia and Zerxus had performed a resurrection ritual to bring Evandrin back from death, but although the ritual was performed perfectly, nothing happened. Zerxus had asked her to modify his memory to remove this, and she had obliged.

At the final confrontation at the Tree of Names, instead of participating in the argument among the party members Patia cast Legend Lore on the tree to learn the names it held. She learned much of its history and purpose, but in her trance the tree grew around her hand as she sank into it. Loquatius tried to pull her free and began having visions as well. When Laerryn saw the sharp branches of the tree spear into Patia and Loquatius, she cast Blight on it.

"Fire and Ruin" (E3x04)

As time slowed to a crawl, the branches of the Tree of Names that had lashed out at Patia and Loquatius landed their blows, severing Patia's arm at the elbow where it had sunk into the tree. Nonetheless, she transmitted the truth of the Tree of Names to the others. Her Ring of Mind Shielding exploded and blew three fingers off her other hand, and a burst of fire and bludgeoning damage then killed her. After Zerxus struck his bargain with Asmodeus to return to life, he cast Revivify on Patia and restored her. She realized that she took something powerful from the Tree that was holding ether in her body she wasn't sure she would survive releasing.

Patia visited the statue of her grandfather Imyr Por'co and told him that she intended to try to end the cycle of selfishness he began. She broke off a piece of the statue depicting the Librarium, and teleported both it and her Sphere of Power holding her lifetime of accumulated knowledge and memories to Maya, Cerrit's daughter. She realized her grandfather took away her memories of her parents because he regarded them as failures.

Rejoining Laerryn at the Astral Leywright, Patia inscribed on it the hundreds of names for the Primordials that she had learned through her Legend Lore at the Tree of Names. In the battle against Vespin Chloras, she cast a Wall of Force around the Leywright, Laerryn, and herself to protect them while Laerryn finished her work. When a Dispelling Blast broke through, Patia fell, and as her final act released the boon of magical ether from the Tree into the Leywright, further raising the city's energy level. Just before the final explosion, she remembered her grandfather Imyr and held onto the knowledge that there were many more dreams still possible, as she heard the voice of Maya come through on Cerrit's sending stone telling him she had received Patia's sphere.

Relationships

• Patia first learned about apogee solstices directly from the woman who became the Raven Queen, who by that point was already preparing her ascension to godhood.
• Patia's grandfather is Imyr Por'co, known as "Imyr the Bold", a revered wizard of the city and the person responsible for its separation from Cathmoíra 292 years earlier to become one of the first flying cities of the Age of Arcanum.

Character information

Fan art of Patia Por'co, by Ace Newland.

Notable items

• Ring of protection
• Sphere of Power (reskinned Staff of Power)
• Glowing orb which held and could play back an immense amount of Avalir's lore, knowledge, and memories and served as her magical focus

Former items

• Ring of Mind Shielding

Abilities

Feats

• War Caster

Wizard abilities

• Arcane Recovery
• Spellcasting
• Arcane Tradition (Enchantment)
  • Enchantment Savant
  • Hypnotic Gaze
  • Instinctive Charm
  • Split Enchantment
  • Alter Memories

Wizard spells

Thanks to her job as the Keeper of Scrolls, Patia had access (through her orb) to all the spells available in the library of Avalir.

Spell level	Spell	Notes
0 (cantrip)	Message
0 (cantrip)	Gust
0 (cantrip)	Prestidigitation
1st	Detect Magic
1st	Feather Fall
1st	Shield
2nd	Detect Thoughts
3rd	Fireball
3rd	Haste
4th	Por'co's Impenetrable Bubble	Functions identically to Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
5th	Legend Lore
5th	Scrying
5th	Wall of Force
6th	Disintegrate
7th	Teleport
9th	Wish

Appearances and mentions

• Exandria Unlimited: Calamity
  • "Excelsior" (E3x01) (first appearance)
  • "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02)
  • "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03)
  • "Fire and Ruin" (E3x04), last appearance

Trivia

• Patia's name strongly resembles that of Hypatia, a renowned female Alexandrian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who became the victim of a brutal murder at the hands of a gang of Christian zealots; her name could also derive from the Ancient Greek páthos (suffering), that suggests a tragic end such as Hypatia's. Her surname seems to be an alteration of porco, which means "pig" in Portuguese and Galician.
• In her Instagram stories Marisha explained that Laura Bailey was the one who was going to play in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, but since she was no longer available Marisha took her place and developed Patia using Laura's first ideas.
  • Coincidentally, in the first episode of the miniseries, Marisha had a lapse and accidentally called her character "Portia", which is the name of Portia Lorelei, a character that Laura played in "Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36).
  • According to Laura, her character had red-ish strawberry blond curly hair, and she used lodestones as part of her jewelry, having levitaring earrings and hair pieces.
• Unlike the rest of the party in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Patia's subclass was not clearly indicated in any of the episodes, and she didn't use any distinctive feature of her School of Magic. Instead, Marisha confirmed it after the miniseries ended, and explained that due to the nature of enchanters and her character's position (as a political figure and manipulator), there was a point when those abilities were no longer useful because there were fights happening already.
• Due to her job and circumstances, Patia is the wizard character with the longest spell list, since Brennan Lee Mulligan allowed Marisha to have access to virtually any spell known in Avalir.
  • This, however, doesn't remove the limit in Patia's spell slots, making impossible for her to effectively cast all those spells.
• According to Marisha, one of her inspirations for Patia's orb (and the fact that it and all its knowledge survived the destruction of Avalir) was the library of Alexandria, and imagining how would have been if its content wouldn't have been lost.
  • A popular fan theory that Marisha herself likes is that eventually the orb would have helped creating the Cobalt Reserve, with Maya's father and his job influencing the work that future expositors would have to do.
    • Aabria Iyengar, on the other hand, prefers the theory that Wrayne (Maya's mom) was doing a research with the Qoniira Tetrarchy, and that their family took refuge there, making it possible for both them and the knowledge of the orb to survive the Calamity in Niirdal-Poc.

References

Art: