Iago

Iago was born in the family of a small town carpenter . At a young age he showed signs of magical ability and the local vicar suggested that the child be shown to the abbot. The latter took notice and before long 12 year old Iago was being sent to the provincial center with a bunch of other talented children, to be seen by the bishop. Unlike the rest of them, two years later he was on the road again, this time to the capital city. With him he had the bishop’s letter of recommendation as well as a personal letter to the rector of the Arch Duke’s Academy for Promising Boys. While the first letter carried a seal of the diocese and was written in the dry and official language that any bureaucracy tends to gravitate towards, the second one was a lot less formal and much easier to open. Iago, who thought nothing of reading it, discovered that the bishop and the rector were cousins, and that some 45 years ago their lifestyles were quite a bit less proper.

While it was hoped that all of the magically talented children discovered by the church officials would one day take the cloth, it was also understood that this is not the likeliest outcome. Iago himself felt that the life of a clergyman is as good as any other, so he prepared himself for it by exhibiting a reasonable degree of piety all throughout his schooling. However, during his fourth and final at the academy an epidemic swept the central provinces and before anyone knew, five per cent of the population were in the ground, including Iago’s father and sister.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the disease was natural or magical, but as Iago was upset and looking for someone to blame, he dreamt up a renegade afflictor and passionately vowed to stop him. As it was the time for those students who went on to the university to declare a future course of study, he requested to be sent to the College of Benediction. A few months later an official investigation concluded that there was nothing suspicious about the illness, and a slightly ashamed Iago, who wasn’t really all that interested in the healing arts, kicked himself a bit, but decided to stick it our for a while so that he wouldn’t look foolish in front of his peers.

The first year proved interesting enough, although, as he suspected, the act of healing didn’t do much for him. It was about as rewarding as any job well done, but didn’t carry any special sense of achievement. On the positive note, the “old BenCo” was traditionally populated mostly by women, so the day to day life was pleasant enough. By the end of the third quarter, Iago discovered that he is actually rather interested in the mechanics of the transfer of life force. It was much more concrete than most other aspects of being a healer.

The forth quarter introduced a new lecturer, an afflictor who was supposed to introduce the students to plagues and methods of disease control. Although initially dismissing the discipline as something dirty and unpleasant, Iago was soon won over by the professor who was genuinely excited about his subject and the opportunity to teach. The theory proved to be quite fascinating, and when the time came to apply the knowledge, Iago was surprised by how naturally it came to him. He began dedicating more of his time to the research, as well as the experiments, and by the end of his first year concocted a disease  that left not a single living paper louse in the university library. This was done with the help of his instructor of course, but was no less impressive for it.

At that point it was more or less apparent to everyone what his future career will be, and for the next four years he was learning all there was to learn about afflictions natural and magical. Most of Iago’s work was done in his laboratory, but every so often he would venture out to do some field work and test his new knowledge. Beginning in the second half of his third year, he was already teaching a classes of his own — the Theory of Pandemics, and his paper on the Application of Ritual Sacrifice in Diseases for Populations with Low Genetic Diversity was published, circulated among the specialists, and generally well received.

As he was preparing for his final exams in the end of the fifth year, an outbreak of an unknown disease began among the sailors in the docks district. The city council appealed to the university, and they sent Iago to investigate. Two days and only a dozen deaths later, he managed to not only find a cure, but also a source, which turned out to be a local brothel. Iago, who was hoping for something romantic, like a derelict ship, was a bit disappointed, but the officials and the merchants were quite happy, presenting him with a letter of commendation, which was useless but pretty. On the positive note, his excursion into the docs granted him his magister’s ring without having to suffer the annoyance of a final examination.

GM Notes: 
Here are the simple details that seem like they would map best (i.e., in the Seven Kingdoms):

The king (a weaker, feudal sort of king with more moral authority than actual power in his own kingdom, but a powerful man in his own right) has two major principalities.  One is more of a backwater, though still along a major trade route.  That would likely be where Iago is from.  The other contains the capital city, which among other things contains the Keltharian's only university as well as the main head of two important orders: the Grey Circle and the Brotherhood of Serena.  The former is the most powerful and magical association in Keltharian; the latter is a brotherhood of male healers dedicated to magical healing in the name of the goddess of healing and mercy: Serena.

There isn't really a formal church hierarchy (at least, none with any real authority); but within the king's own lands, there is such a thing.  There are also hospital/monasteries where men (the brotherhood) and women (the actual clergy) co-mingle in order to do the work of healing.

At the university, Iago would be involved in the brotherhood's formal training in healing; likewise, the lecturer was a practitioner of the "Divisions of Life" style, there to teach some of their insights into epidemiology, etc.  "Divisions of Life" uses Ritual Magic (Book) under "Energy Accumulation" rules, has three books associated with it (focusing on Necromancy, Pathomancy, and Toxicomancy), and emphasizes manipulating the essential "energies" of "undeath," disease, poison, and life.