Ingowen Silkhammer

Backstory

I come from a long line of wandmakers. The Silkhammers most recently live in Manhattan but have also lived in Iceland, Venice, Sardinia, Crete, and Canaan. We are a nomadic bunch. We roam the world seeking new varieties of tree and rare magical materials. We have some rogue wizards among us whom we are always trying to disavow.

I love the way magic can interact with words and images to create new realities. I am an eternal student. My particular expertise is rune inscription, a skill I use to enhance the wands we make in my family's wand-shop. In the years since I attended multiple schools of magic, I have been a teacher of ancient runes in academic contexts, but the wandmaking skills I have learned are a family secret, which I am passing on only to my daughters. I have an urge to create, which I must satisfy daily. I also love teaching and the pursuit of wisdom, and I love seeing people find the wand that will be a friend for life. I want to help others find their unique gifts.

On the side, I engage in and teach dream divination, having studied this art in Prague with my great-grandfather. My great-grandmother on the other side, an herbal healer, has also been an important influence on my life, and she gave me my familiar, Jade, who is an Irish crow. Jade is a protective and rather noisy friend. I'm a pureblood (though in my family we never use that term), but my wife is a Muggleborn (or possibly a half-breed; her father may have been a wizard, though he was so odd it was hard to tell).

My greatest gifts are probably my creativity and my underlying sense of the structure and meaning of things. My greatest fault is probably my impatience, which has wrecked many a new wand. I was sorted into Ravenclaw, but was something of a hatstall.... But that's a story for another time.