Doorkeeper had essayed a number of Specialities such as Reader, Healer, Scholar, and Seer, proving quite unsuited to all of them. At the age of fifty, as the oldest Neophyte in the House, he had despaired of ever finding a true magical vocation. It was with great relief that he had accepted lifetime tenure as Mage Doorkeeper of Arnor House, overjoyed to have found an accepted Speciality at last. This also pleased the authorities of the House, since there had been no permanent incumbent in the post for many years. Although the post of Mage Doorkeeper was a symbolic position with few real responsibilities or privileges, any House that could afford to employ one seemed to enjoy a certain cachet within the Guild.

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

The old man had been addressed as 'Doorkeeper' for so long now that he could barely remember the name he had borne before being granted the title. He dressed in fading midnight blue robes decorated with embroidered silver runes, and he bore a handsome head of curly white hair and a long white beard. Image was important to Doorkeeper, and he tried hard to cultivate the air of a master of the arcane arts, but his bulbous, red nose and round, ruddy face ruined the impression he sought to create.

Despite his yearning to be recognised as a venerable magic-user, he knew he gave the impression of a genial, bumbling and slightly senile grandfather, and he announced his presence wherever he went by a chorus of creaking, popping joints. Doorkeeper's habits included rubbing his nose, sudden fits of furious scratching under his robes and muttering to himself, all of which detracted severely from the stern, sorcerous image he tried to display to his peers. However, although the old man was dimly aware of these little tics and foibles, he found himself quite unable to suppress them.