Before this chapter goes further and I answer some questions about samuel and his office, I would like to say one thing: Samuel and Cave city in no way represent my opinions on government, politicians, or any variant thereof. This is the same sort of deal as with edythe being an arms dealer: It is in the story because I think it’s neat,  not because my personal views are shared in the story. Samuel in a nutshell is a modern take on the old as dirt “mage-king” idea, which given this chaper’s title was Hail to the King, I felt it was rather obvious – but I felt this statement couldn’t hurt.

QUESTIONS YOU MAY BE THINKING

• How old / tall is samuel? He’s around 40. He’s also five foot one inch tall, making him the shortest character in the comic. I was very tempted to make another joke with Violet but wisely chose not to.
• Who’s the guy in the portrait behind him? That’s Casimir Novachek, founder of cave city, and Samuel’s grandfather by adoption. The fact he lived to over 90 years old despite being a mage should show how pretty much everybody loved him. The markings on his skin are soot and grease, as he won over the workers early in the city’s existence by physically helping them in the factories. The cave city info page has a good section on him. And yes, one of his irises is larger than the other, that’s not a weird error on my part.
• Were Andromeda’s Family Famous? Among mages, yes. Their family was old, and after her parents died people assumed the bloodline was lost for good.
• What’s so important about magical bloodlines? While TNF mage families do often have aristocratic tendencies to them, they actually have a reason for intermarrying other than prestige or otherwise classism. If a magical person has children with someone lacking powers, the children’s powers will be weaker. This may still seem like classism, but do note that mages in this universe have a bullseye on their backs at all times, and marrying your third cousin is usually a better option than your kid ending up getting murdered because they couldn’t properly defend themselves.
• Is magic in the series dying? If you mean in decline, yes. Due to magical families slowly running out of heirs over time, combined with things like the curse of the lost, have generally resulted in the families of magical decent slowly but surely dying out. Samuel’s bloodline is already dead for all intents and purposes, so he has personal reasons for wanting to keep Andromeda alive, even when comparing her to other mages.
• What’s with the yellow tinted glasses? Samuel’s design was heavily influenced by the villain from a 2nd – rate DS game that I watched a trailer for some time around his creation. Some things have remained, like his red clothes and hairstyle, but I forgot about the yellow glasses until I found a very old drawing of him that had them, and they vastly improved his appearance. As for his eye color, I’m leaning towards a brownish green.
• Anything else we should know about him? If you’re going to call anyone in the series my self insert, it’s Samuel, as he’s basically the in universe historian and lore guy. I also look more like him than anyone else – but given he’s the only blonde with glasses, that isn’t saying much.