Character from Bastion by Phil Tucker
A figure who has recruited heroes across time — possibly the final series antagonist, operating on a timescale that makes even reincarnating Great Souls look short-sighted.
The Archmagus operates on a scale that dwarfs individual books. Where other antagonists threaten Scorio personally, the Archmagus threatens the foundational assumptions of Great Soul civilization. He recruits heroes across time — collecting them, positioning them, using their reincarnation cycles as pieces in a game whose board spans centuries. His potential role as the series' ultimate antagonist makes him narratively dangerous in a way that combat power can't capture. He doesn't need to fight Scorio. He needs Scorio to be exactly where he wants him, doing exactly what he's been engineered across lifetimes to do. The question of whether Scorio's entire journey has been orchestrated hangs over the series' endgame.
Projects the accumulated gravitas of someone who has watched civilizations rise and fall and considers both outcomes equally useful. Physical details are secondary to the weight of temporal authority.
Also known as: The Archmagus