As the wonders of Artifice made everyday life easier for citizens in kingdoms around Delrii, they began to find themselves with more and more time on their hands. When the Golems plowed the field or your magic carriage conveyed you across town to the market, it wasn’t work time all the way till sundown, so after dinner it was time to sit back and relax. But how to relax?? Your daughter only knows so many songs she can play on the violin you gave her. And checkers isn’t fun when your son beats you every time. Fortunately for all those working class folks who suddenly found themselves with too much time on their hands, enterprising tycoons had been working on a solution. If the knowledge in books could be scryed in most households, then why couldn’t those same crystal balls and scrying wells be used to display what was happening on a stage a hundred knots away? And if people would pay a silver coin to see the best shows in person at a dozen different New Roth City venues, surely thousands of people across the continent would pay a few coppers to watch a play in the comfort of their own home. That’s where Wilhelm came in.
Though previously only an actor of middling success, his lucky break was landing the role of the villain in the first ever scryable play. When the show became the talk of a hundred small towns all across Delrii, the producers knew they had something big. They immediately began production of another play, and savvy self-promoter that he was, Wilhelm Rex convinced them to make it a sequel to the first (of course requiring him to reprise his role). The producers snapped up the idea, and a star was born. Fast forward five years, and Wilhelm Rex is a household name. Rich beyond his wildest dreams, Will was able to afford the best coaches for elocution, accents, bardic inspiration, and more. With his newfound skill, he was able to use the literal magic of acting to actually make his audience laugh, cry, and more as his performance required. The heights of success ballooned Wilhelm’s talent, his bank account, and most of all, his ego. Wilhelm wasn’t famous long before he started to treat his assistants, fans, and his coworkers with disdain. He was above all of them now and he could not be troubled by their petty desires. One thing he could and would be troubled by: the Descent of the Devourers. In an instant, all his gold became worth less than a warm fire. All his contracts were now with dead men. And worst of all, there was no scrying network for him to act on. Will was bound and determined to survive until this all blew over. Sooner or later, someone would fix this mess and when they did, he would still have all of his talent for stage fighting, magically manipulating his audience’s emotions, and knowing how to command a room. As luck would have it, those skills have turned out to be pretty handy at helping Will survive the apocalypse, until he is worshiped once again as a titan of acting talent.