Ursula von Brandt, Headmaster of the Academy of Magic

Full Name: Amelia Joaquin
Alias: Ursula von Brandt
Age: 45 (Appears in her mid-twenties)
Birthday: Fall
Race: Twili (Previously Hylian)
Occupation: Headmaster of the Magic Academy
Sex: Female
Romantic Preference: Male
School of Magic: Hylia. No longer able to use Dark Magic
Beast Form: Greyhound, when applicable


Ursula von Brandt is a tall, foreboding woman, standing at an intimidating height of 6’4(6’5 with her heels on), with porcelain skin and vibrantly golden eyes. She has a striking face, and her expression is naturally cold. She wears a cloak of dark lavender over a form-fitting, dark blue dress, and sports a pair of circular glasses with an amber tint. Her long hair is a brilliant sheen of platinum blond, with a wide bang crossing from the right side of her head to the left, hiding her left eye.


Watchful: Ursula is one who studies others with intent, but her thoughts are often obscure from others.
Analytical: Possibilities, theories, and ideas are part of Ursula’s thought processes, and she is not one to rule out the impossible.
Conversationalist: Not one to spark a physical feud, Ursula has a diplomatic approach to culling dangerous situations before they start.
Empathetic: Those who have lost loved ones would actually find Ursula good company.

Scholarly: Ursula is one who promotes a bulkier vocabulary, although she provides adequate elucidation of her regional patois for the purpose of incremental erudition, and not meant to demoralize the interlocutor from further communication. (This isn't necessarily true these days, merely because the writer is not a man of resplendent dictionary.)
Challenger: As she is a professor, she enjoys testing mindsets and ideals, either to help strengthen the validity of one’s ethos or to cause them to reconsider their mentality.
Idealist: Ursula has high standards for professionalism.
Mysterious: Her past is not one that she shares often with others, and prefers to keep her affairs private.


The Notes of a Royal Observer
"As a foreword, I will warn you first that the less people who know of this woman's history, the better. I shall provide a warning prior to my discoveries.

Professor Ursula von Brandt is a woman of unspoken ambition. Many of her colleagues complain amongst themselves on how to bridle her control over her students, denoting her as 'cruel' or even 'condescending,' but they ultimately quiver in her presence. She has a certain charisma that cannot be explained, and a quality of character that is, ironically, desirable for every person who dare call themselves a professor. Professor von Brandt does not complain, she simply does.

'She must enact harsh discipline upon the children behind our backs,' were the rues and cries, 'Perhaps she blackmailed their parents into doing so!'

All baseless accusations.

I have observed a number of classrooms among of the teaching body of the academy, and none are so orderly as that of von Brandt's. She is often in complete control, serenely calm, and never one to raise her voice above a certain wavelength. The only thing I note is the amount of pressure in the room, mostly due to the students, and a single unusual action is oft a great deal to them.

The reputation of Von Brandt stems from rumors and speculation of her history, her origins, who she is, and where she came from, yes, all these things increase the excitement of her mystery.
This is where I must warn you, reader, that should you read past this point, you will know history that should have been spoken with her own tongue.

Very well, read carefully.

Official records show that she became a widow. A widow of a captain who valiantly gave his life for the sake of his country, many years ago. She did not remarry, even though many offered their hand to her the day after her husband's death, as if they were waiting for the moment to come. The whereabouts of those individuals are unknown, although many of them appeared to move away within the next five years after the incident.

I dared not seek further information for the sake of Professor von Brandt's privacy and for the sake of Professor von Brandt, this report cannot be publicized and can only be viewed by members of the Royal Family and the court."


My name is Ursula von Brandt. I've rendered services to the crown as a tutor of magic, and these days you may find me more frequently in the Hylian Academy of Magic.

If you must know, I am a descendant of a group known as the Dark Interlopers, from whose bowels were birthed the Twili People. However, my ancestor avoided such a fate and lived a simpler life as a Happy Mask Salesman. He was not the original fellow, but taught by him. This ancestor did not have very many descendants and cursed our lineage that only one child was to be born to a wife.

No daughters were ever born to the Joaquin family line, not until my mother had conceived fraternal twins. It was the first in any line.

My father, who thought it was tradition to only have one child, thought it wise in his heart to have me excommunicated, lest I bring any harm to my family. However, my mother would not abandon me to the wilderness, and despite differences in opinion, my mother won my father over despite his misgivings. He taught my brother, Ulrich, the craft of the Mask Salesman, while my mother, an alchemist of monster parts (and by traditional definition, a witch), had taught me the magic of Demise...

In my childhood, practitioners of Demise in that day were not received by townsfolk, and in certain circles, we were believed to be an anathema to Hylia's vision. Those individuals are known as the Zealots of Light, who profess complete and total devotion to the goddess Hylia, and practice the annihilation of monsters, among those, branded individuals who've been irreversibly cursed by Demise. 

During my father and brother's sales outings, the Zealots broke into our home, and they set our house alight. They goaded my mother and attempted to bring harm to me to cause her to retaliate with her own magic.

... But she meekly shielded me with her own body, and only used her magic to send me far from danger. It wasn't until years later that I discovered her final fate, yet despite the lies the fanatical Zealots desired to spread of my mother, and many others before her, she had not raised her hand against them once, and that caused a change in the hearts of the sentient peoples. She, like many others, had become sacrifices for the hope that the citizens would look beyond our magic and recognize that we were also Hylians, and not villainized monsters.

In time, the Zealots of Light were brought under the telescope, and they were found out of their sins. Their fake veil of piety was torn off by an agent of the Royal Family, revealing their violent, entitled, and underhanded natures, and they were sentenced by the King to death by execution.

... Still, it was a pity. Hylia was heavily misrepresented by those imbeciles (for they truly were), for they took her divine nature and perverted it, corrupting it with their own ideals and teachings. To this day, the ideologies of the Zealots are branded as heretical, even blasphemous by the true priesthood of Hylia, and are given no quarter in the temple, nor the libraries.

However, that is not to say that they no longer exist--that is, I haven't seen anyone make an attempt on my life in broad daylight (it would be ironic for a Zealot of Light to try such a thing in darkness, no?).

In this age, thanks to the sacrifices of my kindred and the intervention of the Royal Family (and, perhaps providence by the gods), practitioners of Demise like myself are treated equally and fairly as the others. Of course, there are still misgivings and true curses and evil and whatnot, but in the end, the heart of men and women are the catalyst of action. The struggle between good and evil does not begin outside, but within.

The light is good, yes, and the darkness is evil. They serve as the moral definition of our age. Justice brings truth to the light, while wrongdoers attempt to veil it in the darkness. How can one say that the light is evil, unless it is a lie to cover his faults? Or can anyone say that the darkness is good, only that when the light is shed on it, that their sin is revealed for all to see?

... I digress. Still, be wary, for I've seen many hearts who profess goodness due to their cause--yet many of them are misguided by mere emotions and ill-thought advice by foolish friends. 

Consider the attribute of Nayru: Get wisdom. Get understanding. Learn from the old, and make mistakes only in your youth. Train your own children to be wise, and they will not depart from it.

I've prattled on long enough. Go and be useful.


As time has turned its natural course, so too has Ursula Von Brandt taken up the reins of new challenges.

As she fulfilled the late Queen's request to rear the children of the crown to be fully autonomous, Ursula stepped down from her illustrious role. She took up a full-time professorship in the magic academy with the prominent objective of researching Hylia's magic to its fullest potential. With her shift from a dark and brooding figure to a kind and charming debonair, she became quite popular with her faculty and students.

A year later, the acting headmaster following the late Headmaster Hagen retired his role, and laid the responsibility upon the shoulders of Ursula von Brandt, who had already shown significant progress in her pursuits. The new headmaster would provide ample resources to her faculty and staff, rewarding all in their service with a significant pay increase while reducing her own, and so encouraged the staff to remain steadfast in their work. Deeper research into respective magic trees is far more strongly encouraged but cautioned with a wise saying: "Knowledge increases sorrow."

While indeed an academy of magic, the headmaster allowed for practical school lessons to be taught on campus, in an effort to blur the line between the 'normal' and the arcane.

"Do not fear magic out of ignorance. Let us first understand it, and fear it informed." So quipped the headmaster in her official address on the nature of magic.

As for what the future brings due to her influence, time will tell.