Before Uum fell, Horace Gorman was a lecturer of no importance at Matratut’s Royal Academy. He had been working on his career-establishing project for twenty years with only a locked room and the occasional cryptic memo to show for it. Although the reports vary widely, the two rumors with the greatest staying power indicate that Horace’s masterpiece had to do with either a mechanical lifting system or the culinary arts. No matter what Horace was working on, it’s all gone now, along with the rest of Matratut. During these days he accquired a reputation for being a recluse and a crackpot. That's when I started calling him Ol' Horace.
He took the destruction of his life’s work better than many of the refugees, perhaps because he was unable to admit that his project was doomed to failure from the start. He has shown a marked improvement in spirits since then, even if he hasn’t had the grace to obtain a haircut. When he’s not wandering the lands of his ancestral castle in a half-befuddled state, you can find him in a pit somewhere with a shovel. I guess that he’s recovering old manuscripts or something. Me? I would be so lucky. Food’s scarce these days.