The Arcane Order
The Arcane Order. Seven spires of knowledge. Most of what they know they do not teach.
Ancient magical civilization.
Philosophy
Mastery through study. Power through knowledge. Caution through history.
The Long Story
The Arcane Order is the inheritor of three pre-cataclysmic magical traditions, consolidated under one charter in the year 401 by the surviving archmages of the Hidden Vale. Today the Order maintains seven Spires across the realm, a network of scholar-knights, and a quiet but extensive lay membership of trained magicians who are not required to live at a Spire. The Order is older than the Iron Kingdoms by more than two hundred years. The Order remembers. This is, by their own admission, both their power and their problem.
History
The Hidden Vale fell to Vorthul's grandsire in the year 392; nine of the eleven founding archmages died in a single night. The Order was reconstituted under Archmage Solven from the survivors, on the principle that the Order would never again concentrate its knowledge in a single place. There are now seven Spires, each with redundant copies of the Tradition Books. No dragon has burned a Spire in six hundred years. The Spires acknowledge that this is, at best, a precarious record.
How They Fight
Battle-mages, ward-engineers, divinatory scouts. The Order fights rarely and decisively, and prefers to negotiate from a position of intelligence so complete that violence becomes redundant. When they do fight, they fight to end the matter. Old Pell called this 'the cruelty of caution'; the Order accepted the description.
How They Live
Robes by tradition; black, indigo, or grey by Spire. The Order is mostly literate by necessity and oratorical by training. Students learn three dead languages before they learn one living spell. The Order's dinners are quiet, long, and famous for their candied citrus.
Known Figures
Archmage Helonor
Master of the Whispering Stacks
Rumored to be a High Wyrm in human seeming. Will refuse to sell a manual to a buyer he believes cannot use it.
Master Elandor
Battle-mage, retired
Knows a spell he will not cast. Carries it for the discipline of not casting it.
Brenwall the Younger
Scholar of the Frost Tongue
Dead nine years. Cited in every modern riddle compendium. Wrote three of them himself.
Bonuses
- ++3 Arcana
- ++2 Intelligence
- +One rare starting spell
Weaknesses
- –-2 Endurance
- –-1 Strength
- –Watched and sometimes feared
Starting Reputation: Wary
Likely beginnings: The Vale · Spire of the Quill · Hearthhold · Westmarch