Arcane Order of Magecraft and Wizardry
The premiere college for magical training, it is also a highly respected guild.
Structure
The Chancellor Japheth controls every aspect of the Order’s business. There has been only a single chancellor in the history of the Order and that is Japheth Arcane; Japheth is the founder. He sets the policies of the college, and he must find a way to resolve every question of procedure, discipline, and research that cannot be resolved at a lower level.
Matters too important for the regents to decide alone are brought before him. Many of these tasks require a delicate political touch. The Chancellor has a staff of two initiates to take care of clerical details and paperwork.
This is not to say that the Chancellor does not delegate responsibility to trusted underlings whenever possible. Directly below Japheth are seven regents who, for the most part, make up Japheth’s original group of friends and supporters who aided him in founding the college. The regents have the authority to deal with everyday concerns of the Order, and each has a rotating staff of 1-4 initiates and 2-8 permanent staff hired from the nearby community to assist each regent in the completion of the duties assigned to him or her by the chancellor. In addition to each of these permanent duties, each regent also has private research and personal concerns.
Below the regents in the college hierarchy are the guild wizards. These are full members of the guild, each having passed the tests and trials of an apprentice. Guild wizards within the Arcane Order are required to give some of their time to teach the next lowest rank, the apprentices, the subtleties of higher level magical arts. This requirement of time also includes the requirement to act as an advisor to a group of upcoming apprentices. Their remaining time is spent in personal research.
Apprentice wizards are in a sense probationary members of the guild. Most apprentices begin their time in the Arcane Order as initiates, however, sometimes independent wizards seek to join the guild for the benefits it can provide. In either case, apprentices are expected to fulfill a set of duties in order to prove their loyalty and commitment to the Order. These duties are usually determined by each apprentice’s Advisor (one of the guild wizards). Each apprentice wizard is also assigned two or more initiates to tutor in basic magical theory. Finally, apprentices are given personal time in which to study magic either in their private cells or in the laboratory of their Advisor.
The initiates of the Arcane Order are the foundation upon which the college is built, at least according to Bernardo Terzo, the regent in charge of External Concerns, when he attempts to garner interest among the parents of the surrounding community. The gritty reality of the situation is that the initiates do indeed provide a foundation for the college: a foundation of sweat, elbow grease, effort, and toil. Initiates are up before first light and are often still at their tasks long after the sun has set below the western hills; every apprentice, guild wizard, and regent requires a variety of work the day long. The life of an initiate is difficult; however, those who are able to maintain their discipline, as well as absorb the minimum necessary magical theory in their daily four-hour instruction from the apprentices, will one day become apprentices and possibly even guild wizards themselves.
Public Agenda
To advance magical knowledge for the betterment of society.
History
THIS WILL NEED TO BE UPDATED WITH OUR SPECIFIC HISTORY!!!
Many notable sites have long and colorful histories associated with them. The citadel housing Japheth Arcane’s Order is no different. It served a pivotal role in a time now long passed into the mists of legend and myth, and even now the site retains residual energies.
For a complete perspective of the present situation in the Order, a brief foray into the past is presented here. This historical overview reveals some highlights of the previous Age, touching on the demipower Dargeshaad, the Warlock Strife, and the end of the Elder Age. The excerpt copied from the recently penned Arcane Age gives a reasonable introduction to the time of the Warlock Strife, strongly implicating an actual member of previous incarnation of Mathghamhna’s student body in the end of the Age and Mathghamhna (the college) with it. This history might be accessible in whole or part to interested player characters at the DM’s option.
For all intents and purposes, Ronassic had the right of it. The being called Dargeshaad was indeed an outcast demipower from a higher plane, and Polhemus the Warlock did release the godling, also called ”Gavendes” (Slaughterer in the tongue of the Elders), from his Age-long slumber beneath the earth. Dargeshaad was yet weak from his incarceration in stone, and Polhemus was able to wring promises of aid and support from him. In spite of Dargeshaad’s prolonged absence, rage and hate yet burned in the demipower’s breast. Unable to get back at those responsible for his current banishment to what he considered a backwater world, the exiled godling resolved to take it and rule it for himself; a fitting reward for the humiliations forced upon him and just revenge against any of the Powers who had followers among the world’s populace.
In the beginning, Dargeshaad was relatively weak, and unwilling to show his true face to either Polhemus or to the world at large. Feigning friendship for Polhemus, Dargeshaad bestowed upon the Warlock new powers of body and mind in exchange for worship and direct service. In time, the fortress of Ascavalon was built in the blasted lands upon the site of the original crater of the godling’s descent. Ascavalon was populated by so-called “Warlocks” made up of Elders who had arrived from far and wide across the face of the world. Those who answered Dargeshaad’s subtle summons were willing to offer their worship to the godling in exchange for esoteric powers.
Among the Warlocks assembled in the fortress, many were mighty in their own right in magical craftsmanship and enchantment; these smiths forged the shield Bright Barrier as a gift to Dargeshaad (see the Return To Ascavalon adventure for details).
Not long after Dargeshaad was gifted with the Bright Barrier, the demipower made his bid for world domination. Gathering his Warlocks into a devastating army of sorcerer-knights, Dargeshaad launched a crippling offensive into the heart of the civilized continent. Dargeshaad himself strode at the vanguard of his armies, his Bright Barrier on one arm defending him from all harm, while his other hand dealt only death with a weapon stolen from Mathghamhna itself; the Halberd of Mathghamhna, renamed Betrayer. Any foolhardy enough to oppose his onslaught on the open field died quickly. Although the Elders fought with all the considerable might at their disposal, giving ground only after lengthy conflicts that raged for months (even years in a few cases), Dargeshaad’s warlock army proved in every case but one to be superior upon the field.
The citadel of Mathghamhna was the single rallying point for the embattled Elders. When all other strategic positions and important cities had fallen, Mathghamhna remained as a single light amidst the gathering gloom. It was in the final days of Mathghamhna’s defiance that the knowledge of Aleph was codified by the besieged wizards into the Five Lores and hidden away against future need.
Unable to penetrate Mathghamhna by brute force, Dargeshaad retreated to his fortress of Ascavalon to ponder this final hurdle preventing him from realizing his goal. Finally resorting to the sort of base trickery that had him exiled from the higher planes to begin with, the demipower dispatched his three most brutal lieutenants, proven in the previous years of conflict: the three sisters, individually named as Athalin, Kaerys, and Cinerine, collectively called the Witch Trinity.
It was given to the Witch Trinity to penetrate the fastness of Mathghamhna, betray its denizens, and lay bare the defenses of that previously impregnable fortress. Full of guile, black sorcery, and evil power bestowed by their godling mentor, the three sisters were able to make their way into Mathghamhna in the guise of friends and fellow defenders against the crazed demipower from the wastes.
In only a few short months, Athalin, Kaerys, and Cinerine were able to penetrate the confidence and counsel of the inner circle of the defenders of ancient Mathghamhna, and win the complete confidence of the High Sorcerer himself.
Not much is revealed in the histories concerning the High Sorcerer of the last Age; even his name has been lost in the gulf of time separating the past from the present. It is known that the High Sorcerer and his inner circle were betrayed with sudden ferocity at the table of counsel. In a whirlwind of poison, knives, and black sorcery, the Witch Trinity slew the inner circle; the High Sorcerer faced his greatest extremity in mere seconds.
Over the years, the hopes of the High Sorcerer had been slowly failing. While Mathghamhna was resisting, its strength had been steadily declining; the siege laid by Dargeshaad could have but one conclusion. With all other options seemingly spent, the High Sorcerer had been devising, in secret from the rest of the inner circle, a doomsday incantation in the magical language of Aleph. He named it the Speech of Twilight. This surpassing phrase in the language of Magic was certain to end Dargeshaad's threat, but was equally certain to bring an end to the remaining Elders themselves. The High Sorcerer had researched the foundation of his Speech of Twilight with trepidation, but completed it nonetheless; he couldn’t stand to face the end brought by Dargeshaad without an answering doom of his own.
Seconds before the Witch Trinity would have ended the High Sorcerer’s life, the last defender of Mathghamhna pronounced the Speech of Twilight. Unrestrained magical flux ripped from his body, scattering the three sisters to fates unrecorded. The flux was of such magnitude that the World itself shuttered; scholars believe the brunt of the burst was focused into an adjacent dimension (at least initially...
The titanic discharge of magic either summoned or called into being (the texts are unclear) an entity known as the Dragon of Shades. The Dragon of Shades was blacker than midnight and of such immense proportions that the breadth of its wingspan brought darkness to all the lands. Following the only compulsion laid upon it, the Dragon of Shades descended upon the Fortress of Ascavalon and did personal battle with Dargeshaad. An unrestrained elemental creature made up of equal parts shadow, power, and malice, the Dragon consumed the godling Dargeshaad, ending his threat and the Warlock Strife with one gulp.
As was feared by the High Sorcerer, the Dragon of Shades was not satisfied with this single victory.
A creature of rage and destruction, it turned upon the war-ravaged world, bringing civilization to a blazing, apocalyptic end. Rampaging across the length and breadth of the land, the creature brought a paroxysm of darkness and destruction with every breath and wingbeat. Nothing could stop it, and the force of its summoning had blown the spark of life from the High Sorcerer’s body.
Thus ended the Elder Age. All of the Elders were slain or fled, leaving only the lesser races to rebuild after the departure of the ravening beast. While the Dragon of Shades prevented the world from entering a Dark Age of eternal subjugation to Dargeshaad, its catastrophic depredations caused the world more misery than some would have chosen to bear.
The citadel of Mathghamhna remained standing even in the aftermath of the desolation of the Dragon of Shades. Damaged but not broken, bowed but not completely fallen, the walls of the citadel survived into the current Age as an enigma to the survivors who chanced upon it many generations after the Warlock Strife.
As is the way of things, the passage of time engendered a city that grew up near the abandoned ruin. In fact, much of the city’s walls were originally built from the fallen masonry of Mathghamhna itself. Thus, other than as a source of occasional building material, the mighty Citadel’s purpose and role in history almost completely vanished from all knowledge.
It was Japheth who stumbled upon the secret chambers in the catacombs below the ruin of Mathghamhna. As an apprentice to the local wizard, Japheth was brilliant but headstrong. Forever rushing ahead in his studies when prudence and patience would have served him better, the wouldbe mage often faced the stern discipline of his wizardly master. On one such occasion, Japheth fled into the lightless ways below the local ruin. The hand of fate was upon him when he stumbled into a secret chamber that had remained sealed and undisturbed since the previous age. As chance (or destiny) would have it, the chamber in question contained a record of the nature of the citadel, a history of the first years of the Warlock Strife, and the last days of the Elders. The chamber also contained a map to the First Lore of the codified dweomer, hidden in the labyrinths beneath the ruin!
Japheth did not at first realize the significance of his discovery, but all the same the boy resolved to keep it secret. In the following two years of his apprenticeship, Japheth returned to the chamber when he could do so unobserved. With each visit the full import of the hidden room and its contents became clearer. At the time of Japheth's release from his apprenticeship, he took the appellation Arcane as a personal oath to himself that his life would be dedicated to the discovery of the remaining Four Lores of the dweomer. Thus, Japheth Arcane devoted himself to the renewal of the lost art of Aleph.
Japheth Arcane left the city an untried youth, eager for the challenges that lay ahead, both in his personal life and in his singular quest to find the lost Lores. The wizard encountered many strange things and accomplished many significant goals in this early period of his career, which stretched close to two decades; however, this text only details his exploits following his return to the city holding the ruins of Mathghamhna.
In his absence, Japheth had grown in wisdom, power, and wealth. He had also gathered to him a tightly knit group of companions who shared his overarching goal of regaining the dweomer. Upon his return, Japheth Arcane purchased the ruins of Mathghamhna from the city to do with as he would. A few years passed, wherein a veritable army of contractors, stone masons, craftspeople, and smiths swarmed through the passages of the citadel. The broken foundations were revitalized, the sagging walls were rebuilt, and the missing ceiling sections were renewed. Empty chambers were refurbished and broken lamps were reset and lighted; a great work was done at Japheth’s expense, and at the end of it, the wizard proclaimed his announcement that went far and wide across the land. The mighty doors of Mathghamhna were once again open, as in the Elder Age, accepting wizardly applicants to the magical academy now named The Arcane Order of Magecraft and Wizardry!
Power through Knowledge
Type
Guild, Mages
Alternative Names
The Arcane Order
Demonym
Mage, Guildmage
Leader
Leader Title
Founders
Location
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