Nex
The archmage Nex, an avid arcanist determined to make his mark in a world newly filled with opportunity, arose in the centuries following Osirion’s withdrawal from its imperial holdings in eastern Garund. Fueled by the kind of ambition that gave the Age of Destiny its name, Nex perfected his arcane craft to gain dominion over the powerful city-state of Quantium, located at the mouth of the mighty Ustradi River. From this seat of power, Nex swiftly subjugated the neighboring cities of Ecanus and Oenopion, gathering his conquered realms into a new kingdom bearing his name. Over the following centuries, Nex traveled the world and the Great Beyond, establishing important theories of magic that remain foundational to this day. He funneled the treasures claimed during his adventures back into his kingdom, training hundreds of eager wizards in the secrets of the arcane discoveries he plundered from other worlds. He used wish-level magics to improve his kingdom and protect it from harm. Confident in his successes, he continued to march his construct armies further south to the lush farmlands of an abandoned Osiriani farming colony—now the domain of the necromancer-lord Geb.
The resulting relentless warfare between Nex and Geb spanned centuries, with each wizard extending his life and attempting to destroy the other through a series of increasingly catastrophic magical attacks. In one such escalation, Geb and his grim devotees conducted rituals that corrupted the rural lands of Nex, denuding its forests in an instant and forever blighting its plains. The wizards of Nex erected magical barriers to protect the cities, but the landscape beyond the city walls was reduced to wasteland. The ancient curses persist to this day, one of the worst of the many scars inflicted upon the world in the wizards’ millennium-long conflict. Ironically, destruction of the vast majority of his kingdom left Nex with more time to study and perfect his craft. He finally achieved true immortality when he created a personal demiplane at a flux point of multiversal energy, a domain of near-limitless power he called the Crux of Nex. Nex carved off a shard of the Crux to create the mile-tall Spire of Nex outside of Absalom, as well as the so-called Refuge of Nex, a supernatural haven he constructed in the basement dungeons of his personal palace, the Bandeshar. The Crux joined the Refuge and Spire into a vast, yet connected, multidimensional complex, and in 576 AR—with a Gebbite army at Quantium’s gates and vaporous banks of poison gas seeping through its streets—Nex retreated into the Refuge, never to be seen again.
In the centuries since, the rule of the nation has fallen to a succession of factions that purport to represent the departed archmage’s plan for the subjects and projects he left behind. The contentious Council of Three and Nine attempts to maintain consensus between Nex’s squabbling sects and has managed to keep Nex unconquered since the day its founder vanished.
Open warfare with Geb decreased in the centuries following Nex’s departure, and today the two nations maintain an uneasy standstill in their hostilities. The Arclords of Nex—descendants of the wizard’s apprentices and household servants who purport to possess his personal writings and thus best understand his desires—claim that Nex would be appalled at the state of peace with his hated undead foe, pointing to the recent re-opening of the magical gates to the Refuge of Nex as a sure sign that the old conflict is about to reignite.
Nex’s capital, Quantium, is a cosmopolitan metropolis with nearly 80,000 souls (not all of them mortal), monumental palaces, cloud-piercing spires, and teeming streets filled with all manner of humans joined by creatures that would be considered monsters elsewhere on Golarion. The Council of Three and Nine rules from the Bandeshar, and nervousness about what many interpret to be the imminent return of Nex himself is causing significant political rifts in the council that seem on the verge of metastasizing into a war of subterfuge. Across the barren, outlaw-ravaged wasteland, the alchemists of Oenopion toil to create the eldritch elixirs and potions so important to the nation’s economy. The squalid city claims an impressive golemworks and an ooze colony that dominates a vast miasmatic lake at the center of town, a sentient hivemind useful for potent divinations and the disposal of faulty magical items, botched golems, and enemies of the state. The sprawling, heavily fortified town of Ecanus is the hub of Nex’s vast military. Battlemages trained in warfare and tactical evocation form the backbone of the mobile force, reinforced by nightmarish beasts churned out by the city’s monumental fleshforges.
The resulting relentless warfare between Nex and Geb spanned centuries, with each wizard extending his life and attempting to destroy the other through a series of increasingly catastrophic magical attacks. In one such escalation, Geb and his grim devotees conducted rituals that corrupted the rural lands of Nex, denuding its forests in an instant and forever blighting its plains. The wizards of Nex erected magical barriers to protect the cities, but the landscape beyond the city walls was reduced to wasteland. The ancient curses persist to this day, one of the worst of the many scars inflicted upon the world in the wizards’ millennium-long conflict. Ironically, destruction of the vast majority of his kingdom left Nex with more time to study and perfect his craft. He finally achieved true immortality when he created a personal demiplane at a flux point of multiversal energy, a domain of near-limitless power he called the Crux of Nex. Nex carved off a shard of the Crux to create the mile-tall Spire of Nex outside of Absalom, as well as the so-called Refuge of Nex, a supernatural haven he constructed in the basement dungeons of his personal palace, the Bandeshar. The Crux joined the Refuge and Spire into a vast, yet connected, multidimensional complex, and in 576 AR—with a Gebbite army at Quantium’s gates and vaporous banks of poison gas seeping through its streets—Nex retreated into the Refuge, never to be seen again.
In the centuries since, the rule of the nation has fallen to a succession of factions that purport to represent the departed archmage’s plan for the subjects and projects he left behind. The contentious Council of Three and Nine attempts to maintain consensus between Nex’s squabbling sects and has managed to keep Nex unconquered since the day its founder vanished.
Open warfare with Geb decreased in the centuries following Nex’s departure, and today the two nations maintain an uneasy standstill in their hostilities. The Arclords of Nex—descendants of the wizard’s apprentices and household servants who purport to possess his personal writings and thus best understand his desires—claim that Nex would be appalled at the state of peace with his hated undead foe, pointing to the recent re-opening of the magical gates to the Refuge of Nex as a sure sign that the old conflict is about to reignite.
Nex’s capital, Quantium, is a cosmopolitan metropolis with nearly 80,000 souls (not all of them mortal), monumental palaces, cloud-piercing spires, and teeming streets filled with all manner of humans joined by creatures that would be considered monsters elsewhere on Golarion. The Council of Three and Nine rules from the Bandeshar, and nervousness about what many interpret to be the imminent return of Nex himself is causing significant political rifts in the council that seem on the verge of metastasizing into a war of subterfuge. Across the barren, outlaw-ravaged wasteland, the alchemists of Oenopion toil to create the eldritch elixirs and potions so important to the nation’s economy. The squalid city claims an impressive golemworks and an ooze colony that dominates a vast miasmatic lake at the center of town, a sentient hivemind useful for potent divinations and the disposal of faulty magical items, botched golems, and enemies of the state. The sprawling, heavily fortified town of Ecanus is the hub of Nex’s vast military. Battlemages trained in warfare and tactical evocation form the backbone of the mobile force, reinforced by nightmarish beasts churned out by the city’s monumental fleshforges.
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