Arcanis Codex

[Desiderata]

A R C A N I S

Land of Winds and Dream
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Founders: The Jin'Norai exiles of Ælheim, and the Rakshasa
Demonym: Arcanites
Population: Approximately 30 million
Territory: The desert lands north of Ælheim, and south of the Hollow Sea
Government: Formally, a confederation of city-states
Religion: Primarily worship of the elements
Racial Distribution: 10% Jin'Norai, 50% Humans, 40% Vokhai, <1% Rakshasa, <1% Dragons
Official Language: "Jinnish" (a dialect of Ælvish)

Overview
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Arcanis is nominally a confederation of dozens of loosely-related kingdoms, represented by a central body in the Principality of Bast, which is itself ruled by a grand Amir. In truth, these kings possess at most power over their own local affairs, while the whole of the land is controlled by the wizards of the Bastion Academy and the immortal Rakshasa.

The people of modern-day Arcanis pride themselves as children of a history of strife and suffering, the descendants of those who refused to bow to rank injustice in the southern forests and were punished harshly for it, but grew to build great cities in the least-hospitable land in all of Antarok. They tie themselves to notions of of clan and family, drawing strength from their long history of strife, even as they find themselves in a modern era where they are called upon to forget the indignities of the past and work under the thumb of the Rakshasa they fought for centuries. Thus, the mages who truly rule the desert spend their time preaching the goodness of the demons who bedeviled the ancestors of the Jin'Norai, and the people find themselves torn between fealty to the past and the dreams of an incredible future made possible by Bastion.

In the shadows, in the clouds, amongst the wind, the Rakshasa watch the people of Arcanis grapple with themselves with rapt attention, interested in what progeny they might bring forth from the womb of this nation.

 

[Desiderata]

HISTORY
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Scholars believe that the great desert of Arcanis was formed many ages before the memories of even immortals can comprehend, the result of some terrible confluence of climate and elemental imbalances run amok. Natural historians at Bastion go so far as to claim that it was once a land as verdant and vibrant as its southern neighbor, but some tremendous catastrophe cast it into chaos. Theories range from the impact of a fallen star to some impossibly disastrous volcano; not even the ageless Rakshasa can say with certainty.

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Wood​

The people of Arcanis split its history into elemental Ages. This prehistory, where none (save perhaps barbarian vokhan) lived in Arcanis, is called the Age of Wood, for it was the last time the gifts of saol flowed freely through the lands.

Wind​

In the reckoning of the Jin'Norai, the Age of Wind began with their exile from the forests of the Ælves, and their cleansing. Deprived of the immortality expected of their Sidhe ancestors and previously secured by Ældrassil, the people who would become Jin'Norai fled north and found a hell on earth.

Compared to the gentle groves of Ælheim, Arcanis was an unforgiving land of unavoidable suffering. Where once the trees had freely yielded them fruit and shade, the desert fought for every scrap of life. The once-proud elves were brought low, forced to eke out a miserable existence, to redevelop agriculture and hunt new and less-plentiful game to survive. Many did not.

But they were not without hope. Among those banished were great heroes and mages, who brought all their wisdom and lore to bear. In time, they crafted mystic oases among the sands, and held back the terrible storms which swept the deep deserts. In those days, legendary Galsterei began to push back the desert, reshaping the lands to something more fitting.

It was the success of these heroes which gave rise to the Mirage Kingdoms, and thereby the Age of Water.

Water​

The first Mirage Kingdom was an astounding feat of magical and geographical engineering, one which remains unsurpassed in some ways to this day. The Jin'Norai of the age engineered a great bubble in spacetime within which a gentle clime could be nurtured, and the people could live free of the blazing sun and sands. This success was followed by others, until small Mirage Kingdoms dotted Arcanis, paradise-lands hidden "within the winds" from which the rest of the desert could be safely conquered.

Now safely ensconced in their new kingdoms, the Jin'Norai began to devise a substitute for their long-lost and stolen immortality. The various Mirage Kingdoms came up with many imperfect solutions–some better than others–but as the mage-lords of Arcanis increased both the safety of their subjects and their own longevity, their ambitions grew to match. The Mirage Kingdoms began campaigns of conquest across the sands, impressing the native populations into slavery in pursuit of ever-grander projects.

It was during these campaigns that the kings of the Jin'Norai became aware of the Rakshasa, immortal and often-invisible spirits which dwelt throughout Arcanis. They had been known in some capacity since the Age of Wind, but more as individual tricksters and sages than a recognized species of spirit. Almost carelessly, one of the lords of the Mirage Kingdoms decided to devise a means to bind the Rakshasa, reckoning that control of a whole corps of spirits would give him some edge over his rivals.

The Rakshasa did not take it well.

Earth​

The Age of Earth is marked by the Invisible Collapse, a decades-long campaign which began when hundreds of Rakshasa united for the purpose of destroying the mages who had sought to control them. Driven to rage by the hubris of the elves, the spirits assailed one Mirage Kingdom after the next, destroying each by means of a different horrible catastrophe. The protective spheres were shattered, or sealed and cast into the depths of the Planes- once-beautiful lands were exposed to the sun and melted like wax. The Singing Woods of the Mirage of Kefiral were petrified overnight into stone trees, and the sound of the wind whistling through those boughs drove the entire kingdom mad.

The Invisible Collapse slowed as the later kingdoms realized the disaster which had befallen them, and began to take countermeasures. Though the Rakshasa were fierce mages, there were more Jin'Norai, and their galsterei were able to fend off the curses from the deep deserts for years, even decades in some cases. Some among the Mirage Kingdoms sent emissaries, even turning to dream-magic in an attempt to contact and reason with the cats. Their only response:

"O proud ones, you are mortal now. The place of mortals is upon the earth alone."

Having determined to destroy every one of the Mirage Kingdoms, the Rakshasa did not stop until they had done exactly that. Though the spirits suffered their own losses at the hands of the galsterei corps, their knowledge of magic was ultimately impossible to overcome by sheer numbers. Less than a hundred years after the fall of the first Mirage Kingdom, the last one was plunged into the earth, drowned and entombed below the sands.

The Jin'Norai's population was devastated by the Invisible Collapse, but a significant number managed to evacuate and re-form their societies. Now, however, they found that the cruel Rakshasa had a taste for their misery. For centuries, life throughout Arcanis was shaped by the whims of the capricious spirits.

During this age, some survivors of the Mirage Kingdoms founded heroic orders of mage-warriors who specialized in fighting the Rakshasa. Largely centered around the practices of Zephyri, these warriors were called Sheddites, and their orders the Shed. Though their victories were few in number, Sheddite mages managed to slay some of the most notorious Rakshasa, and thereby restrain the rest in some measure, giving the beaten Jin'Norai a chance to resettle and regrow their population.

In the wake of the Invisible Collapse, bandits and the hands of other foreign powers began to make inroads into the desert. Where Arcanis had once been ignored because it possessed little but burning sands, and then because the Jin'Norai were nigh-unassailable, it was now a land possessed of few people and many ruins filled with treasure. Tales flew across the world of abandoned cities filled with rare metals and gems, and artifacts, and exploratory teams began to infringe upon the desert.

The Age of Earth was ultimately ended by the work of a single woman, the Jin'Norai scholar and diplomat known as Theosophia. The daughter of one of the Mirage Kings, she made a journey alone into the deep desert to confront the Rakshasa, and dueled them for three days and nights in the depths of the storm. When they paused, respectful of her skills, she persuaded them that the Invisible Collapse had achieved its aims, and that it was better for all if the Jin'Norai were permitted to recover and reclaim the desert than if foreign powers moved in. She persuaded the cats that they were better-suited not as implacable foes of the desertfolk, but as teachers, plying the spirits with visions of what could be. And in time, the cats agreed.

Fire​

The present age, the Age of Fire, began with the Accord of Bast, where Theosophia offered the Jin'Norai to be the eternal 'students' of the Rakshasa. Her ruined kingdom became the place where the City of Bast would be founded, and Bastion Academy built. Within a century of the Accord, every nation in Arcanis was quietly transformed by the presence of Academic mages, well-versed and disciplined in practice.

Although the new order of Arcanis came quickly, it did not come without strife. The Rakshasa retained a grudge against the Shed orders which had slain their own, and the Jin'Norai were not all happy to abandon the ways of their ancestral heroes who had saved them time and again. Still, the outcome was inevitable. Though many of the Shed retained some amount of prestige, the Academics were often better-taught and had the support not only of the faculty and alumni of Bastion, but of the spirits themselves. In the modern day, the Shed orders are a shadow of their former selves.

Formally, the Accord of Bast changed very little of the power in Arcanis–the far-flung kingdoms of the Jin'Norai are guaranteed their sovereignty, represented in court in Bast and sworn only to pledge warriors to defend Arcanis against outside invaders–but in practice, it changed everything. The kings and queens of Arcanis are assigned Academic advisors, who permit them to govern day-to-day but quietly control their 'foreign policy', and the King of Bast himself is nothing but a puppet of the Chancellor of Bastion. The mages of the Academy are given special privileges in law, exempt from all local justice and judged only by their colleagues.

In some ways, the Age of Fire has been a welcome change from the disastrous Age of Earth. Though the Rakshasa still meddle with the lives of mortals, they do so with more restraint, and it is rare to see entire cities lost to madness and whimsy as once they were. Though the mages stationed throughout Arcanis are often permitted to indulge their own ambitions and wants with little recourse, they have the power and knowledge needed to create habitable and comfortable spaces in the very bosom of the desert.

In other ways, the Age has been a disaster. Every Jin'Norai lives at the whim of any number of deranged mages, and now their local tyrants are supported by a vast system which can crush any dissenting voice in an instant. Though life has grown easier and longer, the invisible chains upon the populace are heavier and tighter than ever.

 

[Desiderata]

G E O G R A P H Y
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Arcanis is defined by two things- wind and water, or the lack thereof. Long before the first Jin'Norai arrived, the seaborne winds from the east were chained, and the west wind was given complete dominion. Lacking water from the ocean, the rains largely died away, the clouds broken against Hrimithur's Spine, and the land dried up and blew away.

Worse still, the country's single great inland sea grew stagnant and salty, such that it sustained little agriculture. Lacking fresh water, the inhabitants of Arcanis have been forced to rely on magic and underground aquifers, endlessly tested by the harsh clime and a lengthy history of ruin and strife.

Territories
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The Hollow Sea​

The largest body of water in Arcanis, largely the product of runoff from Hrimthur's Spine. The northern expanse of the sea is freshwater, but the southern and eastern waters grow increasingly salty due to a phenomenon which traps water in the southern estuaries long enough for minerals to leech in.

Despite the salt content, the Hollow Sea remains the most accessible source of water in Arcanis, and most of the nation's inland cities are clustered thereon.

Hollow Archipelago​

Within the Hollow Sea are thousands of tiny islands, most too small for any practical use. The larger islands are coopted by researchers from Bastion, who often use them as useful points of containment for various mystical experiments, but there are also several isles which are left entirely empty due to their religious significance. Isles in the Hollow Archipeligo are popular locations for trials of various kinds.

Bast​

The capital of Arcanis and primary destination of would-be mages and scholars from across the continent, Bast is a truly metropolitan city wrought of sandstone marked with distinctive wave-like patterns. Many of the buildings prominently feature fossils worked into the walls, as a trendy statement, and architectural details are highlighted with brass or gold leaf, depending on the wealth of the builder.

Bast is built into a cliffside shore on the Hollow Sea, separated into a lower district on and around the water, a middle district carved directly into the cliffs and furnished with innumerable elevators, and an upper segment which leads into the deserts beyond, which have been gentled by the presence of hundreds of small, artificial oases produced by Bastion. The Academy itself dominates the skyline, putting even the royal palace to shame with its soaring architecture, which runs from the harbor at the base of the cliff all the way to the upper district and then almost a hundred meters up from that zenith.

Port District​

At the bottom of the city, a craze of stone piers reach out from the cliffside and into the Hollow Sea, docking the flotilla of ships which connect Bast to the satellite towns and cities across Arcanis' only major waterway. The port district features accommodations for sailors and warehouses, but relatively little in the way of open-air stalls or cloth tents. This is because the Dead Sea is prone to spraystorms, brief bouts of unpredictable weather which can pelt the entire district with clouds of salt, tearing cloth, wearing away wood and inflicting friction burns on hapless travelers. When an approaching spraystorm is spotted, bells ring out across the district, beckoning people to find shelter at once, or risk injury or death.

Lower District​

The Lower District is located inside the cliff itself, in a great series of hollow domes carved by Jin'Norai mages following the Invisible Collapse. Most of the city lives in this district, which also features open-air markets and underground gardens which nurture plants via refraction from the surface, using mirrors and crystals to distribute sunlight to the plants below.

Bastion Academy's entrance hall can be found in the Lower District, which is also the location of its dormitories. Additionally, three of Arcanis' famed underground trade highways meet in the Lower District, in a spot known as The Secret Promenade. According to legend, one of the ancient Mirage Kingdoms was also found here, long ago, though Bastion's History Department calls this an urban myth.

Middle District​

A dizzying series of shafts and chain-drawn elevators connect the Lower District and the Upper District of Bast. Although these were originally established simply for transport of persons and goods, over time the increasing need for space drove the people of Bastion to carve out new buildings into intermediate stops. There are now hundreds of individual 'buildings' carved into the stone, often accessible only by one specific elevator, or even stairwells from another building, and just as many vacant buildings hidden within that sprawl.

Bast's criminal enterprises operate out of these vacant buildings, as do all manner of collections of vagrants, tiny religious organizations and businesses otherwise seeking to avoid government attention.

Upper District​

Bast's Upper District is a gorgeous patchwork of over a hundred oases, all maintained by the magic of Bastion. Between them, the nobles and wizards who rule the Jin'Norai keep elaborate mansions, sandstone decorated with brass and gold, and surrounded with gardens of exotic desert plants. The towering spire of Bastion Academy is visible from miles away, a spire mounted with a gigantic, two-hundred ton brass bell.

The Academy's spire is framed on both sides of the cliff by two smaller towers- the Royal Spire, palace and home of the Royal Family of Bast, and the Tower of Cats, a quasi-religious site where Jin'Norai notables demonstrate their virtue and humility by feeding the vast population of stray cats which roam every inch of the city.

The Salt Marshes​

The southern reaches of the Hollow Sea grow increasingly shallow, until a plethora of large islands break out of the saltwater. For most of Arcanis' history, these have been thought of as holy sites… but not particularly useful land. Surrounded by salt floods, the islands have little vegetation.

In modern days, however, salt marsh islands have become prized possessions for high-ranking mages of Bastion, who often spare no expense in transforming them into exotic paradises. Other islands are owned by the Academy directly, and are used as grounds for experiments. These islands elicit considerable disquiet from more traditionally-minded Jin'Norai, who see such idle pleasures as disrespectful to the original purpose of the islands as testing sites.

Tanin Range​

The eastern range, and the only mountains of great size in Arcanis. Scholars often theorize that these mountains were created by the same impact which carved out the Hollow Sea- others in Bastion argue that they might have been man-made by some great mage-king of antiquity. All agree that they are unnatural.

The mountains of the Tanin range are comprised at base of igneous stone, which gives way to sandstone near the top, and are riddled with ruins. At least two Mirage Kingdoms once nestled within the vales and secret canyons of the range, and innumerable temples have been carved into their dark stone and forgotten.

The tallest mountain, Tannin, is surrounded by a mantle of thunderclouds, which seldom shed rain. Legend has it that the wind dragon, Aeolus, nests at the top during the rare times when it sleeps, but Bastion has never managed to confirm this rumor.

The Twin Oasis​

Arcanis is dotted with small oasis groves, most too small to sustain even a very minor settlement. Even the larger or better-clustered groups of water generally prove temporary, quickly drained by travelers and slow to recover via their hidden aquifers.

The two exemptions cluster north of the Hollow Sea, where the nation's only significant freshwater lakes sit. These are known as Merseger and Kedushah, and are the only working remnants of the Mirage Kingdom of Al Eumq, the ancient dream of irrigating the whole desert.

Once, Merseger and Kedushah were the most prosperous of all the fallen nations of Arcanis, having access to agriculture without need to build deep hydroponics or dig great wells. This changed after the Accord of Bast, and the oasis cities have found themselves pushed more and more to the sidelines in favor of their younger, southern cousin.

Deep Desert​

The deep desert has no name and fewer inhabitants. Exposed to the sun's eternal gaze and endlessly castigated by the wind, the desert of Arcanis can seem like an endless waste. Since the Vokhan fled the ancient calamity of Wood-Wind, the only people who have tried to settle here were the lords of the Mirage Kingdoms, who paid a steep price for their arrogance.

Still, the desert is not a monolith, and it is not wholly barren. The scholars of the Natural History department like to talk about the ecology as having a layer, or a type. Type 1 desert is found often around the edges, featuring densely-packed shrubland and hardy desert trees which foster an entire ecosystem. In the Type 1 desert, travel and survival are quite possible with basic training and tools, and certain nomadic tribes populate these stretches of land, which are especially common in the north and south of Arcanis.

Type 2 desert is said to 'layer' atop a Type 1 desert. Over the course of weeks or months, the sand builds up, covering the tough soil and often burying the shrubs entirely. Type 2 desert often 'migrates', and may remain in one spot for only a short time or cover the underlying vegetation for years. The plants and many animals are adapted to this, and some can spend the better part of a decade submerged beneath a sea of gentle sands.

Finally, the Type 3 desert is found in the center of Arcanis, and is marked by constant windstorms, which can reach speeds of well over a hundred miles an hour. The Type 3 desert is the extreme, and many of Arcanis' traditional trials focus on survival within such places for just a short period of time.

Twin Ports​

Numerous port towns ring the outside of Arcanis, but two are particularly prominent- Horizon's Light to the north and Meniscus to the south. Each of these ports boast over 20,000 residents, almost all of whom exist to facilitate moving cargo between the ships which come in and the land routes which must be plied for journeys throughout Arcanis.

The Hundred Kingdoms of Arcanis
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Arcanis is formally a coalition of city-states, represented in and led by a parliament in Bast, and nominally represented by the King of Bast. In truth, each of these city-states is guided primarily by an Ombundsman of Bastion Academy, the royal families are akin to celebrities, entertaining both the people of their domain and acting like lightning rods to draw the attention of bored Rakshasa.

There are actually only about thirty separate kingdoms represented in Bastion, but the number fluctuates over time as the capital loses contact with far-flung cities, communication is lost due to the whims of the Rakshasa, or lost cities are rediscovered. These "kingdoms" are generally small, consisting of no more than a walled city, and those are seldom larger than towns in other nations; a kingdom may contain fewer than ten thousand souls and still be accorded a place in parliament.

These cities, for the most part, dot the areas around the coast of Arcanis, and are generally built either around a large oasis or atop a cavern referred to as an anduat. The anduat are large underground areas where cities can store livestock, access springs or rivers, and conduct agriculture, safe in the knowledge that if some great sandstorm overtakes the city they will be able to weather it for years. Furthermore, the anduat is often part of one of several underground highways.

The kingdoms of Arcanis vary significantly in terms of local customs and history, and many have special traditions which reach back all the way to the Invisible Collapse. Nevertheless, all tend to have a decorative royal family–though some are more decorative than others–and an Academic Ombundsman who actually advises the kingdom on affairs day-to-day and maintains a small staff of mages who can work to keep the desert at bay.

Duat​

The northwestern sector of Arcanis is dominated by the Hollow Sea, a great body of saltwater which nurtures little life. The water from that sea, however, sinks deep into the ground, carving out a vast network of underground streams and tunnels which criss-cross beneath Arcanis like a network of veins. These rivers have shifted over time, leaving caverns so vast that it is impossible to see from one side to another. This great underground network is the Duat of Arcanis, and is one of the primary reasons the Jin'Norai survived the Invisible Collapse. As such, it is held to be sacred, sometimes invoked as one might the name of a god.

Nearly every settlement in Arcanis is built on or near an entry to Duat, some cavern modified and built into such that the city above can be abandoned. These caverns, the anduats, are also often the settlement's best sources of freshwater, and in some cases the kingdoms have set up extensive farms underneath the desert itself.

While in theory all of Duat is connected, shifting water and collapse means that the patchwork of tunnels is only usable in part. Nevertheless, merchant caravans prefer to spend as much time as possible traveling underground, which offers superior access to aquifers and relief from the sun and sand.

Although each kingdom's anduat is well-used and secured, the Duat as a whole contains many miles of caverns which no-one has ever seen, and these often contain monsters. These are also often the last refuge of the remnants of the vokhan tribes which once called Arcanis home, and it is not at all unknown for travelers to come under attack by beastmen bandits.

The Breath of the World​

At the heart of Arcanis rages an endless, eternal sandstorm. Here, where the winds of Aeolus and the flesh of Duat meet, a hundred-mile whirling curtain of sand blurs the border between earth and sky.

The storm at the heart of the Breath is almost certain death- even powerful Zephyri are likely to find themselves torn apart within. Even many leagues out from the storm itself, however, the Breath stirs up sympathetic storms, spreading thick layers of sand over everything, which prevents any permanent constructions within the deep desert of Arcanis.

Certain nomadic traditions do exist within the space around the Breath, though they are few and far between in the modern day. The outskirts of the Breath are also popular sites for certain trials, and are considered excellent for spiritual refinement.

One particular secret of the Breath is that the sandstorms near Aeolus' great whirlwind are literally otherworldly- admixed with the curtain of deadly sand are ashes from Gehenna, brought into the world from some source known only to the great dragon himself. This gives the inner sandstorm powerful psychic reactivity, and some of the most popular Jin'Norai myths hold that one who travels through the Breath of the World has proven that their spirit is stronger than the evils of their past. This forms the basis of the Jin'Norai's so-called 'ultimate trial'.

The Mirage Kingdoms
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Prior to the Invisible Collapse, there were dozens of Mirage Kingdoms across Arcanis, each the culmination of centuries of work by great archmages of the old Jin'Norai order. In the modern telling, these were the pinnacles of hubris, wild inversions of the natural order to satisfy the lusts of the magelords.

Every Mirage Kingdom featured two defining traits- a method by which it resisted the climate of the desert and an attempt by the Jin'Norai mages there to obtain some form of the immortality they had lost. The scholars of Natural History, in Bastion, refer to these as each Mirage Kingdom's "Shield" and "Jewel", and generally an archeologist's dream is to uncover the secrets of either and attain great power or wealth thereby.

While most of the Mirage Kingdoms have now faded into obscurity, several are still well-known by the public. These include:

Astroloar - one of the Mirage Kingdoms built within Duat, the Jin'Norai here built a series of gigantic glass orbs within their caverns, each containing a separate climate which could be controlled by means of artifice. These orbs were both the shield and jewel of the kingdom, for as long as the orbs remain uncracked, the denizens within neither age nor die- as a result, in the Invisible Collapse, the Rakshasa simply smashed all of the orbs. These great broken spheres are commonplace sights in travel through the southern Duat.

Old Amduat - a city built somehow outside of space, it was connected to hundreds of stone plinths throughout Arcanis and connected many other Mirage Kingdoms. The people of Amduat were known to have practiced a magic which could allow them to exist in multiple planes at once, and thereby stretch their experience of time. During the Invisible Collapse, Old Amduat was ripped apart and mostly thrown into the void beyond, though its streets are still accessible in some places.

Teka - one of the most mysterious of all the Mirage Kingdoms, Teka was said to have been founded in dreams itself, and no more than that is known of its history. Despite this, Teka is well-known across Arcanis because of the propensity of people to visit it during dreams, finding themselves suddenly in alien streets, conversing with other sleepers from a thousand miles away, unsure which people are other dreamers and which are simply part of the dream. It is unknown how the Invisible Collapse affected Teka, or how it operated prior to that.

Tsolel Garden - a green land built in the deep desert, within view of the Breath of the World itself, Tsolel relied upon a series of harmonic devices, great tuning forks which could be resonated to alter Aeolus' winds and keep its fields and people absolutely safe from the sandstorm, even bringing in rain from the east. Tsolel was said to have used similar harmonics to allow dying Jin'Norai to become 'chorus in a great song', though the exact meaning of this is not clear. Tsolel was the first of the Mirage Kingdoms to be destroyed in the Invisible Collapse, when the Rakshasa perverted its harmony and caused a storm of unprecedented magnitude.

Al Eumq - the founder of Al Eumq dreamt of bringing plenty to all, and so attempted to build a series of devices within Duat which would raise the underground aquifers to the surface and terraform much of the northwestern desert to become a lush paradise. Though it ultimately failed, two of the devices remain active, and are the foundation of the cities of Merseger and Kedushah. Legend in those cities holds that the crown of Al Eumq contained the dreams and hopes of all those who lived in the kingdom, granting the king unsurpassed knowledge and kindness both- neither quality sufficient to prevent Al Eumq's destruction.

 

[Desiderata]

B A S T I O N
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The premiere institute of higher learning in Arcanis is also the true political power in the entire country, with kings and queens and sultans from Hrimthur's Spine to the ocean little more than pawns in the Academy's greater plans. Bastion is an enormous complex, a sizeable percentage of the entire city of Bast itself, and its graduates are renowned across Antarok as among the most storied and successful mages. Every child in Arcanis dreams of being admitted to Bastion's halls, of emerging with the prestige and power a diploma brings, and access to the highest circles of society.

Staff
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Bastion Academy is formally incorporated as an ordinary university might be. At the top of the ladder is the President, to whom report the head academic officer or Provost, the Dean of Students, and the Principal Secretary. The Provost, in turn, oversees the Department Heads who manage the individual professors, the Dean of Students controls the Prefects who administer current students and the Seekers who travel Arcanis recruiting, and the Principal Secretary appoints the Ombundsmen who accompany Arcanis' ambassadors and oversee diplomatic affairs, as well as the Faris Inquest.

Although these officers hold complete power within the Academy, their decisions are subject to review by The Committee on Oversight, a group of Rakshasa who keep their identities and meetings secret and communicate to the staff only via twin emissaries. Only high-ranking members of the Academy know of the Committee's existence; even the students and staff who are aware of the integral role the Rakshasa play in Bastion's operations seldom expect that much organization out of the cats.

The Academy's general staff fall into two categories- professors and alumni. Professors are permanent residents at the Academy, and serve under a Department Head in any of the following Departments:

Department of Sky - this Department trains Zephyri, but also offers classes in war, martial theory, and in the tactics of mystic battles.

Department of Earth - the Department for Terrari also teaches art, architecture, and civil engineering.

Department of Fire - the Department for Fulguri, but also for smithcraft and artifice, one of the most-sought after courses.

Department of Water - the Department for Aquari, but also for the arcana which manipulate Saol, including Animism and the study of Glamour.

Department of the Invisible - a very prestigious Department which includes philosophy, Mysticism, and Malediction.

Department of Song - the Department does teach music, but also conducts study into all manner of welkin.

Department of Natural History - an unprepossessing name, but a perennial favorite for students, for this Department focuses most of all on archeology, and the study of Bastion's vast array of artifacts retrieved from the Mirage Kingdoms.

Department of Smoke - the smallest Department, which conducts study into poetics and matters concerning other worlds. The few students accepted into this Department's course of study are those in which the Rakshasa are heavily interested, and often end up joining the Faris Inquest.​

Meanwhile, Staff Alumni are graduates who are paid by the Academy to do various jobs outside of the school, whether it be as an Ombundsman or a special investigator, who are often dispatched to the far corners of Antarok to investigate strange happenings. The most exclusive and mysterious of these alumni are the Faris Inquest.

The Faris Inquest - the Inquest is a permanent committee within Bastion, consisting of twelve Inquisitors and a staff of six to ten lower-ranking alumni who have been appointed to investigate matters of special concern to the Academy. Although the Inquisitors formally report to the Principal Secretary, in fact they are always appointed by the Committee on Oversight, and generally are accountable exclusively to that mysterious body.​

Students
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To gain admittance to Bastion Academy, the prospective student must simply report to the Academy's Entrance Hall. Once every six months, the Academy holds an entry exam- but it does not simply pass out papers to the students. Instead, each student is tested by the Rakshasa, who generally take the applicants into Gehenna and use Remnant to create intensive trials tailor-made to each applicant. The cats judge each applicant upon criteria known only to themselves; there is no appeal from the determinations of the feline judges.

Once a student is admitted to Bastion, they owe no tuition. Instead, the Academy has a legal claim upon them for the rest of their lives, which they are bound to answer upon request. Still, the students must either spend their full course of study living out of Bastion's spartan dormitories or pay exorbitant prices for housing in Bast.

Upon admittance, a student is assigned to a professor who interviews them and designs a course of study. The length of that study depends entirely on the student's aptitude and desires, but average courses of study range between three and twelve years. The current record is sixty-one.

While at Bastion, students are considered wards of the Academy, and their professors have absolute authority over them- even to the point of execution, should it come to that. Each student is grouped under one of the Departments which best suits their study plan, and while they may take classes from other Departments, it is that Department's head which holds the power of life and death over them.

The complicating factor is the Rakshasa. Bastion Academy holds the highest concentration of Rakshasa on the material plane, sometimes averaging over a hundred of the spirits present there at a time. The Rakshasa often take a liking to particular students… or develop a grudge, and in either case, the capricious creatures have an absolute right to alter each student's course of study and conditions at the Academy. It isn't entirely unprecedented for the cats to decide to endanger an entire class, simply to impart some strange lesson to the students.

To graduate, a student must pass a second trial, again concocted by the Rakshasa. These trials are dangerous- while most students who fail survive them, that is not always true. A student who fails a test may take remedial classes, but must try again- the Academy does not permit dropouts, except in the rarest of situations.

 

[Desiderata]

C U L T U R E
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Trade
​

Although magic and the Duat permit Arcanis to grow more things than the average foreigner might expect, it still relies on foreign import for many luxuries like wood, herbs, spices and metals. In return, Arcanis is prolific in the trade of magical items and high-quality crafted goods.

To accomplish these trades, however, merchants are left with a dizzying challenge- getting goods through many miles of desert. Most routes into Arcanis begin with ocean voyages to one of the Twin Ports, but from there a caravan must travel hundreds of miles. The traders accomplish this in a few ways:

1. Desert Travel - when it cannot be avoided, caravans will travel the open desert, accompanied by skywatchers who are attuned to the weather. Although smaller caravans may use dromedaries or horses on the overland routes, large shipments can sometimes utilize enchanted sandskiffs, boats which can skim the tops of dunes if the sand is sufficiently deep.
2. Duat Tunnels - most kingdoms have one or more routes through the underground caverns which will eventually take you to another kingdom, and a canny merchant may know fairly direct routes. These caverns are usually easier to travel through than the surface, but still pose considerable dangers to the unwary.
3. Exodii - merchants on business for Bastion itself often get the benefit of magic in their travels; otherwise, they may negotiate with each city's Ombundsman, who may have the ability to arrange such travel for an appropriate bribe.
4. Old Amduat - one of the best-known of the Mirage Kingdoms, Old Amduat was built outside of space, and Arcanis is still littered with secret doorways to and from the otherworldly land. The kingdom was literally shattered during the Invisible Collapse, but merchants who know the routes can still slip through the ruins of the city to vastly speed up their route… if they do not fear the monsters which now roam the streets.

As a result, the successful merchant requires many virtues- bravery, strength, logistics and, above all else, a knowledge of a bevy of secret paths aboveground, underground, and between the worlds themselves. To ensure that this crucial knowledge was preserved–but not shared too widely–the merchants long ago formed a powerful guild. This guild, called Amduat after the famed Mirage Kingdom from which it claims original founding, is the second most powerful organization in Arcanis after the Academy itself, and most kingdoms are utterly at the mercy of the guildsmen, who entirely control both every kingdom's sources of wealth and of necessary goods.

Amduat claims most merchants as members, for few can make a profit without recourse to the secrets it keeps- and those who can, it can usually threaten into joining. Each dues-paying member has a vote at the organization's annual meetings, though very few have the time to drop their trades and attend, and the business of Amduat is dominated in practice by a handful of merchant-kings who can control how the votes which do make it are cast.

Jin'Norai

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The Jin'Norai came to Arcanis long ago, raised up great kingdoms the likes of which have not been seen on Antarok since, and then fell to hubris. This past wends its way through and around the culture, which glorifies it as a sort of societal lesson.

Since the fall of the Mirage Kingdoms, the Jin'Norai spent generations carving precarious worlds into the desert, beset by beasts and smiling Rakshasa. With many of their ancient archmagi wiped out in the Invisible Collapse, they could not rely on the luxury of elder leaders and statesmen; as a result, the Jin'Norai began to put stock in trials, tangible proofs that one or another among their number was best qualified to lead. In time, these trials became ubiquitous.

When a Jin'Norai is born, they are considered immature, to be sheltered from the world and elements until they have grown into someone strong enough to push back against those things. Young Jin'Norai enter society once they pass their first trial, a test which varies between kingdom, culture and location, but inevitably involves some element of risk. Upon passing that first trial–usually between the ages of 30 and 60–the child becomes an adult, no longer subject to the will of their parents or guardians.

Virtually every position or status within the kingdoms of Arcanis comes with a trial attached, which vary from purely symbolic to wildly dangerous. A social club might require that members find their way, blindfolded, through a maze; individual trade caravans will require prospective hires to demonstrate their ability to blaze a route or fight a monster. Apprentices to every craftsman must create a masterwork sufficient to impress within their profession before they may go and hang their own shingle.

More than mere law, these trials are baked into a culture of perceived value. Jin'Norai who seek power and respect do well to accomplish some public trial of significant merit. The most obvious example of this is, of course, graduation from Bastion, but to many of the people of Arcanis, the pinnacle of feats are those trials historically employed by the Shed orders, who would enter the Breath of the World itself and emerge unscathed.

Clans and Houses​

When the Jin'Norai left the forests thousands of years ago, they were bands of stragglers- sometimes groups of families, but often simply individual objectors to the cruel order embraced by the Aeld'Norai. The history of Arcanis forged them into cohesive groups, families banding together to form the original Mirage Kingdoms. When those fell in turn, many of the fallen kingdoms became clans.

Although it has been thousands of years since the Invisible Collapse, the Clans still roughly correspond to the fallen Mirage Kingdoms, though some have split in the interim. In the Age of Earth, a Jin'Norai's clan was paramount, and loyalty to the clan was the highest loyalty. Some old-fashioned clans still operate this way, but the Age of Fire marked a turning point for most Jin'Norai, who now see the Clans more as an historical note than a real marker of loyalty.

Where individual families and extended families have risen to power, however, they have sought to keep it in the modern era. These are the Houses of Arcanis, and most notably the Royal Houses which still purport to rule the many scattered kingdoms.

In Arcanis, nearly every Jin'Norai will belong to a Clan, but a relative minority belong to a House.

Religion​

The Jin'Norai consider themselves children of the earth and sky, shaped and molded by the union of those two supreme elements. Although they do not conceptualize these as gods per se, they view each element as represented by two of the particularly sacred things in Arcanis.

For earth, the Jin'Norai believe that Duat is the element's gift to them, a place of safety and comfort in the midst of storms, to hide from enemies and gather wealth. The tunnels are viewed as sacred, and while Jin'Norai countenance buildings and clearings within the tunnels, many of them view the act of blasting more tunnels to be an act of supreme folly. One result of this is that mining within Arcanis is limited to surface digs and veins of ore visible from natural tunnels, which means that the nation is always hungry for metals.

For air, the Jin'Norai have a less-tangible but more personal focus for worship; the dragon Aeolus. Unlike the ancient tree-dragon of their forebears, Jin'Norai do not have a natural bond with Aeolus; furthermore, Aeolus is not asleep, and keeps his own opinions about those who come seeking his favor. Nevertheless, the ancient wind dragon's power can be felt throughout the entire desert–and is, in substantial part, why Arcanis is a desert–and he has been known to grant both power and advice to those who seek it. Many of the Jin'Norai's most popular myths involve pilgrimages into the Breath of the World to seek Aeolus' guidance.

Finally, there are the Rakshasa. For many generations, Rakshasa were viewed as a curiosity at best, then a scourge and a curse. Many Jin'Norai clans include Sheddite heroes who used the power of the wind to battle Rakshasa as they fled the ruins of one Mirage Kingdom or another, though few clans can claim victories greater than a stalemate.

Theosophia's accord with the Rakshasa and the founding of Bastion, however, has slowly transformed public opinion, especially with the clans closest to Bast. It is now common to see Jin'Norai wearing cat-charms, or claiming that their family enjoys the favor of some specific Rakshasa.

Humans

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When Faelnir slaves fled the forests, those who went northeast found themselves both cursed and blessed. Many died in the harsh clime, of course, but those who managed to encounter one of the Mirage Kingdoms found themselves granted entry and freedom both. The Jin'Norai remembered that their ancestors had been banished from the forest for protesting the treatment of the Faelnir, and so many Jin'Norai thought it a civic duty to aid the ones whom they could, even though millenia had passed.

Counterintuitively, things only got better for humanity when the Invisible Collapse destroyed the Mirage Kingdoms. While many human families were forced to flee paradises alongside the Jin'Norai, the Clans which formed required manpower more urgently than ever. What had begun as a civic duty became a matter of survival, as the Jin'Norai competed to attract large human families to join with them in their fight against Rakshasa and desert alike.

In the modern day, then, the rise of Arcanis' kingdom-cities has served to heighten tensions between the races somewhat. Human clans which had enjoyed considerable prestige and camaraderie with associated Jin'Norai clans have become sidelined, pushed slowly towards manual labor as the need for warriors has waned. Many of the human clans quietly long for the return of war to Arcanis, believing that this would undo the moral decay of the hedonistic cities and reunite them with Jin'Norai heroes once more.

Clans
​

Much like the Jin'Norai, humans born in Arcanis largely belong to clans- but since there are more humans than Jin'Norai, so too are there more clans. In fact, nearly every Jin'Norai clan has three or more associated human clans, rough alliances made during the Invisible Collapse and solidified by generations of humans working in tandem with (or in service to) a single elf.

The human clans are not, strictly speaking, subservient to the Jin'Norai clans. Although they are bound by oaths of mutual defense and aid, those oaths are seldom invoked in the modern day, and most humans consider them defunct rituals. In many of the kingdoms, there is a certain feudal relationship, where human governors manage the dealings of the clans and pay lip service to the local Royal House of the Jin'Norai. Still, this is a formal, ritual power- few of the Royal Houses are eager to see whether their sworn clans would obey orders which truly ran counter to their interests.

Although each kingdom of Arcanis has its own laws governing what belongs to whom, it is generally the case that humans have all or most of the same formal legal rights as a Jin'Norai citizen, subject to the requirements that they pass the same trials. This does not, however, mean that there is not an informal bias against humans in certain high-ranking positions.

Religion

The human clans share many of the same spiritual beliefs as the Jin'Norai, having lived alongside them for generations and learned from their sages and priests. Still, it is undeniably true that very few humans feel the same connection to earth as the Jin'Norai. They live in Duat alongside the Jin'Norai and protect it out of necessity and out of respect for their friends' beliefs, but the modern age has been marked by a certain amount of strife as human-led organizations agitate for more aggressive mining to satisfy Arcanis' growing desire for resources.

On the other hand, many humans are even more fanatically devoted to the wind than the Jin'Norai, despite their lack of innate metaphysical tie. Aeolus' favor is entirely blind to race, for the great dragon considers elf and human alike to be as children- and the human clans are, if anything, more nostalgic for the days of the Age of Earth than even the Jin'Norai elders.

In places, human clans have taken to ancestor-worship of the Jin'Norai Sheddites whom they once fought alongside, quietly taking to disparaging the more modern and luxury-driven city elves.

Vokhai

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The original inhabitants of Arcanis, save perhaps for the Rakshasa themselves, each new era of the desert's history has been a new and worse trial for the beastmen. In their oldest legends, they speak of how in the Age of Wood they inhabited empires vaster than any of the elven kingdoms, mastering powers beyond any modern wizard's dreams. According to their myths, the beastmen sacrificed themselves to defeat a world-ending threat to Antarok itself, which they name sifr-khatiya, though the nature of the threat is long forgotten. It is said that the elves came from the south after this devastation and drove them from what lands were left of their ancestral holdings after Aeolus' wind swept everything away.

During the time of the Mirage Kingdoms, the Volkhai made infrequent raids against the Jin'Norai, but could scarcely pose any meaningful threat. When the Invisible Collapse came, however, the Rakshasa impressed them into a great army of monsters during their eighty-year campaign, again devastating the beastmen's settlements in the name of their own agendas.

In the ensuing Age of Earth, the beastmen were continually thrust into confrontations with the Jin'Norai and human clans, driven by raids from the last of their surface settlements and forced to dwell in the furthest, darkest reaches of Duat.

In general, the situation has not improved in the modern day. Although there is no law which bars a beastman from taking trials and becoming a citizen of Arcanis, there are many practical and cultural barriers which deter all but the rarest and most exceptional outcasts.

Villages​

The beastmen of Arcanis group themselves largely by settlement, which the humans and Jin'Norai disparage as 'villages' regardless of size or status. With few exceptions, these are hidden away in caverns many miles from any of Arcanis' kingdoms, amduats or major trade routes, and subsist in large part off banditry, for Arcanis' thriving trade practices present tempting targets.

Beastman villages are, by and large, the bases and trading partners for the bandit clans which have grown in response to the trade boom between the kingdoms. Some of the larger villages contain almost as many humans as Volk now, and even a handful of Jin'Norai who have grown disillusioned with modern society.

Religion​

The focus of Vok worship in Arcanis is 'the four and three', the seven heroes of yore who were said to have saved Antarok and who are prophesied to return at the end of days to drive out the Jin'Norai and humans and return the land to its original inhabitants. The beastmen disagree vehemently about the identities and backgrounds of these heroes, but the most common shared myths name them as:

The Four-

1. Wotan
2. Beppo
3. Dankwart
4. Kriemhild

The Three-

1. The Smiling Prince
2. Aeolus, the West Wind
3. The Silver Lady

Although the myths of the Four and Three's adventures in their quest to save Antarok are numerous and popular among the Vokhai, they are not well-accepted by the rest of Arcanis at large and are viewed as distasteful fables constructed after the fact to justify aggression against the Jin'Norai and their kingdoms. Many Jin'Norai react especially poorly to the suggestion that the holy dragon Aeolus was ever a boon companion and brother-in-arms to anything named "Dankwart".

Rakshasa

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The enigmatic trickster spirits of Arcanis have little in the way of shared culture or history at all, being so few in number that one is better off considering them as individuals than a group. Each Rakshasa is a powerful being, often single-handedly mighty enough to threaten a modern kingdom; when groups come together to play their games, they are more like natural disasters than anything else.

The only known time where the Rakshasa united produced the Invisible Collapse, and not all the myriad arts of the Mirage Kingdoms could stop their relentless assault.

For the Rakshasa, the modern age is nothing but an evolution in the games they've played throughout the whole of Arcanis' history. They toyed with the Vokhai of old, and with the Jin'Norai of the Mirage Kingdoms, fought in earnest to destroy them, and spent many centuries harassing the survivors.

Then Theosophia came and described to the Rakshasa a new game- one in which they played with the Jin'Norai less as toy soldiers to be battered apart and more like pieces on a game board, to be valued and cultivated. She flattered their egos, casting the Invisible Collapse as punishment for hubris and the Rakshasa themselves as exalted teachers. With clever words, she convinced a sufficient number to expand on that role, focusing the bulk of the spirits upon Bast and Bastion, single-handedly ending thousands of years of open conflict and catapulting her own homeland into the forefront of magical study on the face of the planet.

Still, while Theosophia proved that the Rakshasa could be flattered and were susceptible of suggestion, the spirits remain strong-minded. Rakshasa despise any hierarchy which they do not stand atop, and their small cliques and councils rarely last more than a few short years before personal conflicts break them up. While Bastion's mages do their best to keep the Rakshasa engaged and productive, the desert is full of roving spirits. Driven by boredom, they levy curses, create monsters, kidnap princesses and inexplicably grant riches and power to random riff-raff they take a shine to.

(This last is considered the worst sort of behavior- while monsters and curses can be mitigated, or even profited from, the market shock of making a street thief into a rich prince can devastate a local economy.)

Cliques​

The closest thing Rakshasa have to any organized family or government are cliques- generally a group of between three and ten Rakshasa who have decided to work together to accomplish some common goal. By the standards of the race these are short-lived institutions, and the more Rakshasa participate, the faster they tend to fall apart.

A single counter-example exists, which is the Committee on Oversight of Bastion Academy, the mysterious group of Rakshasa who have managed to evade all of the Jin'Norai faculty's attempts to identify them and continue to issue strange directives which subtly drive the affairs of the entire nation.

Religion​

Just as the Rakshasa acknowledge no kings, few are interested in gods. Nevertheless, though few of the cats will speak openly of it, legends insist that there is one cat who stands above the rest. This figure, known as "The Golden-Eyed Prince" is commonly said to be the oldest and most powerful cat, and is the subject of a dozen contradictory legends.

Diplomacy and Public Opinion

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Arcanis' roots as a nation of nations are somewhat insular- centuries of war against the desert and Rakshasa have left the long-lived Jin'Norai with an essentially isolationist mindset, tending to their own defenses before anything else. In modern times, however, social and economic pressures have militated for expanded trade and diplomacy with the nation's closest neighbors.

National Relationships​

Aelhiem - Unsurprisingly, there is little love lost between the Jin'Norai and the nation which they left. Among the Jin'Norai, the Aelves are commonly referred to as "mutakabir", which they translate as 'unhumbled'- a title the Aeld'norai sometimes take as a compliment, though their northern cousins do not mean it as such. It is a core belief of the Jin'Norai that, in time, the world will visit on the aeld'norai the same lesson it did to the Jin'Norai.

Still, the banishment was a long time ago, and the grudge is more ancestral than remembered at this point. Jin'Norai and human merchants typically pay it no mind, and will happily do business with the Aelves, who are among the most sought-after buyers of relics.

Bahn'shei - ???

Vokhazan - ???

Ji'an - ???

Public Opinion​

Note on Law - the general public laws of Arcanis were made by the Jin'Norai in the early days of the Mirage Kingdoms, and are progressive in the sense that they discriminate very little among racial lines. Having given up their own immortality in protest of the treatment of the Faelnir, the Jin'Norai sought to enshrine merit above blood in their laws. As a result, there is no official barrier to even a goblin holding high public office. Nevertheless, the kingdom is lousy with social prejudices, and a PC from one of the 'disreputable' groups should expect to have many kinds of pressure brought against them by slighted Jin'Norai or humans in the community.

Aeld'Norai - Arcanis' mythic history portrays the Aeld'Norai as a cruel and arrogant people, who will come to reap what they have sown. Though they suffer no official legal impediment while within Arcanis, they would certainly be subject to unofficial discrimination by individual Jin'Norai. The humans of the kingdom are less interested in this ancient grudge, and it's not entirely clear that the Rakshasa find the distinction between types of elves meaningful at all.

Cor'Norai - the opinion of the Jin'Norai on the topic of their aquatic cousins are split; some view them as, essentially, inheritors of another Mirage Kingdom which happened to prosper by dint of being beyond the Rakshasas' reach, while others view their state as a bridge too far into racial perversion. Nevertheless, there is no legal barrier to a Cor'Norai's residence within Arcanis, though the lack of water generally can prove daunting, and the Cor'Norai have an instinctual dislike of the water of the Hollow Sea in particular.

Vokhai - seldom-acknowledged as the fourth race of Arcanis, and the first to dwell there (with the possible exception of the Rakshasa), the Vokhai are commonly perceived as pests at best and bandits at worst. As a result, Vokhai are rarely seen in Arcanis' cities, and are viewed with suspicion and violence when encountered in the desert or duat. When they are seen, they are often exiles from the secretive Vokhai villages forced to do menial labor in the kingdoms, and will commonly be tarred with the broad brush of 'bandit'.

Dragons - Arcanis boasts very few of the legendary dragons, as they are prone to coming into conflict with Rakshasa. Still, the Jin'Norai have a high opinion of wyrms in general, owing to the near-deific status of Aeolus.

Undead - there is little opinion of the undead in Arcanis; according to legend, the Rakshasa long ago barred all ghosts from the depths of the desert, for some unknown sin, but other than this myth the cats seem content to let the dead do their business as they will. Dealing with malicious undead was one of the roles taken up by the Shed orders.

 

[Desiderata]

M A G I C
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The deserts of Arcanis are ruled by mages. The most powerful and knowledgeable live in garden villas in Bast, or retire to paradise-islands in the Hollow Sea; lesser professional wizards serve as the councilors and de facto overseers of the individual Kingdoms of Arcanis. This leaves many graduates from the Academy to go work for the trade princes of Amduat, or as lesser magicians in the kingdoms. There are vanishingly few graduates of the Academy who cannot find employment somewhere in Arcanis.

Below that, however, virtually all Jin'Norai are expected to possess some level of familiarity with the arcane arts. Every Clan's ruling families are powerful Galsterei, and every clan's members are expected to be familiar with the arts. Even the human clans traditionally received some level of tutelage, as anyone uninitiated in some art would be nothing but dead weight when a Rakshasa arrived.

Outside of battle, however, Arcanis is particularly famous for its contrivances. Throughout history, the Jin'Norai have produced an astounding number of strange artifacts, and those wonders are highly-sought across the entire world. Some say that this is due to the genius of the early Jin'Norai; others argue that it was the tutelage of certain Rakshasa, even before the Invisible Collapse.

Galdr - the practice of Galdr is among the oldest and most advanced in Arcanis. Every child of the Jin'Norai is raised with the expectation that they will eventually be tested for suitability to carry a mark; roughly two-thirds of them are eventually given a passenger. The elemental practice is usually determined by Clan membership, although students of Bastion may seek to initiate themselves into any number of practices at their own risk. In fact, Clan members are often judged in their public reputation according to their relationship with their traditional element.

Among Galsterei, Aquari and Exodus sorcerers are often in the highest demand in Arcanis, with Terrari viewed more as a traditional and spiritual art which has been left behind in the modern era, and Fulguri and Ablatonists sometimes perceived as specialists with less wider application.

Zephyri are a point of contention in the modern day. Once, Zephyr was viewed as the highest art, the art of heroes and the greatest Sheddite warriors, for it held the power to push back deadly sandstorms, call rain and, most critically, actually slay the Rakshasa who had destroyed the ancient world. Now, however, the art is viewed with discomfort, as a threat to the Jin'Norai's teachers and a dangerous challenge to the dominion of Aeolus. Although Zephyri are still trained in Basion and by the Shed orders, the numbers have fallen precipitously.

Glamour - the arts of Saol are surprisingly popular among the Rakshasa, who especially enjoy the powers of Seeming and Shimmer, though no Jin'Norai Maltrician has ever claimed to have actually operated on one of the cats. Though Glamour is studied in Bastion, there are far fewer users than Galsterei, due in part to Arcanis' general lack of creatures with donor organs.

Welkin - where the citizens of Arcanis see the manipulation of elements as a familiar practice, pacts with the Godheads are less familiar territory. Few Welkin came to Arcanis from Aelheim, and only a handful of the Mirage Kingdoms developed any extensive use of pacts- therefore, the arts are generally regarded as foreign and suspicious, something only Academic mages should meddle with. Bastion does study most of the pacts, though some of these courses are more academic than practical.

Poetics - the mages of Arcanis view Poetics as dark magic, properly left to the Rakshasa, and the tendency for the greatest Zephyrei to obtain certain Poetics is seen as another mark against the art. The practice of Apparation and Syphon is considered practical and at least borderline acceptable- Possession is not. There is a very peculiar bias against the use of Remnant, which is seldom discussed in the Clans and taught only rarely in Bastion. This is because the Rakshasa do not want threats to their long-term plans.

Blights - the secret arts of Nihilos are not known or taught in Arcanis, outside of a handful of illicit classes by Alithea's few agents in Bastion for newer recruits. Still, Jin'Norai myth and legend are especially pregnant with monsters which are very reminiscent of Rusalka and Nightwalkers especially.

Members of Alithea in Arcanis must remain especially vigilant, for the secretive Rakshasa seem instinctively aggravated by blights, and will often plot especially aggressive games against society agents without even knowing their identity.

Practices - the mages of Bastion study every form of creative practice to a high degree, although their actual application is often limited by the scarcity of resources in the desert. Arcanis prides itself on the great wonders it develops, and becoming known as a yutqin-maker is assurance of high status and luxury, as kingdoms, traders, and Rakshasa alike seek the services of such people.

Theorems - Ensorcelling is a study common to most of the Clans of the Jin'Norai, but is a special focus of Bastion. Animism is offered to students, but sees relatively little interest as compared to the 'practical art'. Mysticism is viewed as a particularly potent and esoteric course of study, the mastery of which can mark one as a candidate for the high honor of becoming a professor at the Academy itself. The Shed orders also produced many capable mystics, but in the modern day it is considered a dangerous art which should not be pursued by the weak-minded or foolish.

Familiary - the practice of creating Familiars has a peculiar and convoluted history within Arcanis. It was not among the many mystical arts the Jin'Norai brought with them- instead, the Mirage Kingdoms emphasized dominion of existing spirits, a philosophy which eventually led to their downfall in the Invisible Collapse. The creation of Familiars also predates Bastion Academy, which limits the practice to only those students who the Rakshasa deem personally suitable.

During the Age of Earth, the Shed Orders were at the height of their power, and were constantly seeking new weapons which could help repel the Rakshasa. Spirit-binding, especially via pact, was a known approach, but considered very dangerous as many of the Rakshasa knew secret ways to unbind the spirits sent against them. During this time, the concept of creating a loyal spirit arose, and was generally thought to be a reasonable solution.

The effect was unexpected. While familiars were useful in fighting Rakshasa, they also became subjects of fascination by the cambions. For unknown reasons, the use of familiary repeatedly gave rise to impromptu relationships between Sheddite warriors and their curious foes. Certain of the Shed orders became convinced that this practice therefore offered a solution to their war in the desert- but others disagreed, believing that the entire matter was a trick being played by the Rakshasa, the Familiars acting as a way to get Jin'Norai mystics to lower their guard. In the Age of Earth, the debate was ended by swords and blood, as the Shed Orders who saw the practice as dangerous exterminated most of the practice's practitioners.

Now, the art is largely the provence of learned Academic magicians, but it does enjoy special status in Bast itself, where the Rakshasa often teach it to Jin'Norai whom they particularly like. Users with particularly 'interesting' Familiars are sometimes asked to become little masters, the favored Jin'Norai tasked with day-to-day maintenance and consultation with the Rakshasa who loiter around Bast. This job is exceptionally dangerous, but those who do it well may be rewarded by the cats, who think nothing of lavishing gifts and riches upon their favorites.

T R I A LS
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The people of Arcanis define themselves by trials, literally. An adult is one who has passed a trial of adolescence. A journeyman is one who has passed a trial of apprenticeship. A master has passed a trial of mastery. A graduate has passed a trial of graduation, and a king has passed a trial of royalty. In theory, anyone may take any of these trials and prove themselves indisputably worthy of any position (though this is not true in practice of most trials which are overseen by some entrenched group.)

The basic concept of these trials comes from the Age of Earth, when many of the oldest Jin'Norai were dead in the Invisible Collapse, and the clans needed to discern who was best-suited to which roles with haste. As the land has become more peaceful, the trials have grown safer, and less cut-throat, but it is still not unknown for people to die during them.

Examples of common trials include:

Trial of Adolescence - the most basic and universal trial, but not necessarily the easiest. These are meant to show that a child has the strength, savvy and willpower to live on their own, and common iterations include having the child survive in the outer desert for a week on their own (or in a group of children) with only basic supplies, or tasking them to manage the affairs of a house for a month without need for the steward to step in.

Trial of Apprenticeship - craftsmen in Arcanis prove their readiness to practice, usually by taking over their master's business for some time and handling their affairs while they relax. Those who wish to become masters themselves must undertake an additional Trial of Mastery, wherein they present some novel project called a 'masterwork' to the best-regarded craftsmen in their community.

Trial of Ascension - unrelated to the concept of magical ascension, this trial measures a Jin'Norai's readiness to take some leadership position within their clan, often by means of a magical duel with the current leader.

Trial of Belonging - one who wishes to become a member of a clan and is not of the blood (or a citizen of a kingdom, which is more common in the modern era) is assigned some task to prove their loyalty. This can be as simple and symbolic as a payment, or some manner of quest- human legends in Arcanis are filled with arrogant elves setting humans impossible tasks and being surprised by the ingenuity of the questor.

Trial of Graduation - to graduate from Bastion, one must pass this trial. It is different for each student, and often prepared for them by the Rakshasa, who delight in coming up with devilish and inexplicable arenas which test both the student's skill and character.

The True Trial - a reliable feature of Jin'Norai myth and rumored to be the defining trial of the old Shed orders, the 'ultimate trial' asks the questant only to enter the Breath of the World and return alive. This feat is known to be almost impossible, and the survival rate is less than one in ten, even for trained warriors and mages. According to myth, it is not enough to simply have magic to shield oneself from wind and sand, but one must also endure visions from the desert which prey upon the soul itself.

D U E L S
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Duels are, in a way, a subspecies of trial, though they predate the practice- in the Mirage Kindoms, duels were the paramount way to establish status, claim territory, and so forth. These were extremely formal affairs, with defined rules for how one could 'appropriately' and 'skilfully' use galdr, and what other magics were allowed or forbidden. Certain mages specialized in duels to a strong degree, to the point where clans usually had a 'Master of Ceremonies' (or some equivalent title) who accepted challengers on behalf of the clan's leadership, just to ensure that they didn't need to spend all their time practicing dueling skills.

Formal duels are still in practice throughout Arcanis, especially in the outlying kingdoms. Bastion teaches dueling, but de-emphasizes the importance of the tradition, and some say this is because Bastion's students are no better duelists than the scions of the clans, and certainly far inferior to the Sheddites. For whatever reason, the Academy is much less likely to accept an important matter being settled by a duel than the outlands.

Although both duels and trials are innovations of the Jin'Norai, humans and other races are much more likely to focus on trials than duels. Still, one who wishes to obtain a high status in Arcanis despite their race or breeding might keep in mind that while trials establish a legal fitness for some role, winning duels is the more likely way to win the hearts of Jin'Norai clansmen.