Acadian Order¶
The Acadian Order, also called the Wizards of Acadia, was the order of mages that ruled the island nation of Acadia and for centuries served the kingdoms of the mainland as their police of rogue magic. It "was born from a splinter from Nexa-Vinian order, which was a splinter from the original Council of Wizards" (S358), and it held to the view of its founder Nexagar that wizards "were meant to serve and protect". Its home was destroyed when one of its own sanctioned experiments tore open the barrier between the Fae and the Material.
Also called: the Wizards of Acadia (S303, S304).
History¶
The order began in the civil war of the Nexa-Vinian Order. Its two founders had "a falling out with opposite views on the role of mages in society": Vinias held to "the natural sovereignty of wizards: They were meant to rule," while Nexagar "favored the idea that wizards were meant to serve and protect." The schism "created the Acadian splinter (led by Nexagar)" (S358). The war itself is told on the Nexa-Vinian War page.
While the kingdoms used the war to break the Nexa-Vinians, "the Acadians fled the conflict and established an outpost on a remote island that flourished." Many years later, "after things settled down," they became "the de facto police force for hunting down rogue mages and providing magical support to the kingdoms, who eventually came to trust them (and gave them authority to police mages)." The arrangement held for "many hundreds of years" (S358).
The end came at home. On Acadia, "now a thriving, high population nation of its own," a sanctioned experiment to create a Fae Conjunction "went wrong. While attempting to amplify their powers by drawing on a more direct connection with the Fae, instead they created a great tear, breaking down the barriers between the Fae and Material planes" (S358). The conjunction "led to the destruction of Acadia and the creation of many Fae-based abominations and monstrosities." What the island became afterwards is described on its Geography page.
Organization¶
Acadia was a mageocracy "ruled by the Acadian Order", and its rulers were eight: the High Acadian Wizard Tserrerak was "1 of 8 who ruled Acadia" (S358). Beyond that number the sources give no ranks, offices or seat of government.
The order kept its own justice. Its records survive as the Rolls of Acadian Justice & Punishment of 1388 and the Annals of Arcane Remediation, which record the trial of Tserrerak for "Necromantic Experimentation", "Use of Necromancy" and the murder of "15,678 people of necromantic blight", and the aftermath of the Necromantic Blight of 1387 (S358). The years are given without a calendar. Its sentences were served in an Acadian Imprisonment Crystal, in which Tserrerak was held for three hundred years, and an Acadian Prison, "planelocked", still stands "off the coast of Acadia" in the Fourth Age, kept by an arcanaloth warden, goblin caretakers and an iron golem (S359, S358).
Magic¶
The Wizards of Acadia developed Acadian, "a fairly common Arcane language" prized for its compressed formulas (S304, S303); the language is described under Arcane Languages. The lore of Arcane magic counts the Acadians, with the Order of Wizards and the Nexa-Vinian and White-Fire orders, among the orders "composed of significant numbers of Magicians", the casters who manipulate terrestrial forces "using arcane formulas and algorithms" (S208, S304). Among the famous conjunctive mages a later treatise names Lystervar, an Acadian "credited with developing and tuning most of the widely used micro-shunt spells" of Conjunction (S310).
Reputation¶
The Acadians were "sometimes known for heavy handed tactics against latent magic users or hedge wizards," but "mostly had a favorable reputation amongst the populace" (S358). Their authority came from the kingdoms' trust, given only after long years of service; the Nexa-Vinians from whom they split, by contrast, were driven into hiding, "their name now a curse-word among civilized populations."
Relations¶
- Nexa-Vinian Order: the parent order and the enemy of the schism. The order was not wholly purged of it: Tserrerak, a High Acadian Wizard, was "secretly a Nexa-Vinian … this is why he was imprisoned" (S358). Freed in the Fourth Age, he set about "rebuilding his order, asserting dominance and building the Tserrakis Empire" through the Sovereign Assembly (S358, S359).
- Council of Wizards: the first order, from whose fall both the Nexa-Vinians and, through them, the Acadians descend.
- The kingdoms: the Acadians' patrons and the source of their authority to police mages. Which kingdoms, and how that authority was granted, the sources do not say.
Gap
No source names a seat or capital of the order on Acadia, the seven rulers besides Tserrerak, the order's ranks, its emblem, or what became of its members after the Fae Conjunction. The conjunction is undated, and the sources do not say whether Nexagar himself ever came to the island.
In Play¶
In the Fourth Age the order is gone and its island is a ruin of Fae abominations. What remains are its prisons, its records, and its prisoners: the Marshford Campaign went to Acadia to free Tserrerak from his crystal.