Nexa-Vinian Order¶
Contested
This page is named in the open question Nexa-Vinian War and Vinias: the Compendium dates the order's great war 1864-1895 MA in one chronology and 2270-2271 MA in another, and has Vinias lead a wizards' rebellion in Rhovun in 641 MA, before the order was founded.
"Vinias was a proponent of the natural sovereignty of wizards: They were meant to rule." — Acadian Outline (S358)
The Nexa-Vinian Order is the order of wizards that rose from the wreck of the Council of Wizards, named for its two founders, Nexagar and Vinias. It first restored order among the scattered mages and was thanked for it by the kingdoms; under Vinias it turned to the conquest of the continent, so that its goal became "the establishment of a world-wide mageocracy, where magic-users are the nobility and ruling class" (S372). Broken in the Nexa-Vinian War, it lives on in the newest sources as a secret, its name "a curse-word among civilized populations" (S358).
Also called: the Nexa-Vinians; the Order of Nexa-Vinia (S372).
History¶
When the old council of arch-wizards foundered, the arch-wizard Methusial led a large body of followers out of the Order of Wizards. Civil war followed; Methusial's early victories "destroyed or imprisoned much of the leadership of the order," but he was killed soon after, and "Methusial's splinter group formed the Nexa-Vinian order, after Methusial's two human apprentices that had stepped up to lead the group, Nexagar and Vinias" (S386). The newest account says only that "an alliance between two of the remaining apprentices of the Archwizards reorganized the remnants (mages/wizards) and formed a new order" (S358). An older chronicle of the dragon wars makes Nexagar the apprentice of the elven first wizard Auressa (S429).
The order "flourished in the aftermath of the demon wars, growing in both influence and membership." It brought many of the old wizards into its ranks and hunted down those who refused, and "brought order and organization back to magic-users. For this, many of the kingdoms were initially grateful" (S386). "At the height of its power, the Nexa-Vinians were indirectly or directly controlling most of the civilized kingdoms" (S358).
The founders then split over what wizards were for. Vinias held them "the rightful ruling class, the rightful nobility"; Nexagar "favored the idea that wizards were meant to serve and protect" (S386, S358). The schism became a civil war, out of which Nexagar led the Acadian Order away, and Vinias led the rest "on a crusade to place themselves as rulers of the continent" (S358, S386). The kingdoms took the chance "to seize back control from the Nexa-Vinians"; the war, the mage-hunters who turned it and the purge of human magic that followed are told on the Nexa-Vinian War page. The newest history dates it 1864 to 1895 MA (S386). "The remaining Nexa-Vinians were driven into hiding" (S358).
Doctrine and practice¶
The order's founding purpose was the regulation of magic: it "initially ... followed along the same guidelines as the wizard council" (S372). Under Vinias it moved "more and more towards the acquisition of power. Even the study of Necromancy, Sorcery, Summoning and all manner of dark arts became sanctioned within the order" (S372). Vinias is titled "Grandmaster of the Nexa-Vinian Order, Arch-Maleficus", and "is believed to be the foremost master of Living magic alive" (S372, S434).
The order was a school as well as a power. The lore of Arcane magic counts it among the orders "composed of significant numbers of Magicians" (S208, S304), and credits it with two famous practitioners:
- Coransitius, "the Nexa-Vinian Mage" who invented Evocation "after his groundbreaking discovery of the unifying theory" of energy, "outlining the common natural laws governing both the terrestrial and celestial energy domains"; the art "has been widely adopted by numerous magical societies" (S304, S208). The older text spells him Coransitus and calls the art "relatively new (only several thousand years old)" (S304).
- Nythassi, "an expert in using conjunction for local space distortion, many of her spells remain very popular" (S310).
Holdings¶
The Compendium's present knows the order not as a hunted remnant but as a ruling power: "many nations, cities and towns across the continent live under the rule of the Nexa-Vinians, and they are ever anxious to expand their territories" (S372). In the Drakkani Wastes it keeps "a protected invoker academy here for training fire mages," and the pirate port of Blackrock Bay holds to "non-aggression and basic trade with the Orcs, Salamanders and Nexa-Vinians" (S546, S469). In the Pictish homeland of Pictia its "legions of Undead destroy every Pictish city state except for Txacali" (S372, S429).
Remnants and offshoots¶
The newest sources show the order surviving inside others.
- The Circle of Eternity, "a shadowy group of Nexa-Vinians obsessed with immortality" (S068), counted among its high members Malathar the Pestilent, "a Nexa-Vinian Necromancer of considerable power" whose tomb lies in a buried iron mine (S047).
- Tserrerak, a High Acadian Wizard, was "secretly a Nexa-Vinian … this is why he was imprisoned" (S358). Once freed he set about "rebuilding his order".
- Among the three Sovereigns of his Sovereign Assembly, Valdris Caeldorn is "a high-level ex-Nexa-Vinian"; another, Mordecai Solvar, belongs to "the new secret society of Wizards (displacing the Nexa-Vinians)", the Collegium of the Amber Sun (S359).
Earlier accounts¶
The 2020 history (S386) and the Compendium (S372, S384) have Vinias eliminate Nexagar "in a coup" before the crusade, and date the order's turn to dark arts to "not long after the death of Nexagar"; the newer Acadian outline (S358) has Nexagar survive to lead the Acadian splinter, and is followed above. The Compendium's two notices of the order also disagree with each other: its history has the order broken and its last high member captured and executed, while its gazetteer of organizations has it ruling nations in the present after "a brief civil war among its ranks" (S372). Its chronology of South Astia dates the order's war on the Picts 2270 to 2271 MA, and its chronology of Rhovun has "the Necromancer Vinias" lead a wizards' rebellion there in 641 MA (S372, S429); these dates are the substance of the open question above.
Gap
The sources give no ranks or offices below the Grandmaster, no seat or emblem for the order, and no list of the nations it ruled. Nothing says when or how the order went from ruling power to secret society between the Compendium's present and the Fourth Age.