Arcantus¶
"Kalar chose one on High to oversee the prison he had forged to contain the invading darkness." — inscription in the Vault of the Eye (S185)
Contested
This page is named in the open question Fate of Arcantus. One Fifth Age source has the Dark Gods kill him; another has him alive in mortal form and hidden by Nyx; a third has the Divine displace him; the newest register lists him among the living gods of two Astral Domains.
Arcantus is the God of Magic, a god of the Domains of Thought and Union and one of the six gods the newest register names outright among the Unaligned (S420). He was one of the High Lords who served Kalar and the one Kalar chose to oversee the prison forged for the invading darkness. He devised Antusil, the arcane tongue of the first archwizards, and held one of the three pieces of the Mithis Heartstone. In the Fifth Age he lost his godhood: the sources disagree on how, but agree that Asmodeus profited, that his four Ascendants are dead, and that his worshippers were hunted through the Riven kingdoms by the Sancturi.
Domains and allegiance¶
The register lists "Arcantus - God of Magic", lawful and neutral in temper, in both the Domain of Thought and the Domain of Union, with the hollow-circle mark of the Unaligned, and names him in its short list of the Unaligned proper beside Pyri, Achelus, Tyche, Menae and Erolan (S420).
The older inscriptions make him one of Kalar's own. In the Monastery of St Morgan, above the Vault of the Eye: "In reverence to the High Lords who serve Kalar we keep these Golden Orbs; let those who seek glory cast their eyes down in humility", the six orbs being those of Quitas, Erolan, Orandos, Moros, Arcantus and Khardas. Deeper in, eleven doors each bear a god and a keyhole beneath the words "Kalar chose one on High to oversee the prison he had forged to contain the invading darkness", and the door that opens is Arcantus's (S185). In the ancient days of the Rebellion of Kalar, Arcantus and Orandos together offered ascendancy to the Eldritch sage Phaendar Nar'Vizerai, who refused them and sided with Izhtari (S164).
God of Magic¶
Antusil, "one of the most common Arcane Languages", was "developed by Arcantus and taught to the first Arch-wizards" (S304, S303).
The Mithis Heartstone "was divided into three. Kalar, Orandos and Arcantus each had a piece" (S142). Arcantus "divided his into 5 parts, holding the largest himself and gave the 4 others to his Ascendants". Among the Heartstone's Kalamite relics the Orb of Dominion is Arcantus's, and in the Sancturi years it was "possessed by Vinias. He also will not part with it under any condition" (S182). The Astral Dust of Arcantus is named among the Fifth Age's sources of magic as a source of energy, with a question mark against it (S112).
The fall¶
The sources tell the fall of Arcantus three ways.
The world-plot notes of the Sancturi campaign (S142) say he is "now dead", his Ascendants "also now dead", and that "the Dark Gods unwittingly played into Asmodeus's hands by killing him". Asmodeus "controls access to the Apotheosis of Arcantus, which is where you need to go with the Astral Key (Heartstone fragments) to claim ownership of Mithis. He tormented the Essence of Arcantus to discover the location. The essence of Arcantus is still in Acadia." Asmodeus's "overwhelming assault on Acadia" was a hunt for the pieces Arcantus had given his Ascendants, two of whom lived there.
A session record a year later (S190) has him alive and in hiding: "He has been searching for a way to restore his godhood (ability to return to his shard). If he dies on the mortal realm, he will become a sleeping god. If he returns to his shard, he would lose to a challenge by Asmodeus and Asmodeus would gain more control over the Mithis Plane." Nyx "is presently hiding Arcantus in his Sanctum of Untold Secrets", embedded in the tallest peaks of the Aquitanian mountains. The two accounts can be read together, a god who lost his shard and lives on in mortal form, but neither says so.
The lore of the age after the Sancturi (S112) gives a third ending. With the appearance of the Divine Star, the Divine "was able to take over most of Kalar's old shards", and "it is also clear that the Divine displaced Arcantus and killed Arya". Then came the Redemption, which "removed Mithis from the world" and left mages, wizards and hollowlocks without a power source.
The newest register (S420) lists him among the gods of two domains without comment on his condition. Which of these is canon, and whether the register describes the present or an earlier age, is the open question named above.
Worshippers and holy places¶
Arcantus's faith survived into the Fifth Age in the Riven kingdoms, where the Sancturi conquest set out to destroy it. After the death of Queen Aalina Lorimer of Brusau, the Sancturi, "given control of Brusau in a treaty", were "hunting worshippers of Arcantus" through the Arbitori Bannerguard, Covenant Agents and the priests of the Dark Gods (S187, S189). The capital, Altandon, held an Observatory of Arcantus among its landmarks, and a "hidden sect of Arcantus" endured in Brusau (S186, S189). Two of the slaves bought there to shelter them were "a 20yr buff Arcantus initiate (Sten)" and a "64yr white haired Arcantus priest (Eero)", both among the minor figures of the Rivenlands (S189).
Two texts of the faith are named: a History of Holy Sites of Arcantus, and a journal "by one of his Ascendants (Khadri -- the Lightstone Ascendant)", the only one of his four Ascendants the sources name (S189, S190). Friar Corbin, "Abbot of Arcantus", rescued from crucifixion, was the wizard in charge of the Acadian Sister Library, a library "in ruins in present time" whose position in time a temporal key unlocks (S190). Five priests of Arcantus marched with the Darkwalker clan expedition into the Acadian Hollow, two of them needed to open a portal (S201).
In Play¶
The faith of Arcantus is a hunted faith in the Fifth Age Riven kingdoms, and his holy sites are catalogued in a book that both his followers and his enemies want. Anyone seeking to claim or cleanse Mithis must reckon with the Apotheosis of Arcantus and the archdemon who guards the way to it.
Gap
The sources do not describe Arcantus's symbols or rites, name his other three Ascendants, or say what the "invading darkness" was whose prison he was set to oversee.