The Archivists

Syrena Malloren had lost count of the hours she had spent in the library the last fortnight. She had been tasked with researching an odd artifact that the Archivists had acquired. Without warning, Syrena had been summoned to the Archmage's tower in the middle of the night, and been shown a gem-encrusted cube, about two inches on its side, whose origins had stumped both the Librarykeeper and the Loremaster.

It had fallen on her to rummage through the codices and scrolls for any trace of information about it. As thousands upon thousands of books were kept in the winding corridors of the Great Library, the consensus of the leadership was that one of them had to contain the answer - a note in a margin or some small footnote in an ancient arcane manual.

The light from Syrena's thin halo illuminated her golden hair and white flowing robe as she put a scroll aside (it contained instructions for some mundane spell she did not care about) and reached for the next leather-bound tome. It was the verbose diary of a long dead archmage, written in an archaic form of gnomish. She was starting to doubt the information she was after was even in the library.

She turned a page and almost knocked the stack of unread tomes over as an illustration of the exact item she had seen was on the page. She scrambled for her notes and compared the diagram with a drawing she had made. It matched exactly. She reached for the pouch on her belt, pulling out a small length of copper wire. Touching the wire to her lips, she focused and muttered the familiar incantation under her breath. "Loremaster, I have found something you need to see." A male voice quickly responeded in her head. "I am in my office. Bring what you have found."

Syrena grabbed the book, and spoke an incantation. As she finished, she disappeared in a flash of light, her halo lingering for a couple seconds before the library went completely dark.

The Archivists

Deities	Odin
Strength	~400 faculty and researchers, ~800 students
Leader	Archmage Hedwig Crimeon
Major locations	Greystone, Covenant, Cottenhorn, Wolfgarde
Motto	Knowledge for Knowledge's Sake

Ranks

• Novice
• Apprentice
• Scribe
• Scholar
• Examiner
• Loremaster
• Archmage

The Archivists (officially The Keepers of Lore and Arcana to the Council of the League) is the most influential magical research organization across the Estian Sea. They research and catalogue the runes in order to decipher the mysteries of the magical weave that permeates the world. The Archivists are a part of the government of the Estian League, acting as scribes and magical advisors of the Estian Council, and the leader of the Archivists has a voting seat on the council. This role is currently held by Archmage Hedwig Crimeon, a skilled tiefling conjurer.

The Archivist's patron deity is Odin, who gifted understanding of the runes to the mortals. Most Archivist facilities house a shrine to the All-father, but it is not a religious organization by any means.

Mission

The Archivists provide magical support and guidance for the Estian government. They also run schools of magic, most notably the Greystone Archive. Education at an Archive is not cheap, available only to nobles and wealthy commoners. A few gifted students are also given scholarships, awarded through a lengthy and highly competetive process.

Members of the Archivists choose for themselves what to study. Some become generalists, learning a little about many different subjects and schools of magic. Other hyper-specialize, devoting a life of study into a single spell. Most fall somewhere inbetween. Many who enroll in the ranks of the Archivists spend a few years doing menial scribe-work for the League government, in order to pay their tuiton.

Almost any area of magical study is permitted for study, except for Necromancy. Some members find this rule arbitrarily limiting on their chosen area of study. Of course, it is allowed to study about Necromancy, but performing the spells themselves are off limits.

History

When the Estian League was founded, the Council required magical support in many areas. For the first decade or so of the League, this was provided in an ad-hoc manner by individual councillors dealing with mages in their constituencies.

In order to coordinate better and to promote magical learning, the Council passed the Archive Acts of 1212, which established a central magical authority, headquartered in Greystone. Sira Blazefire was appointed to the Council as the first Archmage, in exchange for her personally funding much of the development of the new organization.

Sira reached out to other powerful magicians, and together they laid the foundations of what is now one of the premier institutions for magical learning and research. Each founder took on students according to their own principles, teaching them in their own tradition. This has continued on to this day, with the Archivists being divided into four Colleges, each bearing the name of one of the founders.

Emblem

The Archivist's emblem consists of four interlocked rings, each of a different color, representing the four Colleges.

Leadership

From the tallest tower in the Greystone Archive, Archmage Hedwig Crimeon leads the Archivists. She is tasked with furthering the organization's scholarly pursuits, as well as seeing to the magical needs of the Council, on which she sits.

Reporting to the Archmage are the Loremasters, each the head of a College. The Loremasters are responsible for most of the day-to-day operations of the Archives.

Below the Loremasters are the Examiners, who are experienced teachers. Some Examiners hold large lectures for first-year Novices, others only tutor a single student at a time. Generally, as the magic gets more advanced, the amount of pupils decrease.

Archmage Hedwig Crimeon

(tiefling, LN, 55): Archmage Hedwig Crimeon is the current leader of the Archivists. Starting from almost nothing, she used her considerable magical talent to join Abelin college as an apprentice and tirelessly worked her way up through the ranks. She now sits on the Council of Estia, the only Tiefling to do so. Crimeon is a master conjurer, able to call on creatures from other planes - her detractors say that she has gained her position through collusion with evil extra-planar forces, but this is usually dismissed as anti-tiefling prejudice.

Archmage Crimeon has deep-red skin that is almost purplish in hue, and large curved horns. She dresses in elaborate robes of purple and red, matching her skin tone. She has never married, although rumor has it she has an ongoing relationship with Baroness Salome Cassaro, but this has never been conclusively proven.

The Trials

The colleges recruit students who show some magical aptitude when they are as young as twelve, but usually around fifteen. During a students first four years, they are a Novice. At the end of that period, they are eligible to take a multi-subject exam on everything they have learned, called the Trials. Those who complete their Trials become Apprentices, and are free to choose their own area of research, or strike out on their own.

The Trials are held around each equinox, so those that fail can try again six months later. Only about a quarter of students pass the Trial on their first attempt, these are called aces. Those who fail three times are barred from taking the exam again, and are called triplets. Triplets can still make a living from their magic, but are looked down upon by those who pass the Trial. Similarly, those who fail the exam once before passing are known as singlets, and those who fail twice are known as doublets.

The youngest student ever to complete the trials was a sorcerer of only eleven years old, who was given one-on-one tutelage from age six. The oldest was an elven wizard of nearly 400, who completed the Trials on their second attempt, after making their first attempt 99 years earlier.

Cheating during the Trials is strictly prohibited. Those who are found to be cheating via telepathy, illusion, charming, or other means are banned from ever taking the test again. There also exists a cottage industry of tutors who help others pass the Trials, mostly run by Apprentices and Scribes who want to extend their income.

Colleges

The Archivists divide their students and faculty in Colleges, functioning almost like separate schools under the same roof. Each college focuses on studying a different aspect of the arcane.

On most Archivist campuses, each college also has separate dormitories. Each college also fields a cometball team for a tournament that runs during the school year. Each college is roughly the same size, with around two hundred active students each, and around a hundred researchers, teachers, and administrators. Colleges have a lot of leeway in how they accept students, and prospective novices technically apply to the colleges, not to the Archivists as a whole.

Each college is also presented with a background that you can use if you want to create a character that has been trained at an Archive.

Blazefire College

First Among Equals

Founded by Sira Blazefire, this college focuses on how to apply magical knowledge to earn gold. Many graduates of Blazefire College go on to practice alchemy, artifice, scroll scribing, or other magical services.

Members of Blazefire College usually wear distinctive layered robes of red and black that fasten over the chest. The robes are a symbol of entrepreneurship in their own right. The robes incorporate a leather apron as protection from alchemical accidents.

Blazefire College has had the most Archmages of any college, a fact they are likely to bring up in conversation. In the Cometball league, the Blazefire Flames represent the college. The Flames are considered to be the second-best team in the league.

Sira Blazefire

(half-elf wizard, LE, 1153-1307 AUC): Alchemist who discovered the process to make ashresin. She was a brilliant experimentalist, and also a fierce businesswoman, which made her fabulously wealthy. Sira funded much of the development of the Greystone Archive, which is built on the site of her laboratory. She wrote one of the fundamental treatises of alchemy.

Abelin College

Knowledge Lies Beyond

Founded by Abelin Gemscribe. The Abelin dormitory lies in a permanent demiplane with entrances at various Archives, conjured by the founder himself. The studies at Abelin focuses on magical theory and extraplanar lore, and how to use those powers. They also provide classes in the visual arts, especially painting, which they use to research and catalogue both flora and fauna. It is considered to be the hardest of the four colleges when it comes to coursework.

It is not uncommon for students of Abelin to come in contact with powerful extraplanar entities during their studies, who then recruits them to be a warlock in their service.

Students and faculty of Abelin College wear robes with natural colors, mostly browns and greens, and often wear large pointed hats, an outfit inspired by their founder. Currently, Miriam Starmantle serves as Loremaster of the college.

The college's cometball team is called the Abelin Acorns. They have been struggling for the last several seasons.

Abelin Gemscribe

(gnome, NG, 1131-1279 AUC): Arcanist whose work on the properties of magical residue, ley lines, and demiplanes is the cause of many sleepless nights of study for Archivist students. Extremely gifted in his field, but rather dimwitted otherwise. He is said to have dined with Odin in Valhalla after accidentally opening a portal there. The unit of magical flux is named Abelin after him, and is defined to be the smallest iota of detectable magic. The amount of magical flux generated by spells varies greatly. A fireball emits a couple hundred Abelin, while even a minor illusion can put out several thousand Abelin in the area it affects.

Dawnstar College

By Spell and Sword

The most martially minded of the colleges. It was founded by Esme Dawnstar, a powerful battlemage who fought for the League in its early days. She successfully argued to Sira Blazefire that the League would be well served by armed mages, and was made captain of that force.

Dawnstar College accept only those who are strong of both arm and mind, and hones them to become elite soldiers of the League. Many who graduate from the arduous training go on to become officers in the Purple Legion.

Their uniforms are royal blue with golden detailing, the colors of House Dawnstar, and are usually less robe-like than some of the others.

Each year, students of Dawnstar College who have distinguished themselves are invited to a banquet at Greystone Castle, where they socialize with Count Dawnstar and his retinue. This is an excellent opportunity to cultivate relationships that might turn into patronage for costly research.

The Dawnstar Dragons has been the perennial favorites to win the yearly cometball league for some time now.

Cassietta College

Truth is Absolute

Historians and lorekeepers, the scribes of Cassietta College chronicle history as it happens. They are the most bookish of all the colleges, and were founded by Alba Aemus Cassietta. Students of the college wear white togas, often with embroidered writing on them.

The studious life at Cassietta College prepares its students for intellectual careers, and many go on to become researchers, lawyers, teachers, or authors. The current Loremaster of Cassietta College is Talia Bellshaw.

The Cassietta Owls cometball team are not the best team, but they have a lot of fans, due to a large repertoire of rousing songs that are sung from the stands during games.

Alba Aemus Cassietta

(aasimar bard, CG, 1078-1241): Founder of Cassietta College. Alba was a prominent historian and loremaster in Tec. When the Empire fell, she fled with a huge personal collection of books and scrolls, which became the start of the Cassietta Library in the Greystone Archive. Before she died, she infused all their knowledge into Codex, a sentient ring, but the ring was lost some years after her death.

Locations

The Archivists operate in four major locations, but have several smaller outposts. Some members prefer to study in solitude, and reside in another location, perhaps a remote wizard's tower.

Playing as an Archivist

If you want to make a character that is part of the Archivists, there are many iconic options.

While the Archivists definitely employs many Wizards, their members include those of other classes as well. Many Bards, Sorcerers and Warlocks study in the libraries, perhaps focusing on slightly different subjects. The Archivists also employ Artificers, especially in Greystone. If you want a more off-the-beaten path alternative, look into the Arcane Trickster Rogue, Eldritch Knight Fighter, or the Warrior of the Elements Monk. Clerics (especially of the Magic Domain) and Druids can also work well as researchers or alchemists.

All races are represented here, but humans, gnomes, and tieflings might be the most iconic choices. Each College is presented with a background with ideals that lets you lean into that College's specialty. If none of these speak to you, the Sage, Noble, or Hermit backgrounds all work.

Personality traits

• I have a hard time interacting with those who lack training in the arcane arts
• I love a good puzzle or mystery
• My favorite place in the world is a library
• My fashion sense is somewhere in the last century
• I am full of proverbs and maxims for any situation
• When I find something that interests me, it consumes my whole attention span

Bonds

• I want to learn the answer to a question that has been eluding me for years
• I seek the means to undo a mistake I did in my youth
• The school where I was taught means more to me than my family home
• I want to finish my research and compile my magnum opus
• I borrowed a lot of money to fund my research, and the debt is coming due
• I seek a powerful magical artifact, but so far I have only heard whispers

Flaw

• If a problem cannot be solved with magic, I believe it to be impossible
• I am very blunt in conversation, and often say things I shouldn't
• I can't keep a secret to save my life
• I am convinced that people are always trying to steal my research
• I grow bored easily, preferring not to focus on an area of study too long
• I am convinced I will be the greatest mage the world has ever seen