Codex of Halimath Wasanthi

## Synposis

The Codex of Halimath Wasanthi is a magical device that was created by an elven scholar from Volus, in the last years of the Age of Arcana. It serves a twofold purpose: first, it contains an account of the life of Halimath Wasanthi and the work of Avara Wasanthi; second, it serves as a cipher for Halimath Wasanthi's coded journal.

## Physical Description

The Codex is a handheld rectangular device, chrome in color, about the size of a baseball card. Arcane glyphs for illusion, divination, and abjuration magic are etched into its surface. On one face of the device is a small indentation, about the size of a fingerprint. Above this indentation, a small blueish crystal is embedded in the device. On the opposite side of the device is a larger, yellow-white crystal.

## Properties

The device requires the blood of Halimath Wasanthi, or one of his descendants, to activate. Touching the indentation with the blood of Halimath Wasanthi or any of his descendants activates the device for 24 hours. When the device is activated, the blue crystal on its face projects an illusory recording that was programmed by the device’s creator. After the playback of this recording finishes, it can be repeated by touching the blue crystal.

While the device is active, it can be used to magically generate a cipher for your spoken words. Touching the yellow crystal on the reverse face of the device causes it to emit a small cone of yellow light. When you speak aloud while the light is active, the light projects your spoken words, translated into a complex cipher composed by layers of algorithmic code and written in dozens of different languages, nearly impossible to decipher by mundane means. When the light is shined on text that is written in this cipher, it instead projects the translation of that text in common.

### Recording

"My name is Halimath Wasanthi. This recording will serve as my last will and testament. I have nothing to leave behind. No treasure, no property. Only knoweldge. Knowledge that, now, in my dying days, no one cares to hear. Nobody cares."

"And so I leave this recording, the codex which contains it, and the journal which is deciphers, to no person in particular. I only pray that some day, someone will care to hear what I have to say. Someone will wish to know. I must believe that day will come, or else everything... all of it was for nothing."

"And so to whoever hears this message. If you wish to know. Here is my story."

"I was born in the year 596 of the Age of Arcana, in the flying city of Volus, capitol of the Holy Elvish Kingdom of Ayn Sitael. My birth was illegitimate - the product of an affair between a married man and an unmarried woman, both of whom held stations of great power on the High Council of the kingdom. As such, my existence was kept secret. For if the sins of my parents had been discovered, they would have been excommunicated, removed from the High Council, perhaps even executed under holy law. So my mother raised me in secret until I was old enough to survive alone, and then I was abandoned. An illegitimate bastard child with no name, no family, no home. No future."

"I remained in Volus, lived out my young life there. Had a child of my own, out of wedlock. My son, Hastios. A bastard child born to a bastard child. His mother left him with me. She wanted no part in him. He would have ruined her prospects of a a normal life. But I had no normal life to lose."

"Hastios was only a child when the war came. When Ayn Sitael fell, and the Arch Heart was exiled, many warned that Volus would surely fall into the sea. The religious leaders of the kingdom decried these warnings as heresy. But I had seen firsthand the extent of their blindness and ignorance. The gods had abandoned us, and they were too stubborn to see it."

"So I feld, taking Hastios with me. Traveled the continent. I did not know where I would go, only that I wanted to be as far from Ayn Sitael as my feet would carry me. And they carried me to the desert. To Karaad. Where I have lived out my last decades and where soon I will perish."

"It wasn't until months later that I learned that Volus had indeed fallen into the sea, killing all who remained there. I have no doubt that they were singing the gods' praises as they plunged to their deaths. And now there is a new elvish kingdom, with new lands, and a new council, and the same gods - the very gods who sentenced Ayn Sitael to ruin. People never change."

"Now you know my story. But my story does not matter. Orphaned, bastard refugee who will die alone in the desert having never accomplished a thing. I have done nothing for which I deserve to be remembered. But my mother's story. Her life's work. She must be remembered. And if all that I can leave behind is my memory of her, then so be it."

"My mother's name was Avara Wasanthi. She was a sage - an advisor on matters of magic. Her life's work was the development of a new form of magic, which she called rune magic. She did not believe in the inherent conflict between arcane and divine. She believed the two could coexist peacefully, even cooperatively. So she developed runes - a form of magic that used arcane methods to draw upon divine magic. She envisioned rune magic as a way to make magic accessible to the common man, a tool to demonstrate that there could be pace in this world."

"For these beliefs, for her heresy, she was assassinated. As the Gods' War raged, the High Council believed that my mother's sins had brought the gods' wrath down upon them. So they had her killed, and her life's work destroyed. All record of it erased."

"I resented my mother for many years, for abandoning me. But in my waning years, I have grown to appreciate the gravity of her decision. She wished for the greater good. For peace. Her station was necessary. What is one bastard orphan against a world in harmony?"

"I have spent the last decades of my life attempting to reproduce her work. A useless effort. I was never as intelligent or cunning as her, or as wide in the ways of magic. And even if I were, it has been years since that last Zenith. Decades since the last Prime. Magic is dead. And with it, everything that my mother lived and died for - everything she sacrificed. The life I never had."

"I have recorded my efforts at reproducing rune magic in a journal, written in a nigh-unintelligible magically-generated cipher. This device serves as its codex, and will make its contents clear. Perhaps someday a better person will be able to resume my work. To bring my mother's legacy back into the light, and make her vision a reality."

"The journal itself, I have bequeathed to my son, Hastios. Though I have tried to explain to him its significance, he has no desire to understand. He would sooner leave the past behind. To him, the journal is the ravings of an old man who cannot embrace the new world. To him, my tireless work on preserving my mother's legacy is neglect for him in the present. Perhaps he is right."

"And so, within this codex, and within the journal, lies all that I leave behind in my death. A token of knowledge that no living soul cares to hear. My last and dying prayer is that someday my mother's memory will rise again from the ashes of our folly."

"There is one more piece to my story, which you may wonder. The identity of my father. Strange to even call him that; I never once met him in person. Perhaps by the time this message is heard, the world will be different. I suspect not. But in my age, if the leaders of the Holy Kingdom knew tha tmy father had sired an illegitimate child in an act of infidelity, outside of the holy tradition of the kingdom, it would destroy his legacy. Ruin the lives of his children, who now sit on the High Council of the new kingdom."

"I bear no ill will against my father or his name. Not any more. And I will not be the reason that another illegitimate child suffers for the ignorance of others. I am my father's darkest secret, and his secret dies with me."

## Halimath's Journal

### Contents

Halimath Wasanthi kept a journal of his efforts to replicate Rune Magic. Though a talented arcanist in his own right, he lacked his mother's talents and ingenuity, and never fully understood Rune Magic. The journal details his failed attempts to produce runes, which failed in part because of his incomplete knowledge of the methodology, and in part simple because of the dormant state of magic in Halimath's lifetime.

The journal also includes some autobiographical details, describing Halimath's life in Volus, and subsequently in Karaad. He also details his estranged relationship with his son, and feelings of isolation and hopelessness towards the end of his life.

Toward the end of the journal, one particular inscription details Halimath's knowledge of the existence of Avara Wasanthi's Tome, as detailed below:

"Hope. There may yet be hope. Though it is far from my reach, it may someday be within someone else's."

"For no small price, I employed the aid of a traveling priest, a follower of Ioun. It cost me most of what remained of my savings, but it was well worth the investment. Through the use of divination magic, I have learned that some of my mother's writings yet survive. A Tome of Rune Magic. A last remnant of her life's work, which the High Council attempted to erase when they assassinated her."

"The Tome lies somewhere within the ruins of Volus, where the city collapsed into the Tempest Gulf. Far out of my reach. But also far from the reach of anyone else. If I were a younger man, I would walk the continent and dive into the sea myself to find it. But in truth, it may be safer in those ruins than it would be anywhere else. Far from prying eyes, until it can be found by the right person. Now I must pray that the wrong person doesn't find it first."

### Uses

Though Halimath's work on Rune Magic never reached fruition, his notes could still prove tremendously valuable to an aspiring rune scribe. By using the methods detailed in the book, a rune scribe can work to develop new runes. Once per day, provided that the rune scribe spends at least 2 hours working, they can make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, and add their Rune Knight level to the roll. The result of this check is tracked cumulatively over repeated sessions of work. Once the total reaches 1,000, a new rune is scribed.

### Movement

Halimath handed the journal down to his son, Hastios Wasanthi, as a family heirloom, and took the codex with him to his grave. Hastios paid little attention to the journal for most of his life, and passed it on to his daughter, Ava Aloro, as a wedding gift. Ava went on to become a student at the College of Mimrinoth, and the journal was in her quarters at the college when she died at sea. When Ava's daughter, Valania Aloro, never came to claim her mother's possessions, the journal was moved to the college library, along with Ava's other books. Odell and Nuraval Silverstone happened upon the journal by chance in the college library, and it is now in Odell's possession.

### Inscriptions

On the inside of the cover of the journal are two inscriptions, in elvish. The first, in the same handwriting as the rest of the journal, reads:

*"For my son, Hastios. The world has forgotten us, but I pray you never will".*

The second, in different handwriting, reads:

*"For Ava, on your wedding day. I have no greater pride than to call you my daughter".*

These inscriptions were written by Halimath Wasanthi and Hastios Wasanthi, respectively.

### Final Entry

The final entry of the journal is written in slightly less complicated code, and was able to be decoded by Odell and Nuraval Silverstone without the codex, albeit only with extensive work and some trial and error. It is a short entry, and reads simply:

*"The world has changed. Changed beyond recognition from the one that I knew. I fear... nay, I accept, that this work is in vain. All of my years of work. All of hers. All of the bloodshed and fire. And for what? To be lost and forgotten, adrift in a world that cares not for magic, nor for history. She was a brilliant light, and I believed her work would be a constant beacon to the world for an age. Instead it was little more than a flash of lightning, snuffed out as quickly as it was born. And now there is only darkness.*

*"But should a new age come, when light shines again and searches for our memory, it shall be found in the place of my death. Our memory is dead. But perhaps one day it shall rise again."*