Records: the Ambrosius Company

## **Merlin, Diversified**

The Royal Order of Merlin took a central role in England, from supporting the House of Plantagenet to bringing magic front and center as a tool to fight unknown threats. Their insight and advice had propelled the Royal Academy ahead by "Leap and Bounds" (several hundred years). Their roles, in these respects, had stretched the central wizards far too thin.

They'd already taken steps to spread complex, high-powered magical capacity around outside themselves, and did that as much for the increase in capacity as they did as an insurance policy should something happen to them. There were *at least* two well-known examples of this:

* The **Cavalon Construction Company** (CCC): a direct subsidiary, the CCC used magic to assist building, creating stronger, more beautiful structures in a fraction of the time.
* The **Royal Company**: there was thought to be a central core of wizards assisting what the RC did already, trained by the ROM, but that central core had since expanded into three distinct RC arcane branches: metallurgy, maritime and motors. One group was helping create mass amounts of stainless steel (and maybe enchanted metals as well), another group was helping build boats that had more buoyancy and pluck than a cork bobber, and the third group was kickstarting the Industrial Revolution.

These two alone accounted for more than a hundred people living in the greater London area that quit carrying daggers or swords and carried wands. As fashion went, they were among the trendsetters.

There were still unmet demands, goals and objectives for magic. There was a toehold on industry and commerce, but it hadn't given the world what certain visions of the future imparted. There was a long way to go for *that*, and while patience had to be counseled, there were threats on the horizon.

*London's Apocalypse* had proven that point. It wasn't Merlin's style of magic they'd battled: it was *unholy* magic. Still in the strictest of confidence was the truth: there was no "unholy" magic – it was holy magic used for absolute, pure evil. Nor was it even magic: it was SNS energy and an advanced psychotronic device.

The Order had lost Wizards in the attack – and now they were that much further back.

### **A Magical Conglomerate**

With the CCC using magic to build, it was bringing in money to the Order of Merlin. This was to say nothing about alchemy itself, but even then, there was only so much lead and tin available to convert. Not to mention that England and the world still needed the actual lead and tin.

As the Order mourned and memorialized their loss, and began to rebuild, the decision was made to create their own commercial brand. The Ambrosius Company (AC) was granted a sub-charter, just as the CCC had been. With papers in hand, the AC slowly filled out its own stable of magicians and wizards, all focused on magic-specific concepts, development and production.

#### ***Luminus:*** May 1378

Their debut products accompanied the reveal of the Company itself. The ***Luminus Division*** was no less than magical lights. This was intended to replace candles, oil lamps, torches, etc.

Even on the debut, it was sold in a dozen fashions (and expanding rapidly). It was considerably safer than open flames, didn’t dim, won’t go out in rain, etc.

Minor disaster, averted: London's chandlers were put out of business instantly. The price for a Glow Stone was still very expensive, but temporary Glow Stones were almost candle-cheap and promised to get cheaper. Combined with the benefits and the sheer novelty of magic, they knew what was coming. After the release, however, the now-obsolete chandlers were hired and trained into the Luminus division that displaced them. It was another example of progress in balance with humanity.