Illuminated

## Founding Principles

1. Magic is superior to matter.
2. The Emperor is a tyrant who must be brought down.
3. Once the Emperor is brought down, a new society will be formed, and, using magic, create a utopia for all who live inside it.

## Broader Principles

1. Magic is stronger then matter.
2. Those who posses magic are the rightful rulers of the world.
3. Those who do not posses magic are still worthy of respect and power.
4. Magic exists for the benefit of the world.
5. Thus, the goal of the Illuminated is first and foremost *peace*.

## Rebellion

### Tolumvire (5 BA - 1 NW)

The Illuminated under its founder's leadership was scattered and subject to rapid change. Membership and leadership roles were granted quickly, and the organization was principally concerned with the rebellion against the Final Empire. As membership spread, the Illuminated emerged as a faction of the rebellion that had pledged personal loyalty to Tolumvire of Arendur, and served as a growing power base for him. During this time, the five Masters changed frequently, leading to a nebulous power structure. The rank served more as a recognition of temporary command over some particular region or project rather than a bureaucratic title.

### Farcraft (1 BA)

Farcraft, the Master of the Sword at the time, temporary named himself Acting Grand Master of the Illuminated during Tolumvire's presumed death to prevent a succession crisis. His power grab was approved by Doctor Curtin, who was at the time Master of the Staff. Farcraft's command over the Border Guard (later 1st Company of the Arendurian Army) ensured that his edicts carried the force of military action. Nonetheless he did not make any changes to the Illuminated during his brief tenure as its leader.

## Great Crusade/Arendur-Ragnarok War

### Tolumvire cont.

During the Great Crusade, the Illuminated gathered as one body for the first time in Arendur, and an effort was made to establish a firmer chain of command. The unquestioned support of almost all mages in Arendur served to position Tolumvire as the most powerful man in Arendur, equal in influence to the Citizen's Council and the wealthy industrialists. Once the Great Crusade entered full swing, members of the Illuminated were dispatched alongside conventional military forces, over whom they often had partial or total command. What little research the Illuminated did was focused elusively on the war effort, from breeding new species of chimera and crafting deadly alchemical and scientific war machines. The Illuminated had by now firmly established itself as an instrument of Tolumvire's quest for absolute power, more of a paramilitary mage force than a scholarly wizarding society. Membership was not even limited to mages, but to any warrior who was willing to serve Tolumvire of Arendur.

## Exile

### The Doppelganger (NW 1 - NW 3)

The Doppelganger led the Illuminated during a fraught period in Arendur's history, as it struggled to rebuild itself in the city of Oranor in a world that was hadn't forgotten its wars of conquest. The Doppelganger works to cut back much of the Illuminated's research, refashioning the organization as little more than a subservient branch of the Arendurian Army. He eliminated the rank of Master entirely; what he did not micromanage himself was delegated to the Army, and members were often subordinated to military officers. Many of Tolumvire's loyalists were pushed aside and replaced with men closer to his own vision; soldier-mages committed to the preservation of Arendur. Arcane research was almost completely abandoned under the Doppelganger's tenure, who did not believe that the struggling city had the funding to support such projects. Though the Doppelganger's tenure was regarded as an embarrassment and an aberration, wiser heads would conclude that he had a firmer grasps of the reality of Arendur's circumstances than many of his contemporaries, and adapted according.

## Demon Wars

### Jotunheim (NW 3 - NW 25)

Jotunheim had functionally served as the Doppelganger's Master of the Staff, but he had been sidelined and underfunded. During the two years of Tolumvire's exile, he patiently worked to train a new generation of mages, and upon Tolumvire's return, the founder of the Illuminated was impressed enough with his work that he stripped the Doppelganger of his rank and bestowed it upon Jotunheim. Jotunheim, who would go on to become the Illuminated's longest-serving Grand Master, likely had the greatest impact upon in. He would restore the five Masters, and appoint individuals with the intent of keeping them in their positions for years to come. Under his tenure, arcane research flourished and an active effort was put into recruiting bright, courageous youth rather than hardened warriors whose main qualifications were personal loyalty to Tolumvire. The Tower of the Illuminated, which until Jotunheim's tenure had been a half-finished vanity project, was completed and powerfully enchanted such that it would serve as the Illuminated's iconic headquarters for the rest of its existence. The advent of the Demon Wars forced Jotunheim to refashion himself as a wartime leader, which he as a former revolutionary was grudgingly qualified to do. He focused his efforts on magically altering human capabilities with the intent to refashion soldiers of the Arendurian Army into trans-human instruments of war. When it became clear that Arendur would fall, Jotunheim made the decision to teleport the Tower and its inhabitants to safety, so that their work would not be lost.

## Tenuous Peace

### Jotunheim cont.

The period of peace between the Demon Wars and the War of the Philosopher-Kings was one in which the Illuminated were stateless. Jotunheim was free to focus his energies on arcane research and teaching, for he was always looking ahead towards the future of the Illuminated. Some prominent members of the Illuminated were dissatisfied with approach and left the Tower to pursue their own goals across the world, and Jotunheim made no effort to stop them. When the city of New Arendur was established, Jotunheim somewhat reluctantly re-established the Illuminated as an explicitly Arendurian institution, and grounded the Tower in the burgeoning city. The Illuminated were heavily involved in the creation of civilian institutions, and Jotunheim himself was persuaded to take up the mantle of leadership in New Arendur. It was at this time that Jotunheim's political philosophies were put into practice, with a limited republicanism taking root. For the first time the Illuminated became an explicit governing body, and new institutions, such as the College of Pontiffs, the Trivium Majores, the Quadrium Minores, and the Senate were established.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

### Tan Blackhand (NW 25 - NW 28)

Towards the end of the Illuminated's existence, it was an ossified, fractured shell of Tolumvire's original order. Jotunheim's increasing absence promoted a sense of disunity, both within the cabal and the the nation as a whole. Tan Blackhand was distrusted by all sides, and was burdened by performing the simultaneous duties of Master of the Light and Acting Grand Master. He was also forced to more or less act as his own spokesman, for the Master of the Word, Voidwatcher, was largely absent perusing his own agenda. This left the Branch of the Word somewhat demoralized, which was not helped by the fact that Voidwatcher was viewed as an ambitious and disloyal soldier upjumped by the Doppelganger during Tolumvire's exile. Grundelthum Sunder, the Master of the Staff, might have provided crucial leadership during this time, but was seen as an unpopular figure, distracted by his research of the old ones. In the Branch of the Rod, Arazon almost constantly pushed forward the opinion that she ought to head the Branch of the Sword, leaving her own Branch with the sense that their leader disliked and undervalued them, which was not far from the truth. The situation was not helped by the fact that the actual Branch of the Sword was almost leaderless due to Doctor Curtin's increasingly reclusive nature. The Illuminated had grown more political with time, and power politics had begun to replace arcane research. At the lowest point, many members of the Illuminated had become sympathizers of the Carcosai - a choice that would prove folly - and this were not even particularly loyal to their homeland. And so would a once admired, once feared, but until then always great institution meet its inevitable end.

## Dreamlands

### Mogget of Ulthar (NW 28 - NW 75)

Though the Illuminated had been wiped out by the Reich, Grundelthum Sunder's project of building a great library in the Dreamlands ensured that the Illuminated continued on under the leadership of his familiar Mogget. The Illuminated existed solely in the Dreamlands, being composed of literal sleeper agents who had no idea of their participation in the waking world. Even individuals who would have been vehemently opposed to the Illuminated, such as Cardinal Leo Calixte Desjardins, held positions of great power during their slumber. Under Mogget's disinterested leadership, the Illuminated cooperated extensively with the Arcane Academy towards open war with the monsters of the Dreamlands and the servants of the great old ones. The organization's leadership was focused entirely on this endeavor, and in many ways, the Illuminated was ruled by a ghost, having been refashioned into Grundelthum Sunder's vision for what the order might look like.

## Organization

* Grand Master - stewardship of the organization.
* Master of the Sword - military and security.
* Master of the Staff - records and research.
* Master of the Rod - discipline and promotion.
* Master of the Light - intelligence and communication.
* Master of the Word - communication to and from the Grand Master.

## Factions (War of the Philosopher-Kings)

### Puritans

* Old Arendurianism: Those who believe in going no further than the founding principles of the Illuminated laid down by Tolumvire, and in the preservation of the nation of Arendur as a vehicle for those principles. *Adherents: Jotunheim, Jon the Ageless.*
* Human Supremacism: Those who believe in perpetuating the Arendurian Great Crusade, with a focus on making sure that all non-human races are either eliminated or subjugated; this faction also advocates for the conquest of all nations and in the subordination of non-mages to mages.
* Resurrectionism: Those who believe that the mission of the Illuminated is to reincarnate Tolumvire of Arendur into a new, mortal body.
	+ Witnesses: Those who believe that Tolumvire of Arendur will one day reincarnate into a mortal body without any intervention on their part, and that they must look for signs of his return. *Adherents: Doctor Curtin.*
	+ Planetouched: Those who believe that Tolumvire of Arendur's essence will manifest within newly born sorcerers capable of wielding divine magic.

### Radicals

* Radical Resurrectionism:
	+ Planar Binders: Those who turn to summoning in order to discover a way to permanently bring an outsider into the Prime Material Plane.
	+ Bolgarism: Those who believe that Bolgar of Ragnarok will once again bring Tolumvire of Arendur back from the dead as his vassal as he did during the Demon Wars, and that King Bolgar is the rightful Philosopher-King. *Adherents: Voidwatcher.*
	+ Bazzelism: Those who dabble in necromancy in order to learn how to resurrect Tolumvire of Arendur from the dead.
* Ramanderism: Those who believe that conflict strengthens mankind in preparation for the Long War, and that the War of the Philosopher-Kings should be be perpetuated and intensified in order to identify a worthy Philosopher-King. *Adherents: Arazon, Ramander, Philoktia.*
* Anti-Deviationism: Those who believe that any deviation from the founding principals of the Illuminated, no matter how small, warrants punishment, and that the current status quo must be maintained at all costs. *Adherents: Tan Blackhand.*
* Sin Eaters: Those who believe that mages should have no limitations on the source of their power, turning to unspeakable things such as necromancy and demon summoning, while at the same time holding non-mages to a high standard of ethical purity. *Adherents: Grundelthum Sunder, Hugo Hawkins.*
* Astrologers: Those who aim to replicate Tolumvire of Arendur's ability to see the future in the stars, and in doing so divine the same purpose that guided him.
	+ Archivism: Those who believe in using chronomancy to change the past, as Tolumvire of Arendur did, but without causing a paradox, who therefore study the past in order to see signs of what they must do.
* Fiendbinders: Those who believe in summoning demons and being possessed by them, up to and including Tolumvire of Arendur, thereby giving him and his minions a foothold in the Prime Material Plane.
* Polyarcana: Those who believe that humanity can be evolved into an arcane race, and have taken up Tolumvire of Arendur's unrealized project to try and selectively intermarry individuals in order to preserve and strengthen sorcerous bloodlines.
* Jotunheimism: Those who believe in the original precepts of Jotunheim's Rebellion, and want to overthrow the New Arendurian political power structure, putting them at odds with Grand Master Jotunheim himself.
* Alphaism: Those who believe that divine magic and worship of the gods is antithetical to progress, and that the gods should be bound as they once were in order to create the Shield.
* Demonologists: Those who believe that the Illuminated should master demonic magic, just as Tolumvire of Arendur did when he became a demon lord.
	+ Ascensionism: Those who believe that all mages should seek to shed their humanity and become demons as Tolumvire of Arendur did.
* Hybridism: Those who believe humanity can be strengthened by intermarrying with other races, including magical creatures and outsiders.

## Members

### Grand Masters

* Tolumvire of Arendur, Grand Master of the Illuminated
* Farcraft, Acting Grand Master of the Illuminated and Master of the Sword
* The Doppelganger, Master of the Illuminated
* Jotunheim, Grand Master of the Illuminated, Master of the Staff
* Tan Blackhand, Acting Grand Master of the Illuminated and Master of the Light
* Mogget of Ulthar, Grand Master of the Illuminated (Dreamlands)

### Branch of the Sword

* Nylock, Master of the Sword
* Curtin, Master of the Sword, previously Master of the Staff
* Reese Wilmarth, Master of the Sword (Dreamlands)
* Forbin Acorda, Master of the Sword
* Perduke
* Frazon
* Ale
* Thorren
* Jon the Ageless
* Faldor
* Hugo Hawkins

### Branch of the Staff

* Grundelthum Sunder, Master of the Staff
* Addison Marsh, Master of the Staff (Dreamlands)
* Hedulun

### Branch of the Rod

* Dubstep, Master of the Rod
* Arazon, Master of the Rod and Master of the Sword
* Phineas Conrad, Master of the Rod (Dreamlands)
* Viola Broughton, Master of the Rod
* Rainbore
* Earthbore
* Cothryn

### Branch of the Word

* Sharra, Master of the Word
* Voidwatcher, Master of the Word
* Johannes von Stille, Master of the Word
* Ramander
* Alpha
* Fazo
* Rushgrin
* Horus the Lesser
* Ashton Wood

### Branch of the Light

* Bazzel, Master of the Light
* Leo Calixte Desjardins, Master of the Light (Dreamlands)
* Master Max
* Ravenfreak
* Jang
* Philoktia
* Illucien
* Marbel (Zactar Intelligence spy)

## Former Members

* Miyamoto Kai, former Master of the Sword
* Sharra, former Master of the Word
* Paralance