Excerpt from chapter 7: The Ruins of a Lost Age.
... Another such mysterious monument is the stone ziggurat of Suza. This structure is a seventy meters wide and half as tall, although it appears its broad flat top might once have held a temple of wood, based on the pole-holes situated around the edges. It is built of imported stone, likely from Aldiere. But the quarry from which the stone was carved has not been positively identified. Why its creators used stone from so far away, when local materials were readily available, is unknown. The purpose of the temple is likewise obscure. To call it a "temple" at all might be misleading. While antiquarians are fond of labeling every item whose purpose they do not know as "probably ritual", and assume that every ruin was "likely religious in nature", we should be careful in assuming such. Perhaps it was a tomb, or a palace, or simply an elaborate marketplace. We simply do not know.
What we do know that it is old. Very old indeed. Older than the Imperium, certainly. Their earliest surviving descriptions of the city of Suza describe the temple. Caviorix writes in the 5th century BIC that the citizens of the city did not know from whence the temple came; that it was already there when the city was founded by their ancestors. Those scattered dwarven records that have been recovered hint that the ziggurat was standing long before then. Exactly how old it is no one can say with any certainty. No other ziggurat of similar style and material have been found anywhere in the Free Cities. Indeed, someone went to a good deal of effort to deface the ziggurat of Suza. It appears the walls were once covered with images, carvings and perhaps paintings. All of these were destroyed, and not by church fanatics. They were destroyed by the time the modern city was founded. This was thoroughly done, nothing which might aid in understanding the structure has survived. Yet the ziggurat itself remains remarkably intact, even all these centuries later. It has even survived an eruption of Mt. Nera. After the eruption in 193 IC the building was simply dug out of the ash, entirely unharmed...
Chapter 8: Societies of the Ancient World
2: The Circle of Magi
For all its power and prestige, remarkably little is known of the origins and purpose of the original Circle. Today this organization has representatives in every country of note, has records of every island, and keeps tabs on the vast majority of Adar's notable mages. The Circle's authority over High Magic is recognized everywhere, save in the Evonian Republic.
Yet how the Circle came to be founded is shrouded in mist and intentional obfuscation. Scholars do not know when the organization was founded. The Circle was already well established in Adar when the Quadruple Council of 388 BIC recognized their supremacy over all higher magic. In fact, this great council only gave a rubber stamp to an already well established fact. Had these powers been able to, they would have wrestled control of magic from the Circle. The Imperium seems to have attempted this in the 6th century BIC, but evidently failed. Around 450 BIC the Heavenly Kingdom and Borea appear to have formed an alliance against a group known in their records as "The Arcane Conspiracy", which most historians take to mean the Circle. By the Council of 388 the four Great Powers surrendered entirely to the Circle's demands, in return for a mere promise from the mages not to interfere in their more mundane affairs. The Circle further swore to protect Adar from transplanar threats, although they must already have been doing this previous to the council. As such this was no great concession. The Circle did found the Order of the Defkalions in the decades following the Council. This they did to police more minor threats, not worthy of the attention of proper mages, yet which would still fall within their treaty obligations. In so doing they also created for themselves a small army...
Dwarven records show that the Circle, or a version of it, was active at least as early as 2150 BIC. Representatives from the "Southern Magi" as the dwarves called them, visited the king of Valammar and consulted with him. The records of these conversations and their outcome has been lost.
Another unknown is the Circle's headquarters. Where is it? It is known that a place called Aonar exists somewhere, and is where the Archmages meet. It is speculated that it is somewhere in the mountain ranges of southern Khandar. Perhaps this is true, or perhaps it is simply rumor. The number of archmages, their names, and ages is not known either. It is known that seven were present at the battle of Minden, and that this was the largest gathering of such mages since the Circle's war with the Republic. We do not even know if the Circle has a leader. The organization of the archmages, their hierarchies and undoubted intrigues are shrouded in layers of secrecy...
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