The Amethyst Order
"What was my education like. How does one describe an experience that was both time consuming, yet felt timeless? That was meant to encompass both years, and days, minutes, and weeks? While feeling like both? It was many years of my life, yet to my memory, it was but a brief window of time. Lessons as eternal as the concept of death, with just as much finality, yet an educative time frame as active, busy and brief as the concept of life. An education in perspective, perhaps would be the best way to describe it, though even this feels like it falls flat in its explaination. It was an education in which we learned patience, calmness, and acceptance. Acceptance of how fleeting life truly is, a calmness with the idea of death, and a patience that would become the keystone to our magickal discipline."
Carlyle Sodergard, magister of the Amethyst, doing his best to loosely describe his educative experience to his adventuring companions and friends.
Structure
The Amethyst Order is structured more or less in the same fashion as its seven counterparts, though notably has the fewest actual colleges solely within its dominion. This is a reflection of the rarity of Entropomancers in general. Magisters of the Amethyst are perhaps the rarest breed of magister, making up only some five to six percent of all magisters ever. This rarity does not weaken their influence upon the Magisterium as a whole, however, which understands the importance of insuring all eight magickal arts are well cared for, represented and educated. But like all the Orders of the Magisterium, the things that define the Amethyst Order are less its school like structure which gives way into singular master and apprentice type educative experiences. No the far more interesting and defining area to consider is the difference in cultural approach between each of the eight orders, and the Amethyst Order is certainly no exception to this rule.
Culture
The Amethyst Order are, as with all Magisters, well trained in some variety of marital prowess and skill as part and parcel of their education. Polearms and Crossbows being a favorite, both of which come with a level of complexity in their styling and education. They are also taught the complexities of biology, a patient and difficult subject of study, having a surgeon's mastery of the various humaniods biological systems. All this is to aid in building the patience and respect for knowledge, study and practice that is required to handle the heavy and syrup like Lobhadh safely with any level of regularity.
However the above mentioned education is only a small part of the sort of education training and techniques that the Amethyst Order uses, the practical skill sets they teach that traditionally are believed to help develop the sort of traits needed to master the art of Entropomancy. Meditation, complex philosophy, the mysteries of life and death, all these and more are core to the growth and slow development of a student towards eventually becoming an actual apprentice. Students will be put through rigorous tests of their patience and calmness. Isolated meditation, for days on end, silent uninterrupted periods of time where one lives but with themselves, and must come to introspectively reach a level of calmness, acceptance and rigid self belief. Entropomancers are not allowed to fear the concept of death, they need to be at total peace with the acknowledgement of their own mortality.
To this end, one of the final tests, before a student can earn their apprenticeship to a master mage of the order, is known of Lobhadh's Embrace. This strange ritual occurs in a student's career when they are deemed ready by their various instructors, showing enough confidence, understanding, deep patience, and mental acceptance of the tenets of the balance, and the natural order of life and death. The student will have a coffin built for them, and be buried alive for a full day and night. As one might expect fatalities from this test are far from unheard of. Those whom survive however, acquire a new understanding of the truth of their own mortality. That twenty-eight hours is one in which only those able to achieve a state of calm acceptance, and in some small part, embrace their end, will survive. Panic and fear of the end are the greatest enemy.
Those that survive this trial, emerge from it changed. They are emotionally hardened, mentally entirely at ease and comfortable with death, even the concept and understanding that they too will someday end. Some even claim to have had visions of their own eventual deaths. Those that have such visions will oft record them, but never talk about them, nor even try to avoid them or the circumstances that would lead to them. Nor do they seek them out. They merely accept the visions, accept that this is a reality that may or may not come to pass, and accept that they are but a small speck in the grand weave of life. Students whom manage to survive this trial after having such a vision often become some of the most potent and capable Amethyst Magisters, as if that true acceptance of death, of their inevitable end, makes Lobhadh less hostile towards them in their spell-weaving efforts.
From the end of Lobhadh's Embrace, the student is no longer a mere student, but is formally recognized as an apprentice of the Magisterium, and will be taken under the direct tutelage of a Magister of the Amethyst Order. Given that Entropomancers are amongst the rarest of Magisters, making up the smallest percentage, this can at times involve relocation, sometimes a great distance. At this phase of their education, the Amethyst Order becomes far more insular, as the secrets of death and entropy are considered a sacred trust. The spell-forms, while known of and understood on some basic level by appropriate authorities and the Magisterium at large, are only a matter of record in the barest sense that they can legally get away with. This is not out of any malicious intentions, but more out of this belief and idealism of 'a sacred trust'.
Like all magister of every order, wielding Lobhadh regularly and over time has many noticeable effects upon a magister of the Amethyst. They are often referred to as 'disturbingly' calm, almost without real emotional register. This is not true, they are not without emotion, however their emotional responses are greatly muted by their worldview and philosophy. It creates a level of calmness and a conceptualization of scale that makes day to day life seem.....kind of small in many ways. This can give them a reputation of being cold or distant or uncaring. A paleness of palor and the fact that they do not really seem to age, creates a lot of 'bad press' in regards to the Amethyst Order in some circumstances as well. The truth of course is that they do still age, just it seems that wielding Entropy magick has this unqiue effect of slowing down the aging process noticeably. I can cause receding hairlines, premature greying/silvering of hair. Amethyst Magisters seem resistant to illness or infection as well, never seeming to get sick, and in many cases their dietary preferences change. They seem to need to eat far less, often develop a complete distaste for alcohol or other narcotics, and a liking for bland or simpler foods and ingredients, almost as if eating is merely a task they do as upkeep for their physical body, rather than something they enjoy.
However the above mentioned education is only a small part of the sort of education training and techniques that the Amethyst Order uses, the practical skill sets they teach that traditionally are believed to help develop the sort of traits needed to master the art of Entropomancy. Meditation, complex philosophy, the mysteries of life and death, all these and more are core to the growth and slow development of a student towards eventually becoming an actual apprentice. Students will be put through rigorous tests of their patience and calmness. Isolated meditation, for days on end, silent uninterrupted periods of time where one lives but with themselves, and must come to introspectively reach a level of calmness, acceptance and rigid self belief. Entropomancers are not allowed to fear the concept of death, they need to be at total peace with the acknowledgement of their own mortality.
To this end, one of the final tests, before a student can earn their apprenticeship to a master mage of the order, is known of Lobhadh's Embrace. This strange ritual occurs in a student's career when they are deemed ready by their various instructors, showing enough confidence, understanding, deep patience, and mental acceptance of the tenets of the balance, and the natural order of life and death. The student will have a coffin built for them, and be buried alive for a full day and night. As one might expect fatalities from this test are far from unheard of. Those whom survive however, acquire a new understanding of the truth of their own mortality. That twenty-eight hours is one in which only those able to achieve a state of calm acceptance, and in some small part, embrace their end, will survive. Panic and fear of the end are the greatest enemy.
Those that survive this trial, emerge from it changed. They are emotionally hardened, mentally entirely at ease and comfortable with death, even the concept and understanding that they too will someday end. Some even claim to have had visions of their own eventual deaths. Those that have such visions will oft record them, but never talk about them, nor even try to avoid them or the circumstances that would lead to them. Nor do they seek them out. They merely accept the visions, accept that this is a reality that may or may not come to pass, and accept that they are but a small speck in the grand weave of life. Students whom manage to survive this trial after having such a vision often become some of the most potent and capable Amethyst Magisters, as if that true acceptance of death, of their inevitable end, makes Lobhadh less hostile towards them in their spell-weaving efforts.
From the end of Lobhadh's Embrace, the student is no longer a mere student, but is formally recognized as an apprentice of the Magisterium, and will be taken under the direct tutelage of a Magister of the Amethyst Order. Given that Entropomancers are amongst the rarest of Magisters, making up the smallest percentage, this can at times involve relocation, sometimes a great distance. At this phase of their education, the Amethyst Order becomes far more insular, as the secrets of death and entropy are considered a sacred trust. The spell-forms, while known of and understood on some basic level by appropriate authorities and the Magisterium at large, are only a matter of record in the barest sense that they can legally get away with. This is not out of any malicious intentions, but more out of this belief and idealism of 'a sacred trust'.
Enforcers of Balance, Entrusted by Death
Like all magister of every order, wielding Lobhadh regularly and over time has many noticeable effects upon a magister of the Amethyst. They are often referred to as 'disturbingly' calm, almost without real emotional register. This is not true, they are not without emotion, however their emotional responses are greatly muted by their worldview and philosophy. It creates a level of calmness and a conceptualization of scale that makes day to day life seem.....kind of small in many ways. This can give them a reputation of being cold or distant or uncaring. A paleness of palor and the fact that they do not really seem to age, creates a lot of 'bad press' in regards to the Amethyst Order in some circumstances as well. The truth of course is that they do still age, just it seems that wielding Entropy magick has this unqiue effect of slowing down the aging process noticeably. I can cause receding hairlines, premature greying/silvering of hair. Amethyst Magisters seem resistant to illness or infection as well, never seeming to get sick, and in many cases their dietary preferences change. They seem to need to eat far less, often develop a complete distaste for alcohol or other narcotics, and a liking for bland or simpler foods and ingredients, almost as if eating is merely a task they do as upkeep for their physical body, rather than something they enjoy.
Public Agenda
"We are the balance, a force meant to keep equivalence within reality. Our magicks are unique in their capacity to utterly destroy and unmake the strange unliving constructs, the restless dead, or indeed, on some small level, invaders from the Void. We hold a dire responsibility, a unforgiving and never ending task to keep the balance intact, within the bounds of society. The most important of these by far, however is the foul perversions that are the Restless Dead. Lobhadh, like its sisters Dulra and Meanma, and its brother, Scath, demands balance be maintained. All things that live must eventually die. It is the way of the cycle, for in death, in entropy, comes renewal. The undead are a paradox and blight upon the cycle. As magisters of Entropy, we are uniquely equipped to face such threats, and that is the sacred trust of our order"
A well worded explanation, though brief, that most Amethyst Magisters offer to apprentices as sort of a conceptualization of the historical sacred trust of the Amethyst Order, and the basic ideas of the tenets and mission of the order
A lot of the general public fear magisters of the Amethyst, and there exist many derogatory, and simply untrue nicknames for them. 'Death mage' is a common one, which most in the order will not take exception to, understanding that to the uninitiated and untrained, that perception can make some sense. If asked they will do their best to help someone understand the error within that perception, for their is a definite technical and philosophical difference between Entropy and a concept as simple as 'Death'.
However the real grinding one that can evoke something resembling an emotional response is 'Necromancer'. This term is considered highly offensive because Entropomancers actually exist, as an order within the Magisterium, in direct opposition to the sheer concept of undeath and necromancy. The Amethyst Order utterly despises the practices of necromancy as an occult magick, and very much has a personal mission shared by the magisters themselves, along with both the Raven Guard and the Crows, the warrior order and internal investigative/policing sub organizations of the Order respectively, to snuff it out wherever it is found. Members of the Amethyst Order, be they magisters, Raven Guard or Crows, are all quite adept at destroying the restless dead, and hunting such apostates. The mere idea of undeath is an affront to those of the Amethyst Order, a blight upon reality, a breaking of the sacred cycle that must be healed....healed with the destruction of such creatures and the death of such blatant apostates.
Assets
Like all of the Orders of the Magisterium, the Amethyst Order is quite rich, for it also acts on some level as a guild. As the smallest Order of the Magisterium, they are notably the least financially wealthy, though again, that needs to be taken at scale. Magisters can and do charge rather exuberant fees for their services and talents, it is perhaps the only real benefit besides not getting executed as a heretic a licensed magister can enjoy. However even in this, it is not entirely for them. Some 12% of funds earned via any exercise of your magickal talents are owed to the Magisterium, and that is on top of paying the tax rate of the nation you live in.
Even with this truth though, it is not like a magister, or indeed a Raven Guard or Crows do not get value in return for this constant leeching of their fiscal earnings. This keeps their paperwork up to date and in legal order of course, but beyond that, this grants them unquestioned access to almost any library, workshop or labratory of the Magisterium as a whole, as well as shelter and accomodations at any school of the Amethyst Order, unquestioned.
The Amethyst Order has its widest and most active presence on the continent of Gavis-Lune, with its masoleum collegiates in six major cities, including three of the four national capitals. They also have a collegiate in Kelethan on Durol, though they have very few other facilities, either owned or shared, upon the continent of Durol. They also have limited presence on Wyriel, keeping a collegiate in both Waston and Mora's capital cities.
Like all orders of the Magisterium, they are almost as wealthy as an entire country, but with a lot more decentralization to it, it is not accumlated, but in the hands of magisters and knights and seekers, always moving always working. They hold some land and property, but are not centralized like a proper government.
Like all orders of the Magisterium, they are almost as wealthy as an entire country, but with a lot more decentralization to it, it is not accumlated, but in the hands of magisters and knights and seekers, always moving always working. They hold some land and property, but are not centralized like a proper government.
History
The history of the Amethyst Order is a shrouded and complex one, as one might expect, given their esoteric views and philosophical approach to magick, and their uniquely esoteric view of their responsibilities and mission. However they have a very active history in many nations of Valerick, and are oft a part of the local lore anywhere they have facilities. Their reputation, unjustly tarnished with slanders such a 'death mages' or 'necromancers' is one best learned and explained by those within the order itself.
Patience is Power.
Shayliss, Magister of the Amethyst Order by Keon Croucher, using Heroforge
A commissioned portrait of Shayliss Vila'gesi, a once licensed Entropomancer, whom had her license revoked under questionable circumstances. Depicts her weaving a simple bolt of entropy, a mere pittance of effort for a Master Magister of Lobhadh.
This gives an excellent example of the stylization that those of the Amethyst order oft choose. Under the robe there is likely to be a shirt of heavier gauge chain or some other such armor. Magisters of the Amethyst, much like their brethren of Doitean, prefer to forgo shields, but for a different reason. Armor of certain types does not seem to upset their balance with Lobhadh, yet the manna of Entropy seems to react poorly to the likes of heavier plate armor, or shields, seeing them as an admittance of a fear of death. An admittance of a lack of acceptance and calmness with the inevitable end all living things must endure. So as such, much like pyromancers, entropomancers forgo any training or practice of shields and heavier armors in the modicum of martial training that they do recieve.
Founding Date
3-7-397 SuD
Type
Education, Magic
Alternative Names
Death Magister's School
Demonym
Entropomancers
Parent Organization
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