The Amber Order
The Amber Order was a powerful order of Moon Elf mages active in the waning years of the Mithral Empire. Public knowledge of the Order is limited, with most of their affairs lost to time or highly guarded state secrets. The Order's greatest achievement was the creation of Amber Sarcophagi, used to entomb and imprison Dark Powers. However, their hubris was deeply connected to the end of the Mithral Empire and their Sarcophagi were imperfect, leading to catastrophe millenia after the Order ceased to exist.
Public Agenda
The Amber Order was named after the magical substance referred to as Amber used in their rituals. With an appearance similar to naturally occuring amber, Amber retained great amounts of magical energy. Secretly, it was the divine essence of the minor god Verenestra, Queen of the Dryads, who had been mortally wounded by an archdemon.
Amber was used for several magical uses, including the creation of golems. However, the apex of the magical work of the Order was the creation of the "sarcophagi", intended to permanently entomb and imprison archfiends and minor dark gods. The sarcophagi were successful, and nearly two dozen powerful Dark Powers were imprisoned in this way.
The Nameless God, a god of secrets whose identity itself was a secret, aided in the creation of the sarcophagi ritual. Although many of the members were devoted to Kimula, shrines and temples to the Nameless God began to occupy their sites. Unbeknownst to the Order, the Nameless God had been the demoness Aezaya in disguse, who sought to defeat her rivals and corrupt the powerful mages of the Mithral Empire.
Assets
The Amber Order was active in a number of sites, with individual cells of the Order maintaining shrines and temples in various locations. The largest of these was the Amber Temple, located in modern day Vladkimir, where a number of Dark Powers, including Vampyr, the Corpse Star, Ochniyye Palochki, and Dendar were imprisoned. Other sites included a small facility in Vladkimir, a shrine beneath Ilyethan, within the Archmage's Tower in the Ruins of the Floating City, in Aethal Ledorei, and an underground temple deep in the Underdark near Sinquiri. It is unknown if there were other sites.
History
The Amber Order was formed by powerful Elven mages during the height of the Mithral Empire. Their creation was spurred by the discovery of Amber, deep within the Underdark, and the knowledge provided to them by the Nameless God. Their goal was noble and bold - to imprison the many Dark Powers that threatened the mortal realm.
The Order achieved early success in their goals, defeating and then entombing many Dark Powers over the course of decades and centuries. The Order operated in secret, with the support from the highest levels of the Mithral Empire, including the Archmages. The Order built several hidden sites across the vast breadth of the Mithral Empire's territory.
The downfall of the Amber Order occured when the Archmage Anastriana sought to entomb the archdemon Aezaya. She cast the ritual in the city of Aethal Ledorei, hoping to draw upon the ambient magical energy of the Forest of Life. However, her ritual backfired, as Aezaya had protected herself. The result was an explosion of necrotic magic, causing a magical disaster and killing the Archmage. The resulting corruption in the region was a key factor in the Separation of the Wood Elves from the Mithral Empire, after it became known that the Archmage was responsible.
The remaining members of the Order gathered in the Amber Temple, where they aimed to guard the sarcophagi in perpetuity. However, the sarcophagi were imperfect - slowly, but surely, the Dark Powers corrupted their guards, leading to inevitable chaos and destruction.
After the end of the Amber Order, their secrets would lay buried for millenia. In the year 6506, in the final year of the Vladkimiran Civil War, the Amber Temple was opened to the outside world by the actions of an adventuring group, who released three Dark Powers from their imprisonment. The Temple (and a secondary site in Vladkimir) became objects of careful research by the Legio XIV - The Owl Legion, who sought to prevent the unleashing of any further evils. In the year 6520, another group of adventurers would visit many of the sites of the Amber Order, seeking to re-enact their ancient rituals of imprisonment against Dendar during the Doom of the Night Serpent.
In the years following, one of the adventurers, named Relik, sought to rebuild the Order and rectify the sins of the past.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments