Arcane

ARCANE The Arcane, also known as mercanes, are a race of spacefaring and extraplanar merchants, especially interested in dealing in spelljamming equipment. "Where do the Arcane come from? Who are they? Why do they sell their helms? Surely profit is not their only motivation. Who among us has ever even learned how a helm works, let alone manufactured one?" — Gamalon Idogyr, during a lecture to the Seekers at the Library of the Spheres Description The Arcane looked like tall and slender blue-skinned giants with long, delicate fingers, each with an extra joint. They had narrow shoulders and a sunken chest. Their skulls were narrow and double-domed, with a slight bulge over their brows and their dark eyes sunk into their heads. The Arcane typically dressed in robes. Personality The Arcane were viewed by other species as a very cool, efficient and uncaring race. Their response to attempts at haggling was unpredictable, but they invariably reacted badly to threats. Wronged Arcane did not forget a slight, but took their time in exerting revenge in non-violent and subtle, albeit damaging, ways. In addition, the Arcane were very suspicious of newly contacted groups and never initiated contact themselves, preferring to negotiate through representatives. This irritating behavior led other species to tolerate the Arcane as a necessary evil. Arcane have a form of racial telepathy, such that an injury to one arcane is immediately known by all other arcane. The arcane do not seek vengeance against the one who hurt or killed their fellow. They react negatively to such individuals, and dealing with the arcane will be next to impossible until that individual makes restitution. Combat For creatures of their size, the arcane are noticeably weak and non-combative. They can defend themselves when called upon, but prefer to talk and/or buy themselves out of dangerous situations. If entering an area that is potentially dangerous (like most human cities), the arcane hires a group of adventurers as his entourage. The arcane can become invisible, and can dimension door up to three times a day, usually with the intention of avoiding combat. An arcane feels no concern about abandoning his entourage in chancy situations. They can also use any magical items, regardless of the limitations of those items. This includes swords, wands, magical tomes, and similar items restricted to one type of character class. They will use such items if pressed in combat and they cannot escape, but more often use them as bartering tools with others. Society The Arcane were the major (often the only) source of spelljamming helms for most spacefaring races, including humans, elves, mind flayers, lizardfolk, and even beholders. The only exception were the neogi, who were capable of acquiring their own helms through other means, as well as creatures from other planes, such as genies, tanar'ri, and fiends. For that reason, the Arcane kept themselves neutral in all situations and did not get involved in any confrontation whatsoever between factions. In fact, it was common for the Arcane to supply both sides of a conflict, even at the risk of mutual annihilation, which the Arcane viewed as a small loss compared to the magnitude of their business. As skilled merchants invariably connected with the business of spelljammers and helms, the Arcane could only be found in crystal spheres that contained races at least aware of the possibility of space travel. They were completely absent from superstitious or isolationist worlds but were remarkably easy to find in places where spelljamming technology was at least heard of. Since they most commonly traveled alone, some more primitive cultures visited by the Arcane viewed them as deities themselves, sometimes even spawning cults that prayed to them asking for power. It was not known whether the Arcane themselves produced space travel technology or acquired it from another mysterious dealer. It was uncommon to find an Arcane traveling aboard a spelljammer: they were ubiquitous all over space and came and went as they pleased. This suggested that they traveled by a different, unknown, means. History There was little known about the origin of the Arcane. Rumors abounded about their origins. One tale claimed that the home world of the arcane was not within a crystal sphere but instead was hidden somewhere within the phlogiston. A thri-kreen legend told that their origin had something to do with the legendary Spelljammer, in that they gave up their homeworld in exchange for the ship with an ancient deity. Failing to properly control the ship, they ended up as eternal wanderers, and their planet ultimately fell into its sun. The Arcane themselves did not comment on these legends. The illithid Estriss theorized that the Arcane had learned their magic from the ancient spacefaring race known as the Juna. For their part, the Arcane denied that the Juna had ever even existed. Estriss, admitting his bias about Juna-theories, also proposed a second theory that the Arcane had received their technology instead from the reigar. He noted that esthetics, the reigars' strange spelljamming craft, were almost always crewed by the Arcane.

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