Arcanix

Everburning torches light every corner of the floating towers, unless a member of the Congress has a specific reason to prefer darkness. Some everburning torches burst into flame only when someone enters the room, dousing themselves instantly when the room is vacant. Others burn with strangely colored flame, adding a bluish or reddish tint to everything they illuminate. The floating towers are a quiet place; distracting noise is conducive to neither study nor political machinations. The temperature is always mild within the floating towers, no matter what is happening outside.

The Arcane Congress built the floating towers over eight hundred years, so their walls have known many architects, both mundane and magical. Within the floating towers, there’s always a strong aura of transmutation (the spells that keep the towers aloft) and at least one other aura.

Arcane architects aren’t constrained by the square footage within the floating towers’ walls; some rooms exist extradimensionally, and each tower has far more space on the inside than a conventionally made castle would. In general, the floating towers have smooth stone floors, superior masonry walls, and 15-foot-high wood-paneled ceilings (with 30-foot-high vaulted ceilings in particularly large chambers). There’s no consistency to the doors within the Towers. Consult Table 3–17 in the Dungeon Master’s Guide to determine the qualities of a particular door.

The floating towers are too vast to completely map, and such map would be out of date by the time it was completed. Especially in Nocturnas and Skyreach, the wizards are always making magic alterations to their demesnes. If characters are wandering through a floating tower, use Tables 3–11 and 3–12 in the Dungeon Master’s Guide to determine each room’s features, then roll or choose a room type from the accompanying table.

This village of 800 people lies directly beneath the floating towers. The residents of Arcanix owe their livelihoods to the Arcane Congress, from the innkeeper who boards the parents of would-be wizards during the Autumn Entrance Examinations to the stablemaster responsible for exercising the steeds—both mundane and exotic—of some Arcane Congress spellcasters.

Most of the important wizards and sorcerers of the Arcane Congress live in the floating towers themselves, but a few reside in Arcanix. Raulo ir’Trannick (LN human male wizard 9), for example, is the lord mayor of Arcanix and a member of the Arcane Congress. His family has long had holdings on the southeastern banks of Lake Galifar, and his position as Trannick patriarch demands he live earthbound and board a hippogriff when he’s needed for the business of the Congress. Raulo and other members of the Trannick family are the proctors of the Autumn Entrance Exams, determining which of Aundair’s brightest will get a chance to become magewrights and wizards. Raulo also serves as a de facto ambassador between the Arcane Congress and any wizards who arrive at Ar can ix unannounced.

The Trannick family offers trained hippogriffs that can ascend to the floating towers for visitors unable to get there under their own power. The Trannicks collect a 25 gp per person transit fee, which they use to fund scholarships for deserving young mages.

Arcanix is also home to the Tower of Alchemy, one of the Five Nations’ premier colleges for the alchemical arts. Its senior mentor, Tzandro Kavalant, has created the alchemical golems that act as servants and guardians within the floating towers.

Arcanix’s unique position makes it one of the Five Nations’ most magically aware places. Many of the residents are downright blasé about powerful arcane magic, while others take great delight in the astonishment on visitors’ faces when a carpet of flying alights on the town square or an aged wizard turns into a glorious dragon and flies away.

Visitors to the floating towers often ascend (via magic or the Trannicks’ hippogriffs) to Glarehold Tower, where an outcropping of rock has a massive white marble arch that leads to a white marble courtyard. The White Arch is also the traditional gateway that new students use when they begin their studies; many an Aundairian youth dreams of walking under the white arch, clad in the brown robes of a first-year student.

The courtyard beyond the White Arch is the largest outdoor space on any of the four floating towers. Magically animated topiaries in the shape of boars (described on page 173 of Monster Manual III) stand at the corners of the courtyard.

Near the top of Skyreach is one of Khorvaire’s finest collections of arcane lore—although librarians in Korranberg would argue the point, and who knows what dark lore lurks in the libraries of Ashtakala?

The library takes up the top four floors of Skyreach’s tallest spire, with bookshelves running from floor to ceiling. Only the doors and the stained-glass windows interrupt the walls crammed with spellbooks, tomes, and grimoires. A unique spell not unlike unseen servant controls the books within the library. An arcanist of the Arcane Congress need only state the title and author of a book, and it slides from its shelf, opens wide, then slowly descends to the arcanist’s waiting hands, lazily flapping its cover open and shut in imitation of a bird.

The half-elf sorcerer Robideur died more than 450 years ago, but his descendant Tanila (LG half-elf female sorcerer 8) is the head librarian. The library forbids checking out books even to the most powerful members of the Arcane Congress; examination of a book at one of the library’s oak desks is the only option. Tanila has an initial attitude of unfriendly toward anyone who even asks about checking out a book, and she won’t bend the rules unless her attitude is improved to helpful (as described on page 72 of the Player’s Handbook).

The Library of Robideur is a terrific research tool. A PC using the library to research a specific question gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (arcana) checks and a +2 bonus on Knowledge (the planes) checks. The library has a few books on other topics—histories, gazetteers, and the like—but they aren’t comprehensive enough to provide a bonus on the skill check.

At the center of Nocturnas are a series of chambers that Adal ir'Wynarn, Royal Minister of Magic and brother to Queen Aurala, calls home. Adal (described on page 18) splits his time between the floating towers and his palace at Fairhaven. He regards the floating towers as a place where he can be free of court intrigues and free to direct his staff as they conduct magical research and build weapons of arcane destruction to defend Aundair or extend its reach.

Adal is more politically connected than most of the Arcane Congress. He has the queen’s ear at a moment’s notice (although the trust between them is far from complete). Adal isn’t a great wizard in his own right, but he’s a consummate power broker and charismatic leader. Most of the researchers on his staff are higher-level wizards than he is, and the many agents in Adal’s employ are likewise among the most elite in Aundair.

At any one given time, Adal has three or four major research or weapon-development programs under way within his chambers. Each is kept separate from the others, and only Adal knows the extent and progress of all the programs. One team might be trying to reverse-engineer House Cannith’s creation pattern for warforged. Another team works on a system of weather control, and a third is breeding wyverns that shoot fiery rays from their tails.

In the lowest level of Amberwall Tower is a maze intended to humble young apprentices confident of their ability to meet any threat with magic. The Maze of Shadowy Terror spontaneously generates monsters from the summon monster II and summon monster III lists with a shadow conjuration effect. The denizens of the Maze of Shadowy Terror thus have 20% of their normal hit points, and characters who succeed on DC 17 Will saves realize that a maze monster is only quasi-real and take only 20% of normal damage from it. Each maze monster also has a lower Armor Class, as described in the shadow conjuration spell on page 276 of the Player’s Handbook.

The Amberwall instructors intended that the maze, which looks like a typical set of twisting dungeon corridors, serve as a final test for wizards and sorcerers before they head out into the world or become members of the Arcane Congress. But brave and foolhardy students eager to prove themselves are always sneaking into the basement and entering the maze on their own.

The Arcanix towers house strange artifacts and relics, but few compare in size and scope to the Gate of Xabra. A circle of menhirs sits atop one of the residential towers. The standing stones, and indeed the very earth they rest upon, came to Arcanix from an ancient Q’barran ruin ages ago after the mages discovered that the stones could bridge the planes. On each stone is a magic rune. When the stones are activated in a specific sequence, everything inside the ring is whisked to another plane. Concentrated research has uncovered a few sequences so far, sometimes with disastrous results, but the studies continue.

Near the top of Nocturnas is an astronomical observatory and one of the great artifacts of the Arcane Congress: the Gate of Xabra. This circle of menhirs, transplanted from a Q’barran ruin shortly before the start of the Last War, has graven glyphs that correspond to no known language or code. The glyphs hold overwhelmingly powerful conjuration magic sufficient to send everything within the circle to another plane of existence.

When a would-be traveler uses a finger to trace certain glyphs on the stones, they glow slightly. When all the correct glyphs are lit, everything within the Gate of Xabra disappears and a whoosh of air fi lls the void that remains.

Finding the correct sequence of glyphs is no easy task. Fortunately, failed attempts don’t have negative consequences—or at least they haven’t so far. The glyph sequence can’t be learned by rote, because the correct glyph sequence depends on both the destination plane and the alignment of the stars around Eberron.

In general, it takes a DC 25 Knowledge (the Planes) check to open the Gate of Xabra to a specific plane. Uli Blackthatch (NE male gnome wizard 7/ loremaster 2) studies the Gate of Xabra for the Arcane Congress. He has a Knowledge (the planes) modifi er of +18 and will direct planar travelers in what he believes is the correct sequence.

The Gate of Xabra only opens for an instant, although in most cases it leaves a circular impression on the other plane that allows a return trip. Travelers appear within the circle at the moment they arrive; once they step back inside it, they reappear in the gate chamber in Nocturnas. On the plane of Irian, the return circle might be marked with crystals, while it might be a circular glade on the forest plane of Lamannia.

Above Lake Galifar’s shores float the three towers of Arcanix. They hover, unmoving and untroubled by wind or rain. Their labyrinthine corridors house mentors and students who explore the mysteries of magic as they have since the great institution was founded nearly 1,000 years ago.

The floating castles contain classrooms and laboratories, cells for students, and apartments for mentors. Great libraries hold the collected lore of generations, with rituals and spells bound in dusty tomes. Hidden vaults contain great treasures and dangerous items, some unearthed by adventuring wizards, others created by the mighty mages who have lived here.

The village also known as Arcanix spreads out below the towers, supplying the mages with foodstuff, clothing, and other materials they need to continue their work. Most people reach the towers by magical means; for others, the village rents hippogriffs to bear visitors to the fortresses for a modest fee.

The Korranberg Chronicle

Before the war, the Arcane Congress served all Galifar. The most promising students from across Khorvaire came to study at Arcanix, and students from Khorvaire, Cyre, and Aundair worked together to win honor in the Trials of the Ninefold Path. Known to students simply as the Nine, this contest pits students of the eight traditions against one another in a series of arcane challenges, along with a ninth bracket for those who have yet to select a tradition. Teamwork, independence, memorization, innovation — the Nine challenges competitors on many levels, and the finest wizards of Galifar were invariably champions of the Nine.

Thanks to the Treaty of Thronehold, students of all nations once again study side by side in the towers of Arcanix. But no treaty or ritual can easily dispel the tensions of a century of war. Over the last year we’ve reported on a number of hate crimes in the towers fueled by nationalist passions. Optimistic teachers hope that the Nine will showcase the diversity that has evolved over the course of the past century — highlighting Karrnathi advances in necromancy and evocation, Cyran illusions, and more. But privately, professors fear that the competitive aspect of the Nine will inflame nationalist tension. Some even believe that the lives of foreign students could be endangered should they defeat Aundairian champions.

Only time will tell if the Nine can bring us together as it once did, or if it will drive us further apart.