The following piece is a fragment of backstory or world history from an unreleased role-playing game. It was written by Cindy Vanous, copyright Sierra On-Line, 1998.
The Arcana'dir (Nation: Cera)
The Arcana'dir were an ancient race, one of the oldest on Athyr. They were scholars and artists, warriors and mages, all the varied trades and peoples you would find in a sprawling, prosperous civilization. They held knowledge to be sacred, youth to be precious, and politics to be a game best played by those who wanted no part of it. Their rule encompassed, at one point, two-score small city-states and kingdoms, all of which were eventually assimilated into larger protectorates or into the central nation of Cera itself.
But this grand empire lasted only until the Night of Tears. For reasons unknown by modern scholars and philosophers, the Mirabilis effect was particularly brutal to the Arcana'dir, killing most of the population and leveling every city in the empire. The pathetic remainders of that once-vast civilization were absorbed into other nations, and their culture was quickly subsumed or forgotten. The only contemporary remnants of Arcana'dir culture are a few superstitions and observances, and the Mequali's innate love of knowledge.
Several centuries before the cataclysm, the Arcana'dir commissioned a veritable legion of Sivlingrat masons and artisans to create their masterwork: the Great Library. Vast in scope and legendary in implementation, the Library was part temple and part archive, the ultimate tribute to Sala, the Arcana'dir goddess of wisdom. The collected history and assembled knowledge of a score of millennia were said to be stored there -- modern scholars have searched for the vanished Library in much the same way that Denumbran swamp-dwellers seek the legendary Stone of Ancestors. And with just as much success. Not even ruins remain.
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Previous Culture: The Denumbre and
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