Royal Osmic Order

You know better than anyone the gods are not always clear, never mind kind. The road from here is not always clear to me.

-Valkan Astera, Mendicant Oracle

This article (or section) contains potential spoilers for Entangling Vines.

It is not befitting a member of the Star-Counters to be over reliant on the stars. They don't lie per-se, but even the wisest may lie to herself.

-Fascine Roam, Eldest Star-Counter

This article (or section) contains potential spoilers for the Path of Entanglement Campaign. If you are a participant in that campaign, consider reading something else.

The Royal Osmic Order, often shortened to "Osmic Order", "Royal Wizards", or "Wise Lords", are an order of wizards in the Kingdom of Bastonia. Unlike the majority of formal wizardry circles operating legally in the kingdom, the Osmics are not known for operating an Arcane Seminary. Instead, they are a prestige order populated entirely by journeyman (or higher) wizards; upon joining the order, wizards are often asked to cease using the titles they obtained from other orders, and are reduced to the status of Journeyman. The Royal Osmic Order serves two major functions in the Bastonian state:

1. Court wizards trained specially for service to members of the House of Baston and other high-ranking officers and aristocrats, and;
2. Wizards Errant, receiving special training to better suit them to an adventurous or mendicant role, serving as a sort of royal troubleshooter.

The headquarters of the order is the Osmic Tower, a fortification constructed in like fashion to an Arcane Seminary. However, due to their atypically famous, affluent, and well-connected membership, a disproportionate number of their members maintain their own strongholds and dwellings throughout, and even outside of, the Kingdom.

Membership

As mentioned in the summary of the article, the Royal Osmic Order is not usually engaged in the recruitment and training of raw apprentices, preferring to leave the messy and often labor-intensive work of the initial education of wizards to the more approachable Arcane Seminaries. Instead, a secondary function of all members is identifying and evaluating candidates for membership among other wizards encountered throughout Bastonia and the world, who are then invited to apply for membership on their own. On joining, the Osmic Order usually expects inductees to renounce their past affiliations and titles with other arcane orders, or at the very least to cease to proclaim or be announced by them.

Recruitment and Promotion

The Osmic Order recruits preferentially among trained Ars Magica practitioners who studied at Bastonian Arcane Seminaries. Due to their mixed-political role, only Bastonian citizens are considered for recruitment; like the kingdom itself, this makes their membership disproportionately human, though of course belonging to the human race is not in and of itself a requirement.

Trusted members of the order - those granted Court Residency or the title of Questor or above - have been through enough of the initial training (and retraining) of the members to be familiar with the recruitment process. They can write Letters of Recommendation to the Proctor-General of the order, at which point the Chapter of Proctors involve themselves, evaluating the potential recruit before deciding whether or not to invite the candidate for examination.

There is a codified examination process which involves the submission of past bodies of work for peer review, contacting the candidate's past mentors and patrons, and, most famously, the Practical Examination, which involves running the candidate through a series of magical and physical challenges in the Trial Dungeon beneath the Osmic Tower.

Providing the Proctor-General and one other member of the Chapter of Proctors is satisfied, the new candidate is inducted into the order and assigned to the Chapter Academic. A candidate remains in this chapter until the Chapter of Proctors is satisfied that the necessary additional education in the procedures and codes of the order have been properly instilled, and the Deans of either the Chapter of Court Wizards or the Chapter Errant are satisfied that the student is a fit for their chapter, at which point they are moved into their new position.

Promotion within chapters is rare as their hierarchy is flat. While Osmics may still attain ranks of Mastery in the same way as at other Arcane Semenaries, internal promotion within the order tends to be generational, with the Chapter Deans, Proctor-General, and Curate of the Royal Osmic Order often personally grooming their own protegees into the position.

Ethics and Internal Oversight

Ethics (and ethical conduct) are a primary focus of the education of the Royal Osmic Order, which is both the reason for, and because of, their trusted positions in the courts of the Kingdom. Since their new inductees are often versed in Ars Magica, the study of ethics and related philosophical and theological subjects actually often consumes more time for students in the order than magical studies do. This education does not rely on the rote memorization of codified ethical constraints, but on the identification of "occasions" for ethical application, and the necessary logical foundations to make sound ethical decisions on a situation-by-situation basis. During this process, students are routinely drilled and monitored inside and outside of their formal educational periods, with their ethical performance evaluated and corrective instruction applied. These basic standards are known as the Six Pillars

This focus is due to cold reality - Osmics are often an order of magnitude more powerful than any other local spellcasters, but must remain trustworthy enough to be assigned royal errands or to guard royal or aristocratic lives. However, their founders were also wise enough to understand that a simple system of educating mages to these ethics and then releasing them would not be enough. For that reason, a division of the membership of the Chapter of Proctors is also responsible for the oversight of even "graduated" Osmics. These "Osmic Inquistors" are usually selected based on their consistently strong ethical performance as well as meeting the criteria needed for the role - essentially, they are both potent diviners as well as meeting most of the standards for the Chapter Errant. The Inquisitors form a sort of "internal police" within the group, and are dispatched on the rare occasions an Osmic oversteps their mark and needs to be brought back into line. Often, simply being visited by the Inquisitors is enough to reverse any sort of ethical backsliding that may be occurring, but the criteria and training of the Inquisitors usually gives them sufficient capability to detain (or destroy, at last resort), rogue Osmic Wizards. To the great consternation of the Bastonian Crown, the Osmic Order does not use their Inquisitors for any other purpose save this internal check on corruption.

The Six Pillars

The Six Pillars are codified as follows:

1. The path of least suffering is desirable.
2. Truth is a knowable value, and your actions should strive toward it.
3. Nuance is the law of all things, and your judgements should reflect it.
4. The crown is the heaviest burden possible; do not pick it up.
5. The Ars Magica is the most dangerous weapon imaginable; use it with the greatest restraint.
6. The larger the library, the greater the number of solutions possible.

Specific interpretation of these pillars is considered a question of judgement for each individual wizard in the Royal Osmic Order to make for themselves, and of their own accord - a position consistent with (and exemplary of) the Third Pillar. Most of the interpretations are largely consistent with each other, giving the Osmics a reputation for being upstanding, reliable, and magnanimous. Osmic mages are encouraged by these rules to think freely of any vassals or overlords they may be entangled with, but also to avoid seeking rulership for themselves; to gain power, but to use it with restraint and compassion.

Supplementary Training

Unsurprisingly given their specialized sociopolitical and adventuring roles, wizards of the Royal Osmic Order are given special training that may not have been available at their alma mater Arcane Seminary. In addition to the ethics education described at some length above, this special training includes:

• Advanced training in all nine of the Via Archmagica, especially the Via Tutela, Via Scientia, Via Lepos, and Via Mandatum, but certainly not excluding any of the other schools. In some circles, the Order is viewed as the best source of formal education on Via Lemurae available.
• Prospects for (and members of) the Chapter Errant receive special training in the defeat of fine mechanisms (such as traps and locks), the use of various light weapons, advanced topics of the Via Artificia, cartography, orienteering, bushcraft, and other useful topics for the adventurer.
• Prospects for the Chapter of Court Wizards often receive specialist training in protocol, both of Bastonia and of the other nations with which Bastonia is aligned, as well as making extensive study of other systems of magic - something very rare among Bastonian Wizards. In particular, the study of Orcish Shamanism and the works of Gul Spell-Speaker are in vogue as of the War of the Southern Expansion, due to the need for new Court Wizards for the lords of the Frontier Counties. Court Wizards are also very well educated in herblore and alchemy, often better able to identify and rectify poisonings than their masters' court physician.

Of course, as is common for Arcane Seminaries, these lines are not rigid, especially after a student has graduated and actually become a member of the Chapter Errant or Chapter Courtly; at such a point, the resources of the institution are largely opened up to the wizard in question, and cross-training is common, especially among those of the Chapter Errant who are getting on in years, and who wish to retire to the Chapter Courtly or Chapter of Proctors. Such cross-trained individuals are candidates for becoming Osmic Inquisitors.

Ranks and Chapters

The Osmic Order is essentially organized into five administrative divisions, or "Chapters", that loosely clump together members by function:

• The Chapter Academic, populated entirely by accepted Journeyman Wizards who are to be retrained as members of the order. Members of the Chapter Academic are treated more or less the way other Arcane Seminaries treat novices; they are expected to remain on the grounds of the Osmic Tower and dedicate all their time to their studies in order to pass examination as quickly as possible.
• The Chapter Courtly or Chapter of Court Wizards, representing those who have passed examination by the Chapter of Proctors and are certified to be up to the standards needed by the courts of the Bastonian Nobility. In theory, any Chapter Courtly wizard is sufficiently trained and tempered to serve anyone from the most freshly-minted Baron up through to the Monarch of Bastonia. These Wizards must be more than magically talented; they need to be experts in memorization of arcane and mundane lore, able to recite at will, and shrewd, with noses for plot and intreague. Within their ethical bounds, they must even possess a certain level of flexibility to help plan such intrigues themselves - for some lords, this is still too restrictive. It should not be assumed that every court magician you meet is a Royal Osmic Court Wizard. While Court Wizards have the freedom of travel usually associated with Journeyman wizards, their responsibilities to a liege-lord mean they are more often than not permanently at their lord's holdings, or accompanying them on campaign.
• The Chapter Errant, whose members are essentially professional adventurers and explorers. Chapter Errant Wizards are often considered expert battlemages in the eyes of the common folk, but this isn't always accurate (and is a better description for the Scholarly Order of the Azurejay). Still, these wizards are highly capable adventures and more than sufficient to the tasks given them. Usually, their errantry involves questing for the order directly, investigating matters the order has taken an interest in, seeking out magical artifacts, or, on the rare occasions it is needed, reinforcing other Order wizards against attack or rescuing them from kidnap. Chapter Errant wizards are granted enormous latitude, and more than a few visit the tower less than once a year, reporting the findings of their personal expeditions and spending the rest of their time on the road or in their own haunts.
• The Chapter of Proctors, which includes a wide number of administrative staff: the faculty of all the various educational fields; the curators of the Osmic Tower's library, archives, congriem, and their staff; the examiners who grant initial entrance to the Order and certify fitness to join any of the other Chapters, and of course the Osmic Inquistors, who are specialists sent out to investigate reports of crimes or tyranny by members of the order.
• The Chapter Coronal which is a special office occupied by the Deans of the Four Lesser Chapters, the Curate of the Royal Osmic Order, and their staff.

In general, there are no "ranks" within the chapters themselves. You are simply a "Wizard of the Chapter Errant of the Royal Osmic Order". However, there are certain overall officers of each chapter and the school itself worthy of consideration: - The Curate of the Royal Osmic Order is the holder of the most senior office in the school. The holder of this position is always the personal protege of the previous Curate, usually selected from among the Osmic Inquistors or the Chapter of Proctors for further education. With very few exceptions, the Curate of the Order is almost always an Archmage - a Master of all 9 "vias" of the Ars Magica. The position entrains the secular lordship of the lands of the Osmic Tower and is equivalent in precedence to a major barony. The Curate holds the absolute responsibility for the conduct of all members of the order and can remove members from the order - even other officers - essentially at will. - The Proctor General is the head of the Chapter of the Proctors and is elected from the surviving members of the Chapter of Proctors, by their peers. Often, they were at one point a personal protege of their predecessor. Specific ranks of magical mastery are not required, but there has never been a Proctor General who wasn't, at a minimum, a Master Wizard in both the Via Lepos and Via Scientia. The Proctor General is the examiner in charge of granting "mastery" to members of the order, but may delegate that responsibility to any other Osmic who has the relevant Mastery, as appropriate. - The Deans (of Students, Errantry, Proctors, or Court Wizards) are the pro-temporae senior members of each chapter by *tenure* (rather than calendrical age). These officers have special responsibilities in terms of organizing and administrating their chapters, including the approval of new members in conjunction with the Chapter of Proctors. They are subordinate to nobody save the Curate (with the exception of the Dean of Proctors, who is the direct subordinate of the Proctor General).

Additionally, sometimes the title "Questor" is applied to Wizards Errant who are on a specific campaign on behalf of the Curate, or who have become Master Wizard of at least one of the Nine Ways Walked by the Archmages.