Enlightenment Inquisition

The Enlightenment Inquisition is the endonym of a cross-continental power structure that defined the era known as The Magical Inquisition early in the recorded history of Arcis.

Formation

The movement originated in the city of Dul'wayn, a major mining hub situated on the continent of Thalindor. Owing to its extensive subterranean network and mineral wealth, Dul'wayn was considered one of the region’s most economically significant cities. While Thalindor was predominantly home to elven civilizations, Dul'wayn was a dwarven colony founded early in the history of Arcis.

In the years following the Fey War, a series of unexplained magical disasters—later termed Wild Surges—began to occur. These were marked by massive, concussive explosions of arcane energy, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. Though each incident appeared to originate from a magical source, no consistent cause could be identified.

In 905 IE, one of the most devastating Wild Surges struck Dul'wayn’s most productive mine, reducing it to rubble and killing hundreds. In response, King Azak, the ruling Magnate of Dul'wayn, issued a ban on arcane magic within the city. To enforce this decree, he established a new organization known as The Enlightenment, tasked with rooting out arcane practitioners and maintaining order under the new prohibition.

Rise to Power

Following its establishment, the Enlightenment quickly rose to prominence in Dul'wayn under the leadership of King Azak. Assuming the role of the city's new oligarch, Azak began transforming the Enlightenment from a local militia into a fully mobilized army with ambitions beyond the city's borders.

Within a few short years, the organization rebranded itself as the Enlightenment Inquisition, expanding its ideological and military influence across Thalindor and even establishing footholds on distant continents.

As a rising theocracy, the Enlightenment Inquisition employed a variety of strategies to assert and maintain hegemony. These included dispatching demagogues to populous regions to recruit converts, leveraging their vast financial resources to absorb mercenary groups, bandit clans, and local enforcers, and deploying military forces to depose regional leaders. These efforts—often covert and coercive—were instrumental in the Inquisition’s rapid consolidation of power.

Organization

As the Inquisition expanded, its organizational structure became vast, sprawling, and largely decentralized. While King Azak remained the symbolic and strategic leader of the movement, local governance was entrusted to appointed figures who operated with significant autonomy.

These regional leaders, typically styled as Barons or Dukes, exercised control over major metropolitan areas and their surrounding territories. Owing to the Inquisition’s aggressive and opportunistic tactics, these individuals were often ambitious and authoritarian in nature. This led to a degree of instability within the broader theocratic structure, as internal competition and rivalries frequently emerged among the ruling elite.

Templars

While political and territorial control was left to Barons and Dukes, the ideological and spiritual core of the Inquisition was upheld by a distinct class of elite operatives known as Templars. Rather than imposing a single, rigid faith, the Inquisition often absorbed and adapted local religious beliefs, reshaping them to align with its overarching doctrine in order to facilitate widespread conversion.

Templars operated outside the authority of regional rulers and reported directly to King Azak and his closest advisors. They functioned as both military commanders and ideological enforcers, often leading Inquisitorial armies into new regions. Unlike their Baronial counterparts, whose focus was maintaining order in conquered areas, Templars were charged with expanding the movement’s influence and ensuring ideological compliance.

Modes of Oppression

By the end of the first decade of the Inquisition’s rise to power, its methods of oppression and control had become increasingly draconian. The use of harsh and inhumane tactics was not only widespread but often encouraged, with innovation in these methods by regional Barons publicly praised. Among the most infamous of these figures was Baron Reneir Corwyn, whose legacy includes two of the most notorious practices in recorded history: the establishment of Internment Camps and the introduction of Gladiatorial Games.

Internment Camps

Coinciding with the emergence of the Wild Surges, a mysterious illness began to spread throughout Thalindor. The disease, later termed Caster’s Ailment, appeared to originate from arcane practitioners but could also infect non-casters. Seizing on the fear surrounding the illness, Baron Reneir Corwyn, ruler of the city of Arin’silath, established a so-called “Quarantine Ward” in the area between the city’s inner and outer walls.

While ostensibly intended to isolate those showing symptoms of Caster’s Ailment, the internment zone quickly became a de facto prison. Corwyn used it to detain political dissidents, suspected arcane users, and others he deemed threats to his authority—often without trial or record.

Gladitorial Games

As Baron Corwyn’s rule grew more oppressive, morale among his citizens—loyalists included—began to deteriorate. In an attempt to distract the populace and restore civic unity, he repurposed part of the city into a grand arena and inaugurated a series of brutal gladiatorial contests. These blood sport events featured imprisoned arcane wielders forced to fight to the death, often for the entertainment of the masses and the promise of prizes.

While initially effective at restoring public morale, the games inadvertently laid the groundwork for rebellion. Among the surviving combatants was Tessarion Elaric, a formidable arcane warrior who eventually escaped captivity, overthrew Corwyn, and went on to lead a successful insurrection against the Inquisition itself.

Fall of the Inquisition

Following the establishment of the Gladiatorial Games, a dissident named Tessarion Elaric reignited the long-dormant Emancipation movement—an underground resistance effort that had risen and fallen multiple times under Baron Reneir Corwyn’s rule. Though the movement gained traction once again, Tessarion was eventually captured by the Baron’s elite enforcers, the Iron Hounds, and forced into participation in the brutal arena matches.

Unbeknownst to Corwyn, Tessarion had already forged a secret alliance with a reclusive druidic order known as the Asteri, who dwelled in a nearby grove. The Asteri’s leader, Ael’yeth Naialine, worked with Tessarion to orchestrate a revolt. During one of Tessarion’s scheduled arena matches, Ael’yeth led a battalion of Treants into the coliseum, launching a surprise assault that decimated the arena’s guards and officials.

This bold strike triggered a broader uprising throughout the city of Arin’silath, culminating in the overthrow and execution of Baron Corwyn. The fall of Corwyn marked a turning point in the struggle against the Inquisition.

Arin’silath soon became a sanctuary city for refugees fleeing Inquisitorial rule and a central hub for resistance efforts. Over the ensuing years, Tessarion Elaric led a sweeping cultural and political revolution that steadily eroded the Inquisition’s influence across Thalindor. By the time the final stages of the movement were underway, King Azak had passed, leaving his daughter, Queen Jakara, as his successor. Facing widespread dissent and mounting internal pressure, Queen Jakara ultimately chose to peacefully remit power to the Emancipation movement, bringing a formal end to the Inquisition’s reign and ushering in a new era of reform and reconciliation.

Cultural Impact

While the Inquisition is widely remembered for the suffering and widespread oppression it inflicted, its long-term influence on the cultural landscape of Thalindor is significant and complex. The authoritarian regime stunted civilizational development for decades, with many regions requiring extensive periods of recovery and reconstruction even after the Inquisition’s fall.

However, the era also became a catalyst for rapid cultural diffusion. As soldiers, prisoners, and refugees were displaced and scattered across the continent, they brought with them diverse religions, traditions, ideologies, and cultural practices, resulting in an unprecedented blending of regional identities. The forced migrations and ideological enforcement inadvertently created new syncretic cultures that reshaped social structures throughout Thalindor and beyond.

Moreover, the Inquisition represented the first documented case of a unified political power extending its influence beyond a single continent, offering a functional—if flawed—model for large-scale governance. These organizational and strategic lessons were later studied and implemented by Ysara Neldrin in the founding of the Silver Reach Empire, a global power that would dominate the political landscape of Arcis for over a millennium.