The Founders:

The oldest of ruins excavated in Tor-Kathorra and the most ancient of texts found on the Biblioplex's dusty shelves are still too young to date back to the birth of Arcavios. It's been said that the plane itself was born out of a violent maelstrom that enveloped two other planes as they drifted through the blind eternities and merged with one another. Although no one knows for certain when the catastrophic event took place remnants of it yet remain on the surface of Arcavios as a reminder of its violent birth. Powerful confluences of two opposing colors of mana one from each of the overlapping planes merged together in a beautifully dangerous phenomenon known as a snarl.

Snarls are the last vestiges of the two destroyed planes, and they represent the powerful pull of opposite colors of mana; a theme that will continue to reverberate through Arcavios’s history as the overlapping planes melded together. Flora and fauna adapted to an influx of new sources of mana coalescing in variable ways. Creatures such as Springmane Cervine and Needlethorne Drakes’. This period would be known as the dawning age of Arcavios. During the mashing of mana ley lines, five particularly powerful two-colored spheres of mana took shape and coalesced into magnificent eggs from which hatched five supremely powerful creatures the elder dragons of Arcavios each elder dragon is a manifestation of two opposite colors of mana, and they embody the beautiful conflict perfectly. These dragons would go on to represent the dichotomy of opposing colors of mana and they would also become the first beings on Arcavios to master the deadly and powerful magic of the plane as the dragons took to the skies of Arcavios. Another ancient race appeared across the vast lands the giant wise and exceptionally long-lived avatars known as Archaics. Not much is known about the Archaics and they are a race that mainly keeps to themselves but it seems as though they have been on the plane since the dawning age. They have an innate ability to wield magic and quickly adapt to the violent shifts of mana during the birth of the plane. Although perhaps not as skilled in magecraft as the elder dragons, Archaics can still wield spells to devastating effect and mages of the current age frequently seek them out to uncover arcane knowledge.

The unsteady calm that befell Arcavios after the merging of two planes lasted some time, but it would not last much longer for power hungry races and civilizations bent on conquest would soon bathe the plane in blood. A particularly violent and brutal period in the history of Strixhaven unfolded roughly 3300 years ago, a period aptly referred to as the Blood Age. Humans Orcs, Loxodon, and other races developed an elementary knowledge of the forces of mana on the plane from which they created crude but effective magical spells. These civilizations used their knowledge of magic and combined it with martial skill to create massive powerful armies with which to wage war. The Blood Age saw glorious kingdoms built just to be crushed under the heel of an even stronger empire. This period of history is of particular interest to the mage students and professors of today's Lorehold and much of what we know is due in large part to their discoveries. Strixhaven forbade all magic from the Blood Age, locking it away in the mystical archive hidden on campus. There are those who seek to restore the knowledge of the magic from the Blood Age, believing the Founder Dragons are withholding the information unjustly. Two nations came to the forefront of the Blood Age, the Cathorian orcs led by Golwanda the Bloodspiller and the core of the Loxodon’s led by Zandrial the Executioner. The outcome of the war is uncertain but as the Blood Age continued, both empires slowly crumbled, disbanding into petty kingdoms that would continue to fight another for the next two thousand years or so.

Life during this period was brutal and short, the races holding on to what little knowledge of the world they possessed and content to live in ignorance. The five elder dragons watched the terrible events of the Blood Age unfold as they traveled across the plain. At first, they were furious that so-called intelligent beings would wield such dangerous and raw forms of magic without truly appreciating it or understanding how to control it, but their anger quickly cooled to indifference and eventually regret as they watched thousands die in the name of conquest and glory. The dragons knew that the Blood Age would continue indefinitely unless they intervened. Only by disciplined study and practice, only by gathering knowledge and pursuing enlightenment, could mortals truly and safely wield the magic of Arcavios. To this end 700 years before the current day, the elder dragons gathered those with the talent and desire to learn brought them to the northeastern corner of the Vastlands and erected a center of arcane learning. This place would soon be known as Strixhaven University, and it will continue on its mission of training mages in the way of spellcraft. To this day the tale is passed down to us in The Mystic Age: a Saga of Spells that, “Centuries of war had broken Arcavios but a single seed began the long process of renewal.”