Appearance

Where once Salam appeared as an Ajaunti, the arcane severance of his personalities and possession of the Orb of Madness have granted him a malleability that borders on the uncanny. His appearance, while still Humanoid in feature, can alter subtly so as to confound any sense of familiarity or singular artistic consensus… save for his eyes. Once both a piercing green, now one always appears a stark, unnatural white, crackling with violent eldritch energy. This heterochromia never alights upon the same eye twice, with even memory of which eye bore which colouration being edited seemingly on the fly to conform to Salam’s current choice, regardless of the strength of the onlooker’s will. While this may seem a mere parlor trick compared to his other works of magical genius, the implications of forcing any being, even his fellow Celestials, to believe a fact that is only true because he has imposed such on reality, borders on the impossible. This white eye has also granted him usage of powerful Deep Magic curses, cast by but a flicker of his eye’s gaze, with his most potent application being the continued upkeep of the Wyrdwall that now encircles his realm.

Upon Salam’s hairless head, and across the right side of his face, the glowing and utterly unknown arcane symbols still burn, but now in prismatic, shifting hues. These undecipherable glyphs react with an unnamed starmetal greatstaff that Salam now carries at all times, said to be forged of materials he found in both the Astral Void and the Far Realm. Salam still wears his original prismatic robe for the purposes of his overall appearance, but he now absorbs, redirects, and even transforms spells cast in his vicinity via Junuun’s strange radiance that encompasses his realm rather than the garment-relic that clads his body. When the robe is used in conjunction with this maddening energy, Salam becomes a veritable living nexus of magic, able to copy and pull forth spellcraft of all echelons from his Angelic Host, Favoured, and even common Spirits within his Celestial Heaven at will.

Salam the Magician

The intellectual archmage, stern professor, and humbled curator. His brief stint during the Hell King’s War working alongside the Firstborn Doranth to defend the true source of all magic gave him a moment of begrudging clarity of purpose to push forth his efforts to comprehend the pieces of Arthos’ construction. Delving within Junuun for the first time, Salam unfurled an astral secret so potent, that it began to piece together the gaps in his knowledge almost instantly. Referred to by Salam as “the Measure,” an arcane formula that if understood could be used to uncover the greatest mysteries, its unveiling alerted the Demon Prince of Fear, Nilestromus, who began to do battle with the God for possession of the Orb of Madness during a moment of weakness. While Salam ultimately escaped, Junuun attempted to take full command of his Godhood. It was only through swiftly splitting his mind into the Magician and the Warlock did he escape this fate, forcing Junuun to be focused on only one side of his Celestial essence at a time. The Magician now seeks a way to claim this cosmic measure without risk of Jununn’s madness ensorcelling him completely.

Salam the Warlock

The mad-mage, the inexorable truth-seeker, the ever-experimenting thaumaturge. Almost in direct opposition to the Magician’s wishes is Salam’s more ambitious side. While he, too, seeks, in some roundabout fashion, to repair the damage to the Dreamleaf and rediscover the Measure, it is as a byproduct of becoming the most magical potent force in all of Arthos; not the direct focus. He seeks all manner of esoteric, profane, forbidden, and forgotten magics, believing that with the altered sights granted by Junuun, he can unravel their mysteries for his own usage. Unlike the Magician, the Warlock’s focus is to become an omnipotent locus of arcane power via the astral answer Salam once had attained from the Orb of Madness. He is the zeal and driving desire of Salam to not merely comprehend the concealed fact of existence, but to wield it as its ultimate overlord.

The Edicts Arcane

All Champions and Demagogues of Salam, at varying moments in the Winter of 2267, had their dreams bombarded by harrowing visions via Junuun’s power over madness. These visions echoed what are now known as the Edicts Arcane, a set of rules that have overwritten the previous tenets held by the Institutions of Salam. Within each edict lies the will of Salam Prime, the Magician and true will of the God, as well as Salam’s Inexorable Ambition, now completely occupying his once-title of “The Warlock.”

• Seek knowledge in all its forms, and become one with its understanding. Claim it all, no matter where it lies hidden, buried, or locked.
• Test your current arcane prowess; there is always more to learn. Look beyond the limitations of your magic. Grasp what lies there and reign it to your will.
• Teach those that show promise in the magical arts. Yet, do not impart all your hard-earned knowledge; they will use it to usurp you. Students, too, can become our teachers, yet if even your closest stand in the way of your discoveries, rend them in the manner most efficient.
• Push the boundaries of magical knowledge and experimentation, beyond the bounds of ethics or morality. Only through great risk can greater power be obtained.
• Utilize magical items and hold discourse with the enchanters who create them. Those that hoard such magic away from the Warlock’s clarifying sight are needless distractions from his eternal study; assimilate or remove the creator or creations.
• Magic cannot be truly destroyed, and thus all of it should be preserved. Contain it, study it, shape it, exploit its unfathomable power, but never tolerate its erasure.
• Your ambition is your greatest asset. It is your knife to hone, your wit to sharpen, and your mind to unfold into what other mortal mages would shy from. Restrictions. Are. False.
• Strive to understand all types of magic before their distillation into Spheres. The Dreamleaf must be restored, and the might of the arcane shall be its saviour as reality basks in its new guiding hand.
• Study as many sources of magic, Sphere-crafted or otherwise, as your memory can bear; and further still. Become a master of spellwork from multiple echelons. Magic is the tool by which worlds are carved, and your own bolsters the Warlock in his animus towards failure.

Salam's Favour and the Eldritch Call

Even after his split to command the Orb of Madness, Salam’s faithful are still instructed to hold true to the Magician’s guiding words, as those are seen as Salam’s true will. However, while the Warlock is released, his more abhorrent proclamations assault the minds of all those who seek his Favour, in an act known as the Eldritch Call. Described as a buzzing sensation that haunts the edges of the mind with theorems, possibilities, and acts of arcane progress unbound by morality, the Eldritch Call is the Warlock’s ambitious will made manifest. Those who indulge in pushing the questionable boundaries laid out by the Warlock during these months of influence find their potential for Divine Favour rewarded exponentially for the risk. However, there is also no detriment to an aspirant’s path in summoning the will to fight off the Warlock’s influence. Many attribute these feelings imposed by the Warlock as would one a curse or other esoteric magical affliction, but nothing has abated them save for the changing of the month or one’s own willpower.

With the onset of the Eldritch Call at the beginning of the year 2268, the following has become true for all who seek or bear Salam’s Favour, as laid upon arcane scripture in all Institutions of Salam. These are often coupled with the Edicts Arcane, and known commonly among Salam’s faithful as the Statutes Eldritch:

• The months of January, March, May, July, September, and November shall belong to the Magician, while February, April, June, August, October, and December shall be marred by the Eldritch Call of the Warlock.
• A being that becomes a Champion or Demagogue of Salam shall be known solely as such, as recognized by the Institutions of Salam. For the purpose of the common folk, their initial designation distilled from these overarching titles will correspond to the month they were anointed with Salam’s Favour. By learned example, a Champion of Salam may be referred to as a Paladin by the uneducated if they were uplifted to their position in a month bearing the Magician’s influence.
• In the Magician’s months, a Champion shall have the powers of a Paladin, and a Demagogue the powers of a Lightweaver. In the Warlock’s months, a Champion shall have the powers of a Dread Knight, and a Demagogue the powers of a Darkweaver. A Champion’s occupational items of power shall convert seamlessly to the abilities granted by their opposite Divine alignment. A Demagogue’s Altar, Bond, Vessel, and Church shall also convert thus. The Magician’s Sphere of Light shall be dimmed to the Warlock’s Sphere of Dark, as would Dark illuminate to Light. We mirror the change of our God. Those who claim mortality was never meant to wield both halves of the Magic Divine simply do not possess the fortitude and brilliance granted to us; this is His will.
• While one’s memory holds the designs of available Divine spells, ready to be unleashed upon Arthos, the changing of the month shall not remove them from the Favoured’s mind. Whilst praying to Salam for access to more spells to fill their memory, the new month’s spells shall be granted in the form appropriate to it; the Magician’s Light or the Warlock’s Darkness.
• Altars, Bonds, Vessels, and Churches created by the Demagogue must be recreated at the changing of the month to attune to Lord Salam’s current self. Items of power bound to the Champion will turn of their own accord at the changing of the month without need of ceremony or rite. May each Defender be as one with Harbinger, each Ring and Symbol be both Holy and Unholy, and each Headpiece channel the current wrath of the Arcane God.
• In the eyes of both the Magician and Warlock, the time for half-measures has ended and the awarding of half-marks is no longer tolerated. Lord Salam refuses to entertain the creation of any further Paragons to his doctrine. Those who seek his Favour must excel in totality, or not at all.

Celestial Heaven: Arcanium 

The Celestial Heaven of Arcanium is raw arcane power given form and shape. Mana is not just merely infused into the land; it is the land. All that is, from the smallest insect to the taller mage tower, the essence of raw magic solidified by the directed thoughts of those mages who possess a strong will. Some mages are more creative than others. While some merely seek to replicate the environment of their mortal life, others use this opportunity to form entirely new fantastical lands from half-remembered visions and dreams. Where there is no will to oppose order, the mana of Arcanium bleeds together into a swirling intangible mess of brilliant, roiling colour-waves. These scenes are generally only common on the periphery of Salam’s Realm, as even the least magically potent of its Spirit residents will unconsciously shape the mana into the ground beneath their feet.

Those Spirits who are capable of great feats of “realm-shaping,” as it has come to be called, often draw schools of followers to them. These new followers, in turn, often turn their own wills towards shaping the smaller yet still important details, thus freeing the presiding archmagi to focus on the bigger picture. Once an area has essentially been completed as it were, these mage communities often turn towards what motivated them in life: The study of magic and the acquisition of arcane power. Surrounded solely by their peers and free of all physical needs, most mages are happy to devote themselves entirely to their work. Furthermore, casting spells is nearly effortless in Arcanium. Once a spell has been removed from a caster’s memory, all it takes is a simple act of will to draw upon the raw mana of the realm to restore the power they expended.

As of 2268, the realm’s day-night cycle is now solely commanded by the side of Salam in the current command of his body. The Magician brings luminous arcane light to suffuse the many halls of his heaven, while the Warlock grips it in cloying shadow. Both phenomena last for as long as each has control, causing a mixed reaction of concern and wonder between the Spirits and Angelic Host of his domain.

While many mages are content with their own individual or community studies, most eventually realize that their skills and knowledge will eventually plateau without proper instruction. The University Arcanium awaits those few with the command of the arcane necessary to pass their entrance exams.

Realms Within Arcanium 

• The University Arcanium

For the vast majority of mortals that study magic, the finality inherent in mortal existence will mean an end to their magical ambitions. Disease, violence, or simply old age will eventually put an end to their growth in matters of the arcane.

Those loyal to Salam in life get a second chance to resume their studies in death. Set atop a massive skyborne island held aloft by one the mightiest examples of spellwork in Salam’s Realm, the University Arcanium is quite possibly creation’s single-most extensive repository of magical knowledge. Interested Spirits can enroll as students where they are instructed as one might be in a terrestrial university. There are lectures, laboratories, final exams, and so on. The difference between this institution and its mortal facsimiles generally is the quality of the instruction and the knowledge available. In the University Arcanium, a Spirit can count on being taught by some of the wisest and most powerful arcanists to have ever lived and to have nearly every spell or magical effect available for study. Outside of a select few taboo subjects, nearly anything that channels mana can be learned here.

While Salam rarely teaches classes himself, he does visit the University frequently to keep an eye on things and to observe this year’s most promising students. Every so often, a student will rise head and shoulders above their peers, and to these Spirits, Salam extends an invitation to his inner sanctum, the Forbidden Tower.

• The Forbidden Tower

The Forbidden Tower is thusly named because it is the repository for all things arcane that are either too dangerous or too ethically questionable to be entrusted to the greater populace of his Arcanium. With his new existence as both Magician and Warlock split in twain, his care for his image within the public eye and the opinions of the masses has all but erased. Atop the crystalline structure of the Forbidden Tower’s spire, Junuun sits like a phantasmagoric moon, letting loose a rainbow of magical radiation across all of Arcanium. Within the tower, however, all manner of magical artifacts, reagents, scrolls, grimoires, and arcane experiments are held within vaults of confounding sorcerous abjurations. Aided by Junuun’s insight-inducing light, all manner of secrets are investigated, reined, and wielded without recourse or pause within the tower’s confines. While the Warlock holds sway, no limitation or boundary of the mortal or immortal mind are tolerated, so long as revelations into the occult mysteries of Arthos can be uncovered by his profane hypotheses. In short, Salam, as both the Magician and Warlock, will utilize all forms of magic—even that of the Draconic or Demonic if suitably enchanted to purpose—in his studies within the tower.

Salam continues to pour over the proper usage of the foundational universal laws known as Axioms as both Magician and Warlock. His most brilliant students have redoubled their efforts to understand the arcane equations that govern each one, though many of Salam’s Angelic Host are for the first time in eons torn over this action. It is clear to the Angels that the Spirits assigned to the tower work with Junuun’s maddening influence firmly soaking their very being. While some Angels have fully accepted this new reality as the true will of their God, and thus without question, others worry quietly that Junuun has infected Salam’s sense of reason. Regardless, these tower-bound scholars, whether Spirit or Angel, are granted a way to tap into unprecedented usages of Wild Magic in an attempt to understand more than what their several millennia of study have yet provided. A massive board hewn of impossibly smooth quartz now dominates the main research hall of the tower, with a litany of research across its surface. As the Magician’s progress towards the Measure’s recovery via his spiritual scholars increases, so too does blue smoke fill an equal portion of the quartz. In response, inky black tendrils fill in opposition as the Warlock’s knowledge into the matter advances. Between the mess of progress reports, half-finished equations, glyphs, and theorems, insults in tongues more ancient than Arthos are hurled between the brother-selves of the God.

• The Wyrdwall

The newest addition to Arcanium is also its most necessary. Commanded by the gaze of Salam’s eldritch iris granted to him, theoretically, by his possession of the Orb of Madness, the Wyrdwall is a massive ethereal barrier of energy surrounding all of Arcanium. While most Celestials can ward their realms against outside threats to varying degrees of effectiveness, the Wyrdwall is an entirely different grade of barrier comparatively. Appearing as a prismatic representation of both Junuun and Salam’s eye in tandem, the wall of pure Wild Magic allows Salam to peer anywhere within his realm at all times, and even into the vast Astral Void beyond. His sight pierces all illusion and magical protection, and can even channel the Deep Magic of his gaze through the representation of his eye on the wall’s surface, which can shift to any position he desires in seconds. This fact is one most advantageous, as the reason for the Wyrdwall’s creation is constantly attempting to tear it asunder: Nilestromus.

When Salam first delved within Junuun, a brief but unmistakable flicker of true madness coalesced and ricocheted into the endlessness of the Astral Void. While he was quick to comprehend how to confine such to Arcanium after the ordeal, the damage was already done. The monster’s attack was feral and swift. With Salam weakened by his initial foray with Junuun’s leaking energy, he barely beat back the leviathan. In the events that followed his split into the Magician and Warlock, both halves independently knew they had but moments to erect the Wyrdwall before the unending tentacles of Nilestromus cracked through the planar edges of Arcanium like stone shattering glass in retribution for the God’s escape. The Demon Prince now assaults Salam’s Celestial Realm with ever-growing appendages clad in lidless eyes of famished intent, searching for a way to breach the wall and claim his spherical prize. Salam and his most powerful Archangels deflect each assault with arcane might untold, but the Nightmare, sleep-walking, slithers its abyssal arms without sign of slowing.

An Excerpt from "The Deity of All-Magic's Freedom"

To know the God of Magic, one must first learn of the origins of magic, as the two are intricately tied together. While most believe Ll’yandra, Malagant, and Roland were the first gods to make their presence known on Arthos, in truth the first god was the Warlock. It was a time before time, when all the realms and planes existed as one, overlapping harmoniously along the branches, roots, and bark of a colossal living tree known as the Dreamleaf. Runic Magic, the true source of almost all magic, flowed along the Dreamleaf like rivers of water. From its branches and roots the magic flowed, encircling the realm in a protective net, high above the sky.

When Salam arrived at the base of the Dreamleaf he saw true evil. The Firstborn Doranth, Dragon of Magic, hoarded the Dreamleaf’s power and severed it from those that could benefit from it. Salam had witnessed such suffering and pain that he knew he must act. He seized the power of the Dreamleaf by entering it directly and in doing so, became near omnipotent. While touching the true source of magic, Salam understood all things in both the past and the future, but due to Doranth’s greed this gift was short-lived. The Firstborn, ever so selfish, could not suffer another having this access to his hoard of magic. He exhaled his mighty breath and filled the tree with anti-magic, destroying the Dreamleaf. It scattered the planes to the very edges of the roots and branches. The protective netting of magic fell from the sky, covering the realms in fractured lines while those who lived on the tree itself were cast away into the various planes of existence. The God Salam, meanwhile, suffered a fate worse than death. His body and spirit were shattered and he was dispersed along the magic of the Ley Lines as they fell towards the multitude of planes. This single selfish act by the Firstborn of Magic destroyed the Dreamleaf. Today, the remnants of that great force of nature exists as but a shadow of its former glory called the World Tree, the Tree of Life, or Yggdrasil. The World Tree still holds the realms together, but the potent magic that once flowed through it is all but gone. Salam however, was not.

It took eons for Salam to reform himself on the mortal plane. Much had changed. The Gods had populated the Arthos, while the Dragons made their homes where they landed after the Dreamleaf’s sundering. Salam found himself lost, with no memory of his former celestial glory. In his absence, a new God of Magic had usurped his throne and it was only with the help of the mortal Ajaunti clans that Salam managed to defeat his foe and take his rightful seat. There he worked towards the collection of magic and lost knowledge so that he might some day rebuild the realm as he first found it, to bring back to life the Dreamleaf and the unlimited magic that would provide. He knows the knowledge is still out there and his faithful work diligently to collect it.

The Word of Salam

As given through vision and dream to His Favoured by the God Salam himself, in the voice of the Magician.

Mortals have always been fascinating constructions.

Simplistic in practice, but more complex in theory than I believe any of my brethren can comprehend. Both finite in body and yet infinite in spirit. It is this capacity for endless possibility that scars their very being that ultimately granted me Junuun.

I stare at its prism of ever-altering colour, placed neatly upon a dais at my desk. The leaking energy from the cut on its surface. Wild Magic, as if it were a living Ley Line. Eighty-five percent pure arcane mana, yet marred by an energy unknown. As if the Wild Magic came alive and expanded on its own purpose. I shall call this, in lieu of a better thaumaturgical term, ‘Madness.’

It invites me to see. Beckons me to experience. This Orb of Power has accepted my will as its bearer, but I am not so easily fooled. This invitation I shall accept… with ample preparation. I cloak myself in layers of abjurative spellwork as I examine the slice in the orb. A wound as much as an entrance. Transforming into a rift-made-manifest, I disappear within it.

My wards and protections hold. I feel them strain against some initial turbulence in the transfer. I feel planar walls breach as I leave the tower within my realm. Junuun’s interior is not a literal one; it is a passageway. No sooner do I enter, I cross the boundaries of my realm and exit into the Astral Void between all planes. Yet, something is pleasantly amiss.

My scrying magics fire out in all directions, limitless in this space. I do not detect the presence of the one being I fear in this starry expanse without summoning an Avatar form to reside within it. Somehow, the Firstborn Isana cannot see this portion of the great empty between. Curious.

“Curious.”

The voice is not my own. Junuun has answered me in an almost mocking manner. Before I have time to answer, the Ethereal Winds pick up around me, stars melding like streaks of paint.

I am still in the Void… and yet I am not.

I see the astral surrounding me, but the sands beneath me roll and undulate in impossible fashion. The dimensions of anything physical claw at my intellect with the unfathomable nature of their twisted forms. The sky is a blend of the cosmic and the crazed. And before me, a yawning hole, both infinitesimally small and incalculably wide.

I am between the Far Realm, the Void, and something else entirely.

“Something… e l s e.”

Junuun taunts me again as my eyes settle upon the fissure before me. Few without my power could see that it was less a hole, and more an inverted waterfall of liquid the colour of pitch. My divinatory enchantments attempted identification.

“Deep Magic detected in excess of usual possible limits of arcane weight.”

My own voice echoed in my head, summoned forth from my personal spell. I was somewhere between the Astral Void, the Far Realm, and the Black Tide? No. This was not the land of the dead. This nexus of planar energy should not exist in this current form. These reaches were more abyssal than even the Void between. If it was even real.

“Even real.”

There it was again; Junuun’s voice. Was it a confirmation of my hypothesis of these Fathomless Reaches, or an admonishment that I could ever think an Orb of Madness could show anything but fiction. I knew not. This angered me.

I had to know the truth.

I fly into the center of the hole, soaring deeper and burrowing higher. Direction became all but unknown. My protections were eroding steadily, but still well within their parameters. As I pushed deeper, I saw things moving, writhing, within the swirling walls of darkness. Creatures further than the Far, and more ancient than imagining swam, warping, beneath the borders that surrounded me. They whispered in roaring tones. I compelled Junuun to translate it into arcane equations I insert into my head immediately for comprehension.

I begin to understand. For the first time in countless eons, I truly begin to understand. The cosmic truth of the Arthos that has eluded my grasp since time immemorial: the Measure. Yet in that moment of euphoric gleaning, I let my guard slip. I hear the booming voice before I see it. Tentacles splitting endlessly into more. Fanged-eyes adorning them in orientations that begin to harm even my warded mind with their sight. The leviathan Demon Prince of Fear, Nilestromus, had come to claim my prize.

Junuun laughed. I swore it did, even if for but a moment. In attempting to claim my dream, I alerted the Nightmare to my presence.

“You think you know as I know, lambent god-thing?”

His appendages close around me as his voice echoes from each eye-mouth. I blast three back with arcane force, as I attempt to summon a rift back to Arcanium. It refuses to open. Nilestromus cannot block my portals… something else must prevent their direct opening in this place. I dodge six more flailing limbs of the monstrosity, as I begin to manually fly as fast as I can out of the pit.

“You think to claim from my sights, do you?!”

I emerge from the depths into the nexus point. Tendrils burst forth from across the Far Realm’s shifting ground by the thousands. They bind me. I summon forth Light to free me. They break me. I channel Healing to mend me. They rend at my brain. I invoke Protections to shield me. They miss their mark. I punish them with Dark.

“Punish them.”

Junuun breaks its silence as my strength begins to wane. In Arcanium my spells are endless. Here, somehow, I feel them draining quickly. The five prime Spheres, the complex one’s further, Divine power, and even Sphereless incantations of my own design; all were expending. I assess the situation as I fly higher than the maddening landscape and into the stars of the Astral Void. I spy a chunk of meteoric iron. Crude, but desperate times call for inventive implements. I compel raw Divine Magic to shape it. I rein Enchantment to give it purpose. The starmetal becomes a staff, twisted at its tip, empowered in its violent purpose. It flew to my hand, just as Nilestromus’ hellish arms closed around my legs… and I swung.

With a reverberating crack like the first break of thunder, rubbery flesh was obliterated from diabolic bone. The arms fell away as the beast-leviathan screamed:

“YOUR MADNESS SHALL YET BE MINE!”

I escaped away from the nexus, away from the Prince of Fear, away from the truth.

“The t r u t h.”

I finally felt it. Like a creature slowly boiling without knowledge of its burns, I felt it. In my diminished state, the orb had been slowly taking me. In my moment of weakness it wormed its way through my core. I could feel myself being lost to not just the truth I claimed, but my control of self. My sight began to fail, streaming into endless hues and shades. My feelings began to warp, becoming a mess of sensations implausible. The orb’s secrets, what they could lead to, were too precious to be abandoned.

“Too precious.”

The last of myself was becoming Junuun. It had me, and could not be made to let go if it wanted to. The chaotic power it wielded was infesting, shackling, and cloying. It needed something to placate its desire, and it would entertain no parley. It chose me, but it would completely be me if I did not act fast. If it wanted Salam, I would give him to it… in part.

“In… part?”

With the last of my power, I took metaphysical scalpel to my arcane being. I carved out a perfected partition, and left it behind, with Junuun taking the magical bait. The Magician would exit while the Warlock remained.

I awoke in my study, with Junuun sitting before me where I left it. I felt different despite my restored arcane ability. The truth I learned within the orb was removed from my mind; a begrudging necessity of the quick severance. Yet, that was not the difference I sensed. Nilestromus would soon be assaulting my domain, and the Archangels need to be informed. I stare at my reflection in the starmetal staff that now rested by my desk, seeing one of my eyes had turned stark white. Curious.

I do not remember willing that.

Angels of Note

Azratael the Inkwound (Archangel and Arch-Djinn)

Once one of the most powerful Archangels in Salam’s Angelic Host, Azratael was magic given command in the heavenly form of a spell-weaving Djinn. His wings were animated inks that could write the fabric of spellcraft as he moved, and his body was fashioned of steel and arcane intent. In a battle with the Demon Prince of Destruction, Zahadun, Azratael was eventually overwhelmed by the monstrous creature. In Azratael’s final death cry as his skull was crushed, he called to Salam. The God of Magic, hearing the cry, utilized Azratael’s halo in an act of divine decree, sealing it around Zahadun’s neck as a relic that came to be known as the Gilded Shackle. Zahadun was then cast into the Bowels of Hell, bearing the divine curse that his creations will all fail him via Azratael’s binding halo.

Vyshalion the Herald of the Change (Herald)

With Salam’s possession of Junuun, the Orb of Madness, and his split between the Magician and the Warlock, much of his sense began to be robbed of his once complete form. What the Magician knew, the Warlock did not, and vice versa between their initial swift switches between the layers of the orb. If Salam was to remain within Junuun for, as he postulated, no more than 30 days, give or take, he would be blind to his brother-self for an equal period. With his elevated arcane intellect, he could deduce the actions of the Warlock during his release, but so too could the Warlock infer his own as the Magician. To aid in this, he empowered one of his Heralds, Vyshalion, to serve as a means of alerting himself of important matters undertaken by his opposite half.

Vyshalion bears multiple sets of wings, stained by prismatic Wild Magic like glass melted over feathers of arcane blue. She is the only one other than Salam himself with the knowledge to utilize the chaotic power of the Wyrdwall that surrounds Arcanium, and uses it to both keep sight on Nilestromus’ endless onslaught, and aid in her effectively spying on her Celestial Lord. However, both sides are equally crafty, and many things that Salam accomplishes are obfuscated from even Vyshalion’s sight, causing both the Magician and Warlock to continually adjust their means of hiding their plans from one another.