Editing Illumian (section)

==Illumians as a People==
Illumians are driven by the need to understand a given situation, then master it. An illumian wants to be the one who finds the flaw in the blackguard’s strategy, or who casts the perfect spell to destroy the lich forever. Illumians would rather lose a fight to a superior foe than defeat a less capable enemy—especially if they were able to demonstrate grit and brains in the losing effort. Winning and losing don’t matter, but mastery does (and mastery and victory tend to go hand in hand).

Of course, illumians are realistic enough to recognize that no individual can master everything. Accordingly, illumians settle for demonstrating competence at tasks beyond their “true calling.” An illumian [[fighter]], for example, might seek mastery of the dire flail, but he’ll take enough ranks in Ride to call himself a competent equestrian.

The flip side to an illumian’s drive for mastery is his predilection for variety. Once an illumian is satisfied with his level of competence or mastery in a specific area, he’ll enthusiastically move on to something new. This craving for variety eventually pushes illumians beyond the walls of their cabal’s stronghold. Illumians often progress in completely different fields, which is why mid- to high-level illumians are so often multiclass characters. An illumian [[paladin]], for example, might have become satisfied with his martial prowess and now seeks expertise in the shadow arts of stealth and subterfuge by taking a level or two in the [[rogue]] class.

The drive for mastery among illumians manifests itself in another way: a complex, hierarchical social structure. In any group, an illumian is acutely aware of her position in the hierarchy. Even more than [[human]]s, illumians have an instinctive drive to be at the top of their hierarchy. Vying for social position is entirely natural to illumians, and they are puzzled by social structures that limit advancement by birth, gender, race, or other immutable characteristics. Until they’ve studied the matter, illumians might have a hard time understanding why a serf can’t become a lord or why the elderly king retains his crown when his sons are clearly more capable rulers.

When the social structure in question is populated entirely by illumians (as is the case in most illumian cabals), the competition for social status can grow intense, with each illumian plotting her own rise to power while guarding her position against the predations of rivals. But because the drive for mastery is so instinctive to illumians, they rarely take the ebb and flow of political fortunes within a cabal personally. Illumians are pragmatic enough to realize that within their cabal, today’s rival may be tomorrow’s ally. They don’t bear grudges unless the political machinations of their fellows have unusually cruel or disruptive results.

Illumians love language and are intensely social, eagerly engaging friend and stranger alike in conversation. But just as with other activities, an illumian isn’t conversing simply for the sake of comradeship. He’s assessing his relative position in the social hierarchy, trying to learn as much as he can about his conversation partner, and looking for opportunities to demonstrate his mastery of a conversation. Perceptive conversationalists who spend time talking to illumians feel as if their every word is being scrutinized. They sense that they’re being “sized up” even in casual conversation, as if the illumian is looking for potential allies and possible rivals.

The outside world sees illumians as power-obsessed schemers who wall themselves off in isolated strongholds—and there’s certainly an element of truth behind the stereotype. But what nonillumians don’t realize is that illumians wouldn’t want it any other way. Illumians relish the opportunity to wield power from behind the scenes, because doing so demonstrates their mastery while employing the studied caution that is an illumian trademark.

===Leisure===
Illumians find the concept of leisure for its own sake a foreign notion. They teach their children from birth that spare time is wasteful—calisthenics or meditation is an acceptable substitute if they can’t find something more productive to accomplish. An illumian is never happier than when she’s putting her skills and powers on the line in a bid for mastery. Dispelling a rival’s protective spells, stealing a lorebook from a [[dragon]]’s hoard, or completely beheading a [[hydra]] — that’s fun for an illumian.

But while illumians spurn leisure, they crave variety in their studies and exercises. Illumians tend to be patient and goal-oriented, discounting simple pleasures such as a streetside puppet show or a tankard of ale at the local tavern. They’d genuinely rather be learning a southern dialect of Draconic, resharpening their crossbow bolts, or observing the patrol routines of the city guard.

This doesn’t mean that illumians are killjoys. A traveling illumian might find a late-night chess opponent in an [[elf]] party member, but he would reject the very idea that chess counts as leisure, instead regarding the game as training in strategic thinking and anticipation of an opponent’s future actions. Likewise, an illumian might regard a card game as an exercise in memorization and probability math. Others accuse illumians of taking the fun out of everyday events, but they derive a great degree of satisfaction from turning trivial activities into useful training.

===Arts & Crafts===
Illumians appreciate and savor life’s luxuries—from the taste of spicy food to the poetry of an ancient epic to the glitter of a jeweled pendant—but their enjoyment of these pleasures is ancillary to a more prosaic purpose. An illumian cares more about the nourishment of the food, the magic lore embedded within the epic poem, and the portable wealth of the pendant.

Illumians create art for three reasons: to inspire their fellows, to pass along information, and to show off their skill as artists.

Stylistically, illumians favor a sort of idealized realism in their art. Portraiture is particularly common, whether in the form of a marble bust, an oil painting, or a chalk drawing in a sketchbook or historical tome. Many illumian cabals have a “hall of revered destinies” in their fortresses, full of marble busts and oil paintings of champions and historical figures important to the cabal.

The wall frescoes that commonly decorate a cabal’s interior walls feature group portraits of illumians important to the cabal, as well as battle scenes that depict illumians slaying monsters and defeating foes. Both the portraits and the battle scenes are highly posed, with the more important illumians occupying higher positions in the painting. Traditional illumian paintings never depict anyone looking down on the central illumian—their eyes are always lower than the sigils that surround the illumian’s head.

Another stylistic conceit common in illumian art is the sigils themselves, which are an exception to the illumian tendency toward realism. Traditional illumian portraits don’t show the actual sigils that float around the head of a particular illumian. Instead, the artist paints the name of the subject (in Illumian) where the sigils would ordinarily float. Sculptors employ a similar technique, but the limitations of the medium mean that they rely on illusion magic to create the floating names.

Even illumian jewelry and decorative arts follow the trend toward realism. Illumian handcrafts are intended to represent a specifi c creature or object: a necklace that looks like a serpent, a ruby pendant that looks like a drop of blood on an open palm, and so on. Embroidery and other decorations on clothes likewise depict real objects. The edge of a cloak, for example, likely bears an embroidered feather or vein pattern, not a simple stripe or abstract design.

===Magic & Technology===
A magical ritual created the first illumians, and as a result the race has close ties to magic. Furthermore, the illumian facility for language and love of the written word nudges many of them into [[wizard]] training—at least as a sideline to their other pursuits. Because illumians have such a strong magical heritage, they regard the study of such arts quite highly. An illumian who learns the greatest arcane secrets isn’t just expanding the study of magic, but delving into the forces that created his race. [[Diviner]] and [[illusionist]] [[wizard]]s are particularly common among illumians, because those spells are so useful in an intrigue- and espionage-filled world. However, the race’s most powerful [[wizard]]s and [[sorcerer]]s include a multitude of enchantment spells in their repertoires. The power word spells, above all enchantments, are regarded with particular awe by illumians.

Illumians are a young race, and their deities attained godhood only within the last few centuries. As a result, they don’t show the same fervor for divine magic that humans do. Illumian [[cleric]]s are as likely to worship a nonillumian deity—or venerate a set of philosophical principles—as they are to pray to an illumian god.

Illumian enclaves always feature an extensive library of arcane texts, bestiaries, biographies of important magicians, outer-plane travelogues, and tomes of interest to spellcasters. Illumian [[wizard]]s create spellbooks with various magical protections, and they’re willing to trade a finely crafted spellbook for lore they don’t possess.

Illumian enclaves show off the race’s affinity for alphabets and languages in another way: Secure areas are guarded with glyphs of warding, explosive runes, or one of the symbol spells.

Many illumian enclaves also include a magic portal that leads to Elirhondas, the illumian city on the [[Plane of Shadow]]. Older illumian enclaves still maintain portals to the [[Astral Plane]], where the illumians’ Great Library once stood before the [[githyanki]] sacked it centuries ago.

===War===
When Tarmuid created the first illumians centuries ago, he instructed them to form cabals across the surface of the world—a directive the illumians took to heart. Illumians do not openly govern great cities or nations, although more than one monarch is under the secret influence or control of an illumian cabal. Illumian wars tend to be small-scale affairs involving a handful of cabals and less than a thousand illumians. But what they lack in epic grandeur, illumian battles make up for in subterfuge and ruthlessness.

Conflict among illumians occurs most commonly when two cabals find themselves working at cross-purposes and are unable to settle the issue diplomatically. Such “silent wars” begin with various dirty tricks, then gradually escalate into sabotage and assassination before culminating in an all-out assault on the fortress of one of the cabals. Illumians employ nonillumians as willing allies or uninformed catspaws, but in either case many of the casualties in a silent war aren’t aware of the true nature of the battle.

More rarely, an illumian cabal specifically targets another cabal—probably because the target has access to magic, lore, or a power source that the aggressor cabal wants. This activity is particularly common among ascension cabals and gauntlet cabals (described below), which tend to be more aggressive than other cabal types.

While illumians most often war among themselves, that isn’t to say that every cabal is too paranoid to trust its fellows. Illumians are nothing if not pragmatic, and they recognize the value of reliable allies. When two cabals form an alliance, they usually exchange a number of members, jointly reveal secrets to one another, and intertwine their operations as much as possible. The closer the integration between two allied cabals, the less likely a betrayal will occur, because each cabal can quickly wreck the operations of the other.

Because illumians live in isolated fortresses and work their plots subtly, it’s rare for a nonillumian army to make war on them. But if a cabal’s palace plot goes awry, an angry king may mount a crusade and besiege the offending cabal’s fortress. Illumians rarely meet such threats head on. They’re more likely to foment revolution elsewhere to distract the king, or subvert the military leaders of the retribution force, often with magic, bribes, or promises of power.

===Law & Justice===
Illumian law sits entirely in the hands of each cabal’s arbiter, who enforces the cabal’s laws and metes out punishment. No one, visitor or cabal member, is beyond the reach of the arbiter for crimes that occur within the walls of the enclave or during a cabal mission. The arbiter handles every aspect of the illumian justice system, from the investigation of a crime to the trial and the sentencing.

The arbiter heads the justice directorate and investigates the most serious crimes personally, assigning subordinates to more routine cases (assuming the cabal is large enough to warrant assistants). Any member of the justice directorate can make arrests, but only the arbiter can judge someone’s guilt or innocence. The arbiter is more than just a judge, however. The arbiter questions witnesses, cross-examines the accused, and can stop a trial to gather evidence. When the arbiter is satisfied that he has all the relevant evidence, he renders a judgment (and sentence, if necessary) on the spot.

The illumian code of laws varies from cabal to cabal. Because illumians love the written word so intensely, arbiters keep a law library full of Black Table decrees, legal precedents, and prior opinions they can turn to for guidance. In this respect, the illumian justice system is more like a modern court system than a medieval one. However, the notion of an impartial judge and a separate jury is foreign to illumians. An arbiter has total control of the legal process, which is efficient if the arbiter is fair and competent and potentially dangerous if the arbiter has an ulterior motive.

Those who feel an arbiter’s decision is unfair can draft a written appeal to the Black Table. The members of the Black Table must read the appeal, but need not act on it. By custom, they can only overturn the arbiter’s decision by removing the arbiter from his or her post, but they can change a punishment by decree. The right of appeal isn’t limited to the accused; victims or other wronged parties may appeal to the Black Table if they feel a punishment was too lenient.

The illumian formula for sentencing includes restitution for the victim, a deterrent punishment, and some degree of social stigma for the criminal. Arbiters employ great creativity in developing punishments that thematically fit the crime. For example, an illumian convicted of poisoning a rival’s wine might be assigned the following punishment:
* Pay an annual stipend to the victim (restitution).
* At every meal, serve the victim (social stigma).
* Taste each course before offering it to the victim, but receive no other food and thus linger on the brink of starvation (deterrent).