Ledger of Souls
c. 100 ADW
When the delivery girl Kori crash-lands her flying gondola at the party's feet, her undeliverable brass cylinder—addressed to ring three, one-hundred-and-twenty degrees, "but there's nothing here"—proves to be the missing piece of the Soul Brokers' hidden archive. Following the swan Kori saw vanish into a canal culvert, the party plays her remembered melody (F-A-C-A-D-E) on a chained pan flute, defeats the water-jug scale guarding the inner door, and finds a brass clockwork counting machine binding the Ledger of Souls—the master tally of Aurelian's debtors, friends, and materiel. The Swan and his Ugly Ducklings bar the only way out, and a flying gondola chase through New Arcanum's canals follows, with Kori proudly at the tiller. The Ledger's first page names Aurelian's Spire as the seat of the whole operation.
Referenced In
This module is referenced by the following lore entries:
Factions and Organizations
- CodebreakersA specialized calling within the united Adventurer's Guilds for inquisitive minds who solve puzzles, ciphers, and ancient texts. Prospects are tested by masters such as Monk Tzao under guildmaster oversight. When the encoded Ledger of Souls was captured beneath New Arcanum, the intel was turned in to the guild's Codebreakers.
- Soul BrokersThe organized network of Aurelian's agents, who trade mortals their heart's desire for a keepsake of sentimental value—and with it, unknowingly, their soul. Centered in New Arcanum but with a far broader reach, the organization runs like a corporation and a church at once: shipments of "secondhand goods" expedited through customs by the Church of Aurelian, rotating rented warehouses where collateral is tagged and recorded, a hidden archive whose clockwork counting machine binds the Ledger of Souls, and regional strongholds like Aurelian's Spire. Its hierarchy of grunts, managers, recruiters, and directors is itself bound by soul contracts—even Regional Director Elara Voss is owned by the demigod—with performance metrics enforced on pain of having one's own soul token and autonomy revoked. Meticulous record-keepers and negotiators before all else, its members honor every promise they make, down to the letter.
Legendary Characters
- Alyndor "Aly" MarvaleA tiefling who serves as Guildmaster of New Arcanum's Adventurers Guild. Sharp-tongued, brilliant, and unshakably confident, she reads the weave with unsettling precision. She favors simple but elegant robes and a faint perfume, and is fond of small pranks and bad jokes. She stands with Master Thalin Fernstride, Guildmaster Teyla Coalmaker, and Elrin Veymar when the four great guilds unite against Holt and the Molokite. As Thalin's counterpart in the west, she agrees the string of caravan robberies "smells like trouble," and welcomes the agents he sends across the Western Wastes to investigate Aurelian's soul brokers. From New Arcanum's guild hall she directs the hunt for the Soul Brokers: posting a bounty for the location of their operations, promising a team for the hidden archive beneath the canals, and briefing the night infiltration of Aurelian's Spire over dinner at an evening-market cafe ("No one plans a successful infiltration on an empty stomach!").
- AurelianA charismatic demigod who collects mortal souls through Faustian "soul contracts," granting people their heart's desire in exchange for a small keepsake of sentimental value. Unbeknownst to the mark, forfeiting that token severs their anchor to their own soul, letting Aurelian claim them as a thrall—a flawless, emotionless soldier with glowing golden eyes who cannot speak his name or break their bond without their throat searing with divine golden light. His elite agents, the Soul Brokers, broker these deals and bank the collateral in the vaults of New Arcanum, and ordinary magic such as remove curse cannot undo his contracts. Biscuit was the first of his thralls to be uncovered by the Adventurer's Guild. His worshippers operate openly as the Church of Aurelian, and the Soul Brokers run in his name like a corporation—warehouses, archives, and regional sectors under directors such as Elara Voss—tallying the debtors, friends, and materiel of the army he is building in the Ledger of Souls.
- KoriA cheerful, clumsy, earnest twelve-year-old delivery girl in New Arcanum who pilots a flying gondola in a black smock dress and a wide-brimmed conical hat, making deliveries all over the city. Endlessly curious, she loves tagging along with real adventurers. After watching a man in a white duster transform into a swan and vanish into a canal culvert—and memorizing the strange tune she heard from inside—she led guild agents to The Swan's hidden archive, and piloted their gondola through the flying chase that followed. She insists she is the best pilot in the city, having crash-landed only recently.
- Merric GoldbrightThe builder of New Arcanum. After the Arcane Registry lost political power in Kingdom Grand and moved its headquarters into the Western Wastes, he raised a city where none should be possible: dowsers found an aquifer beneath the sand, blasting through the sheet of cooled magma above it created the artesian well now called Origin Lake, and the blue sodalite syenite from the excavation was formed into the colossal Senate Obelisk that hovers above the lake at the city's center. Sand cooked into massive glass sheets became the dome that seals the city's water into a closed loop, cooling the desert metropolis like a terrarium.
- The SwanA tall, slender wild-shaping druid with a long neck, spindly fingers, black eyes, and white hair, never seen without his white duster. Smooth, resonant, and gracious, he is—like most of Aurelian's organization—absolutely true to his word, honoring every promise down to the letter. He built and runs the Soul Brokers' hidden archive beneath New Arcanum's canals, protected not by magic, which a city of mages would detect, but by ingenious hydraulic locks, musical doors, and puzzles ("The key to success is knowing your obstacles are nothing but a facade"). His muscle is a pair of thugs called the Ugly Ducklings. When cornered he transforms into a literal swan and escapes into the city's flocks of waterfowl—and he knows where the vault is.
Legendary Items & Artifacts
- Soul TokenA small keepsake of sentimental value—a bracelet, a pocket watch, a child's macaroni necklace, a silver hand mirror—traded away as "collateral" in one of Aurelian's soul contracts. Forfeiting the token severs its owner's anchor to their own soul. The Soul Brokers tag each one with a paper label tied with golden thread recording the item, its owner's name, and their "use," then bank it in their vaults. Tokens held by ranking Soul Brokers double as keys: they can be imbued with authorization that opens the warded floors of Aurelian's Spire, and recalled to the vaults to strip a holder's clearance. Returning a token to a dazed victim can break an enthrallment in progress, but possession of the token alone does not lift the curse of the contract.
Locations
- Aurelian's SpireAn immaculate tower of pale sandstone streaked with gold in New Arcanum's third ring, dotted with glass windows and wearing its rooftop observation deck like a crown on a regal brow. Nominally a place of opportunity, it is the Soul Brokers' regional stronghold—"New Arcanum Sector 1"—ruled by Regional Director Elara Voss from the penthouse. Hopeful recruits queue in its lobby to be quietly enthralled in the ground-floor orientation office; above rise the maze-like management offices, the lavish glass-walled recruitment floor with its crystal-flower leaderboard, a small "professional development" room of mirrors and affirmations, and the Enlightenment Lounge, an enchanted retreat whose direct connection to Aurelian grants a full night's rest in minutes. Movement up its central spiral staircase is governed by soul tokens: golden runes on each landing read the tagged trinkets like keys, and without proper authorization the stairs simply never end.
- New ArcanumA magical metropolis rising from the heart of the Western Wastes that, in the century after the Dead Wars, became the seat of power for the Arcane Registry and its nation. Perfectly circular, it is a city of towering spires and gravity-defying floating platforms, with airships passing overhead and a great floating black obelisk at its center. A shimmering protective dome cools the entire city, granting relief from the desert heat to travelers who reach its gates. It is connected to other major world powers via teleportation gates, and about a week's wagon travel from Kingdom Grand along a well-marked but perilous trade route. Its Adventurers Guild is led by Alyndor "Aly" Marvale, who joins the other guildmasters against Holt. The city is laid out on a polar grid: radial avenues named by angle, ring roads named by radius, and addresses given as a distance and an angle from the Senate Obelisk, the colossal floating stone that hovers above Origin Lake at the city's center—locals insist the system makes perfect sense. Its concentric canals, fed by the artesian well beneath the lake and drained through culverted arteries and veins, double as a vast evaporative cooling and irrigation system devised by the city's builder, Merric Goldbright, with scholars and senators in the inner rings, the educated trades in the middle rings, and merchants, students, and warehouses filling the outer rings beneath the dome.