What type of currency was used in the Erulan Kingdom? How prevalent was knowledge/ use of magic? How prevalent were the Luminari/ Knowledge of the luminari?
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Coins of some sort.
Wanted Poster
Responsible citizens who perform their duty in the interest of public safety by reporting these malicious acts will be justly compensated with Imperial coin.
Moore’s Order
A fair bit of extra coin has found its way to my pockets as of late, but the folk moving through these parts aren’t like the ones we’re used to seeing. There’s been common folk from further south than Devil’s Crossing and groups of men and women moving about with strange new markings on their armor and clothes. We even had a fella a couple a weeks back, claimed he came all the way south from the capital. Said he was a chef looking for work.
Can’t find much reference to this, so I guess it’s up to the devs to answer. That being said, I’ve always been bothered by fictitious worlds that have magic in them and that have magic as a key underlying narrative plot point, yet have common folk that are completely oblivious to the existence of magic. Doesn’t feel too real. I’d wager that it’s well-known magic exists beyond mere folklore, though the Luminari probably cracks down on its usage and the Empire may have made propaganda to lessen the spread of unauthorized magical outbreaks.
Academics, at least, knew about the Luminari.
Korvan Expedition 1st Entry
This expedition is the culmination of a lifetime of study by myself, Thomas Peterson and my esteemed colleague Roderick Krane.
and
Korvan Expedition 2nd Entry
I caught one of them reading an ancient-looking text of some sort the other day. Aurenial Arcanum, the name read. It is a volume I am unfamiliar with, though if I didn’t know better I’d say it was exactly the kind of thing that could attract Luminari attention.
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Excellent reply Ceno. Magic in any work of fiction would, by definition, warp the world and society. I don’t really blame any writers or world builders for not wanting to open the can of worms that is magic logistics. In the case of Grim Dawn, I can see small shreds of evidence of magical knowledge being sort of clamped down by the elite through class related means (The poor or middle class of Erulan likely cant read, and even if they could, likely don’t have access to the tomes they’d need) and directly through Apostacy laws. I’m looking for lore to directly back that up, though.
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To me it has an air akin to the warp in warhammer 40k, and practitioners of magic are like psykers or at least treated the same by the erulan empire, with only those sanctioned being authorized to use it. I havent read much in GD lore to confirm this but the sense ive gotten from playing and the idea behind Arcanists if you read the class descriptions, just reminds me of psykers tapping into the warp for magical powers. Not sure if youre familiar with 40k lore?
tangentally at best. I’ve never played a 40k game.
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I just read the books, mainly Horus Heresy. Oh man… well, theres no simple way to explain the warp as it relates to what i was saying but uh, long story short, the dangers of dabbling in sorcery open the doors for otherworldly entities to enter into our realm. Kind of like the Aetherials manifesting in Cairn. If it was 40k, these would be Daemons, manifesting into the world through the vessel of the psyker (practitioner of magic).
The dangers practicing magic poses are very clear and very real, then, and thusly the use of it is forbidden by law unless sanctioned by the Imperium (Inquisitors), making Heretics of those who defy these laws and practice these arts anyway (Arcanists, Necromancers).
in the korvan age, rich goods flows freely through their empire. currency is obviously not a problem. korvaak sometimes show himself to the masses in mass korvan ritual events, healing the wounded and blinding the wicked just by releasing his radiant power. ascendants and their lineages are also well revered and lives like princes loyal to korvaak.
magic was abundant and common in those times because of ascendants living and walking among the people. that being said, korvaak also watches for any foolish mortals attempting to tresspass upon his eldritch domain looking to steal their power. dreeg is one such people. though korvaak punished him and forcefully convert him into eternal suffering watcher of the eldricth realm beneath his authority.
korvaak and his ascendants’ cults can be considered a luminari inquisition bodies that govern the korvaan empire.
the arkovian empire has vague lore about its state of economy and usage of magic. arkovia was said to be a wealthy empire, until king rhowan abdicates the throne and leaving the empire in the hands of bickering oligarchs that droves the empire to bankruptcy, due to endless war of expansions. eventually, arkovia’s size shrunk from an empire into just a single arkovian city (which paves the way for the rise of erulan city states and several other unknown civilizations such as the carinean).
arkovian magic usage seems to be acceptable to the arkovian masses, but not as profound and openly embraced like how korvan empire was. probably because there are only few ascendants and no gods living with the arkovian masses (uroboruuk states that he lives through the times where gods are silent and ascendants reign over cairn). attak seru, rattosh and ishtak cults are probably one of the few ascendants that teaches and study magic in arkovian empire. imo those figures are ascendants that lives in the early phase of arkovian empire and guides them to its golden age, but their life-span is limited, and with no gods who can continuously bless them and their descendants, their power doesn’t pass to their descendants. which eventually means they can’t protect the arkovians from uroboruuk’s necromancer curse.
speaking or necromancers, the arkovians obviously have a luminari like inquisition body to watch for any people who performs such insidious magic and other dark magic. its probably the ecclesiarchy of various ascendant cults that is close to the arkovian oligarchs that perform this job. and the step of torment with its uncountable number of prisoners shows how serious and fanatic they are at doing their job.
ceno above had explained how erulan empire’s currency, magic, and inquisition is. i have to add that the masses’ knowledge about magic seems to be ‘officially’ limited to the gildam arcanum, who considers themselves the only viable magic institution for erulan people. this is acceptable to the masses, because of how prevalent the incident of magical accidents even from apprentices that had some basic knowledge of magic. the aether is finicky and hard to control it seems.
and speaking of luminari, it can’t be forgotten that the luminari is said to have carried out a bloody inquisition crusade against hundreds of heretical cults, according to the death’s vigil. the luminari and official erulan ruling body only considers empyrion’s pantheon (empyrion, menhir, targo, oleron, etc) as the only tolerable religion in erulan empire after all (its unknown how their stances against ulzuin’s devotees though, since demolitionsts seems to prosper in their army). the erulan people is afraid of the luminari, but they’re also afraid of the heretical cults spread around the empire. so they don’t have much choice in the matter. the aetherial invaders cunningly use this fear to conquer port valbury subtly by ordering random inquisition questioning in the city. luminari seems to be rivalling the erulan royal body in controls of erulan empire.
i wish there’ll be more lore about arkovia and erulan in future contents. we haven’t even met any member of the erulan royal family, which seems crucial to the plot of how the aetherials unleash grim dawn upon cairn.
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This is certainly true if we take Garradia’s past experiences as a prime example.
There’s also the witch hunts that were happening towards the fall of Valbury:
The City is Rotting
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In Erulan Empire the main currency are royal crowns, you can find three criminal records in Burwitch which told us about rewards for some wanted criminals that were spotted near Burwitch.
As I can tell about magicians and their being in Cairn, then I can tell that most part of known history of ceased to exist and still existing countries there were always one and only one official magical organization and one organization who put them in check, same as they both looking for heretic cults and heretics in high and low layers of society. As example we have Gilda Arcanum/Luminari Inquisition of Erulan Empire, Guild of Magi/Priests of Ateph of Korvan (and Morgoneth rebellion), magical society/priests in Arkovian Empire (well, I don’t remember accurate name of those organizations).
If we speak about heresies that exist in Cairn then we have here: Witch God cults, Cult of Ch’thon, Cult of Ravager, Morgoneth heresy of Yugoul, Cult of Korvaak (nowadays), aetherial worshipers (nowadays), Weeping Eye’s Cabal (destroyed long ago by Erulan Empire).
As a legal gods for worshiping we have: Empyrion the Lightbringer, Ultos the Shepherd of Storms, Ulzium the Betrayed, Mordrogen the Wolf, Vire the Stone Matron, Rattosh the Veilwarden, Attak Seru the Mirage, God of War Oleron, Targo the Builder, Azrakaa the Eternal Sands, Nadaan the Blade, Ishtak the Spring Maiden, Aeon the Time Keeper, Amatok the Spirit of Winter, Ulo the Keeper of the Waters. And few lower grade gods like Murmur the Mistress of Rumors, Ulzaad the Herald of Korvaak, Nemesis the Avenger, Typhos the Tormentor of Souls, Aklaine the Guardian of Mages, Hyrian the Celestial Guardian, Golgoran the Abomination, Halia the Bard. Just check constellation window.
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this is why cairn is so shattered and grim. because the celestials and ascendants are having wars over who were legal and illegal.
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