The Adamantine Arrow, who see existence as a crucible, prize challenge and conflict for its use in honing the self, and teach students honour and ideals of service.
Order Rote Skills: Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine
Challenge is Magical
Virtue untested is worthless. This truth is hidden by a Fallen World designed to aggressively and insidiously destroy enlightenment. The Lie oppresses souls, crushing them under somnolent burdens.
Beyond The Abyss lies the ideal perfected self, a concept that can only be embodied by struggling against the Lie. Everyone is involved in this struggle, leaving the Awakened as the only ones aware they’re embroiled in a universal conflict.
Every Order practices offensive and defensive occult techniques, but the Adamantine Arrow internalizes the metaphor of eternal war as principle. More than that, they seek to serve as soldiers and generals in this war, fighting to maintain their magic. Arrows are the guardians and wardens of the Pentacle, warriors of the Diamond, fighting against stagnation and complacency.
They typically hold a majority of non-leadership roles in Consilia and Convocations (and no few Assemblies), as community-oriented duties find fulfillment within their philosophy. Above all else, their magic calls for dedication: striving for a chosen goal against meaningful opposition.
Mages join the Arrow when they want to define themselves by supporting others, learn self-discipline and control over their magic, come from a martial or regimented background and want to keep that ethos, or believe magic should be wielded with honour and responsibility.
Core Beliefs
The Adamant Way
Created by millennia-worth of treatises from dozens of cultural standpoints and containing a multitude of philosophical schools, the Way can be divided into five precepts — the Hand — just as five fingers make a fist.
The metaphor is simple: Hands are the primary gates for the sense of touch and the means to work one’s Will; they create or destroy in equal measure, translating human desire into physicality.
Existence is War
The Way teaches improvement through opposition and restraint, evincing a universal state of affairs that is self-evident. All beings struggle for life, and all Awakened souls struggle against The Abyss to bridge the Supernal and Fallen. Vying for self-expression, Awakened souls grow stronger by conquering the desires of other souls.
Arrows are warriors, though not always martial ones — to a one, they seek challenge and conflict, though their competitions are often friendly. The Order as a whole regards true pacifists with disgust, but they’re not bellicose — peace can be a far greater challenge to achieve than petty bloodshed.
Adaptability is Strength
Arrows understand that nothing worth doing is achieved with ease, and that limitations are self-imposed. Attack and defence, spell and sword are valuable individually, but mere components of the whole.
Predictability and inflexibility are dangerous in a world of sympathetic magic, and crippling to the soul. An Arrow rises beyond these weaknesses and toward a balanced and perfected self.
Service is Mastery
Control only ever extends as far as the self — your nature and soul are the only things truly yours and yours alone. Honest service lies not in becoming the power behind the throne, but in limiting one’s ambition, pride, and guilt as external factors in one’s control.
Until the Arrow sets aside his desires for another’s, all of his high ideals are mere justifications for his own actions. Once he abandons his selfishness, he understands his place in the universe, serving the Supernal as well as himself.
The Supernal is the Self
Mind and soul are a microcosm of the universe and magic. Every trial by adversity reinforces the mage’s honour and self-integrity. The mage is her magic, as inseparable as a hand’s identity from owner’s intent, growing closer to her spiritual ideal with every victory. Arrows often seek to shed their personal flaws by swearing oaths to tie themselves to purposes larger than the self.
Oaths declare intent to the universe and sharpen focus on the challenge at hand, whether promising to defend a dear friend or murder a hated rival. A sworn Arrow is placing her judgment in dynamic action rather than formal words.
Enlightenment is Honour
A warrior’s soul that expresses her intentions, then accomplishes those specific aims, reveals a vision unimpeded by distractions and uncompromised by the Fallen World. Challenges are more worthy when the challenger restricts his options to the path he chooses to fulfil his goals. Honourable mages act in accordance with their ideals, in true harmony with their perfect selves.
Origins
The Adamantine Arrow is both the oldest and youngest Order. Like most of the Diamond Orders, the Arrow’s core formed in the Hellenistic era, circa 200 BCE, primarily from an Indian school of magical philosophy called the Vajrastra (“Thunderbolt Weapons”). Alexander the Great’s philosophy of eternal war was attractive to the early Arrows, and they rose alongside the nascent Orders. Since Alexander, the Arrow has ensconced itself within Sleeper societies.
Rather than celebrating them or manipulating them, the Arrow allowed its members to choose to fight for mortal ideals and causes, championing the warrior ethos found within all societies and cultures. During the Italian Renaissance, Caucuses all over Europe became enthralled by the code duello, the rules that governed single combat; at the same time, Italian mercenary culture split the Order into factions, between those who sought purity within combat and those who prized constant warfare.
The Order last reorganized itself in 1945. The strife of internal warfare from two World Wars sundered the Order, as Arrows fought one another from opposing sides of a battlefield. This wasn’t unprecedented — the American Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, and sengoku jidai are actually considered healthy exercises by contemporary Arrow theorists — but it was inconceivable in terms of scale and lack of purpose.
The Order emerged with the conclusion that war itself had changed. Never again would the Arrow bind itself to temporal ideals. At the same time, their true enemies — Seers, Banishers, and The Abyss — were timeless. The Order abandoned the millennia-long practice of championing Sleeper societies to focus on individual Consilia, Sleepwalkers, or sites connected with magic.
Mysteries
Arrows look for Mysteries that threaten their charges, seeking to understand malicious magic with superior knowledge and craft intent to better end the threat. They seek to aid other Diamond Orders in the often-perilous experience of investigating their own Mysteries.
Alternately, an Arrow will swear oaths to uncover a secret, proving dominance with self-mastery by pitting herself against a singular foe. An attractive Mystery for an Arrow involves a test or contest of his skill; Arrows are disappointed when the Fallen World gives up its secrets too easily.
Magical Symbolism: Attack and Defence
The Arrow doesn’t consider all wars to be martial, but more often than not their symbolism relies on weaponry, tools that extend power in the realm of physical combat. In a philosophy based on eternal war, a weapon must be at hand at all times. Arrow tools favour the sword or the pistol, two weapons that have no other use than to take a life, though this is more a preference than anything else — after all, adaptability is strength, and anything that can be wielded as a weapon by the average person has a place in Arrow symbolism.
Besides armour and other protective gear, charms that protect the user from physical or spiritual harm also feature prominently among Arrow tools — amulets, dreamcatchers, bandolier bags.
In the ideal Awakened society postulated by the Diamond’s Atlantean symbolism, the Adamantine Arrow embodies Ungula Draconis, the Talon of the Dragon: righteous warriors who fight to keep the flame of human power alive in an age of darkness.
Hubris
Arrows fall afoul of Hubris when they overestimate their abilities and create Paradoxes trying to extricate themselves, or when they’re confronted with their own weakness and deficiencies. It’s also easy for an efficient Arrow to assume he’s conquered all his challenges simply because he tightly manages his life, forgetting that the Order’s truths lie in constant conflict. Dedicated Arrows find it easy to mistake disdain for avoiding necessary fights as willingness to forsake peaceful ends.
Violence must always be a solution, but it is rarely the best solution, so an Arrow grows hubristic when she loses sight of this. Life to a member of the Order isn’t so important when forced to choose between existence and integrity, but hubristic Arrows regard keeping your word as more important than human lives and morality.
Lastly, the Order prides itself on being above politics, focused on their ideals of service. When an Arrow assumes power, it is when they are the strongest and most capable of facing down a threat. To them, it is prudence, not power: merely choosing a side can define and shape the political arena. Hubristic Arrow mages eschew guardianship to seize power for themselves under the guise of being able defenders.
Concepts
Pro-Bono Defence
“Defence rests,” I say, and I know I’ve won. The prosecution looks battered, exhausted. My client looks like he’s just witnessed divine intervention, delivered from injustice he thought was certain, shocked that someone — anyone — would not only stand up for him but win. Hours, days, weeks spent practicing for the trial, and a quick finger run over my spectacle rims tells me the jury’s deliberation will take less than an hour.
Everyone looks at this job as a stepping stone, a trial-by-fire for one of the big firms. They look at it as a challenge and a place for improvement, and they’re right; I do battle uphill every day, taking on enemies thought unassailable. That’s why I’ll never leave.
Gun Runner
People need weapons to start revolutions, to guard their homes or hunt their food. The strong use military force to subjugate the weak, but they can’t do that if the weak fight back. Before I Awakened, when I was trying to sell a crate to some warlord in Myanmar, I thought the secret to survival was to never go to war, but the Jungle Primordial showed me the truth — life is war.
Now I choose my clients with care; I sell Soviet surplus to my fellow Arrows and bullets to academics. Other Arrows challenge me to prove I’m not a Praetorian agent, but my motives are clear. I’m a necessary evil. Existence is war, and war needs weapons.
Stereotypes
Guardians:
Regrettably necessary, but untrustworthy, even if we’re on the same side.
Mysterium:
Keepers of what we protect. Damn if they’re not ungrateful, though.
Silver Ladder:
Our oldest companions. They provide the structure, and we the service.
Free Council:
Address them as individuals, not as a unity, no matter how loud they protest.
Seers of the Throne:
Every war needs enemies.
Lore Bite
See that convenience store? No, I already know what you do. It’ll be robbed in about a half hour, and it doesn’t turn out pretty for the clerk or that poor kid pressed into being the trigger man.
Your Awakening wasn’t pleasant, I know. Neither was your Sleeper life. I’m sympathetic, but I’m not sorry for you. Some might call you scarred by the experience, and they might pity you for it. The pride in your eyes tells me you already know what I’m going to say:
Scars aren’t something to be ashamed of. Life is a battle. Scars mark you as a survivor. Look around you — others don’t wear their scars half as well as we do. Not everyone can brave the Mysteries, and maybe not everyone should.Look beyond the Consilium, beyond the Awakened — almost everyone tries to avoid being scarred. Not us. We take on the ordeals and keep the vigils — because we’re strong enough, so others don’t have to be. Having magic and power doesn’t matter, just what you do with it. That’s why we step into harm’s way. It’s a challenge, and challenges are the only thing that matters.
I’ll save you a question down the line — the lady depressing property values and jacking up rent in this entire neighbourhood is backed by the Throne. When you get to brass tacks, both clerk and kid’s death will be her fault. They can’t rise above the challenges forced upon them, but we can, and we can do it for them.
Fixing everything is a long war, but I’m going to win this battle here and now without killing anyone, and I’m happy to have you along if you’re willing. We’ve survived worse, haven’t we?