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The Brotherhood of Loremasters was the preeminent school of Loremastery until its dissolution two thousand two hundred and three years after the Great Migration. For over a thousand years the Brotherhood preserved the wisdom of the Elves and the Elder Races, and, having kept safe the lore of the elders, copied it into great books and spread this lore across the length and breadth of the Kalduorian Empire. Though it once was wise, the Brotherhood was lured into evil by the second Brehedha of the House of Nauda who, having been appointed a treacherous soul by Inevitable Fate, led the Brotherhood and many once-noble kings into rebellion against Radûoskaû, Emperor of the Aztalorians. It was for this crime that the Brotherhood was destroyed and only a few of its members, whose hearts were too righteous to be tricked into a covenant with evil, were spared and permitted to found the Order of Truths.
Organization
The Brotherhood was led by seven Most Wise Masters, each of whom had completely mastered a school of lore. Most of these Masters were Kalduorians, and so they lived longer than mundane Men and could more thoroughly understand lore. The Seven Most Wise, as they were colloquially known, ruled as a collective on all matters pertaining to the governance and goals of the Brotherhood. During the Brotherhood's golden age, they ruled wisely and were able to lead kings to greatness with their counsel; during the Brotherhood's age of decadence, they were corrupt, fatuous, and malevolent.
Those who answered directly to the Most Wise Masters were the Chieftains of the Tower, who, by law, were chieftains or 'petty kings' of the towers in which the Lorekeepers kept their records. Until the dissolution of the Brotherhood, each tower was considered a vassal of the Most Wise Masters, who were in Kalduorian, Dehiran, and Aztalorian law recognized as petty kings. The Chieftains handled various administrative tasks for the Seven Most Wise, and they were elected to their positions according to the traditions of their towers. Many were voted in or chosen by lots; a few - particularly during the later years of the Kalduorian Empire - were appointed to their positions by the Seven Most Wise.
Each tower had its own unique traditions and legacies, and no single one was wholly identical to another. When the Brotherhood was first established, however, there were a few positions deemed necessary for all towers to have: the first was the Keeper of the Books, which has survived the destruction of the Brotherhood. Keepers of the Books were charged with maintaining the libraries and records of the towers, and each possessed a ceremonial key made of gold as a sign of station.
The second is the Loremaster, who had as his duties the transmission of lore and the teaching of the next generation. The majority of a tower's population - that is, of the tribe of that tower - were acolytes, and few became Loremasters due to the knowledge required for that position. As the Brotherhood became decadent and corrupt, more Loremasters graduated but lacked the essential knowledge to be truly considered masters.
Cult
Initially, the Brotherhood of Loremasters worshiped the god Cykúlan-gehedhír and the rest of the Enadhrenn in a form that was usual for early Kalduorian society. As the Cult of the Enadhrenn changed, so too did the lore-cult of the Brotherhood. Cykúlan-gehedhír gradually became the sole object of their worship; by the end of the Kalduorian Empire, Loremasters had worshiped Cykúlan-gehedhír in an abstract form as Absolute Knowledge. The Brotherhood's cultic practices were increasingly esoteric and elaborate, and this was maintained until its destruction.
Worship of Absolute Knowledge was conducted in secret chambers built beneath the Brotherhood's towers. Here, acolytes were initiated into the cult's lesser mysteries, and those few who became Loremasters were fully inducted into its greater mysteries after their graduation. The greatest mysteries of Absolute Knowledge were known only to the Seven Most Wise, who were forbidden from explaining them to others or writing them down. When the Most Wise Masters were executed by Radûoskaû, Emperor of the Aztalorians, these mysteries were lost for ever.
History
From the thirteenth year of the Great Migration to two thousand two hundred and three years after the Great Migration, the Brotherhood of Loremasters had maintained the knowledge and wisdom of Mankind and the Elder Races. This stewardship was not continuous; thrice before its final destruction was the Brotherhood disbanded, but kings and queens had ever sought the wisdom of the Loremasters, and Inevitable Fate moved their hands to always restore it.
Founding
A year after Uroúd the Beautiful's ascension as Name-King, that being the twenty-first year of the Great Migration, he gathered together the wise of the Adoun and the Anchulaín, and he instructed his fellow Men to learn at the feet of the Elves so that they would learn mastery. These men - for it was then that only men could be Loremasters - created for themselves a brotherhood, and they spread this brotherhood from the city of Madhintulan to the farthest corners of Uroúd's dominion. The Brotherhood of Lore's fortunes waxed greatly in these early years, for the Name-Kings that succeeded Uroúd were wise and understood the value of lore, and they gave the Loremasters all that they needed to prosper.
Creation of the Council of Elders
Two hundred years after the Great Migration, Name-King Dharadh-taran the Wise of the House of Dhamast-dohor created the Council of Elders to advise him. Having been taught as a Loremaster before he became Name-King, Dharadh-taran had found the wisdom of the Brotherhood to be great enough that he felt it wise to create for them a permanent fixture in the Name-King's court. Through this institution, Dharadh-taran cultivated wisdom for both himself and his heirs, and the Council of Elders had, for two hundred years, advised the Name-Kings wise courses of action.
The Council of Elders had at first concerned itself with wise matters. It advised the Name-Kings on history, religion, foreign cultures, and historical precedents. Loremasters had become the foremost masters of law, for the laws of the Kalduorians were based on that of the Anchulaín, so the Council of Elders aided the Name-Kings in both the referencing of law and the framing of new laws.
The responsibilities of the Council grew in these early years, but corruption and evil had not yet gripped the heart of the Brotherhood, and the Council of Elders was in this time considered the wisest act of Dharadh-taran.
The Golden Age
It came to be tradition that the Name-Kings would support the Brotherhood of Lore and spread it wherever the empire reached. Loremastery spread as a tradition all across the West, and was rejected only in Madokiriza and the lands of the Tallan, those being Ailt Talla, Uncyralen, Hrisatelen, Aztalor,and Verrgant. Kalduorian Loremastery spread east into Selaminæ and went further still, though in these foreign lands the traditions of the Brotherhood were transmitted incorrectly, and the Loremasters of distant kingdoms were ignorant of Elven traditions.
Name-King Inast-duor-nadhrai I of the House of Dhamast-dohor had conquered most of Selaminæ three hundred and fifty-five years after the Great Migration. He instructed that the Brotherhood establish academies there, as the Selaminæans were in that time ignorant and primitive, and he wished to uplift them into productive members of the empire. The Loremasters had two goals: the first was the spread of Elven wisdom and knowledge, which meant instructing the Selaminæans in what was at the time considered proper speech, that being the Elvish or Kalduorian language, and their second goal was the acquisition of the True Names of the populace.
It was Inast-duor-nadhrai I who used the Brotherhood as a tool to acquire True Names. He had towers built that held the records of True Names of the populace, and records of the number of the peoples of his empire. He extended the Tyranny of Names through displays of great friendship; he conquered the Selaminæan kings by deceiving them into giving him their names, and he conquered their people through the Brotherhood.
It is this time that is wisely considered the end of the Brotherhood's golden age, as it was now being bent like a reed to serve the purposes of the Name-Kings. Knowledge was now collected not for the sake of its preservation and spread, but for the purpose of power; and much knowledge was taken and made secret in order to increase the power of the Name-Kings and the Brotherhood.
The Age of Decadence
It came to pass that Inast-duor-nadhrai set a dangerous precedent, and the Brotherhood's purpose was corrupted. Loremasters sought to increase their own power, and the power of the Council of Elders, which was now no longer a collection of the wisest of Kalduor's men, but instead a collection of fatuous masters. Loremastery became a way for commoners to ascend to the heights of power and be elevated from peasantry; for nobles, it was a path to the Name-King's court. Men became Loremasters not because they wished to understand, but because they wished for power.
Knowledge was turned to evil ends, and Loremasters became wretched and corrupt. As the wise became unwise, the Name-Kings grew more tyrannical than they had ever been; intrigues at court and civil wars in the provinces weakened the Kalduorians, and their Name-Kings killed their brothers, their fathers, their sons in order to keep power. Loremastery became synonymous with corruption, idleness, and the Tyranny of Names; Loremasters served now as repositories of the True Names of the people, not as wise mentors or councilors. The Brotherhood found itself increasingly unwelcome outside of the Empire, and it engaged in strange projects relating to languages and their inherent power.
Five hundred and eighty years after the Great Migration, the corruption of the Brotherhood was complete. Loremasters were appointed to political positions outside of the Council of Elders; those who were held in especial favor by the Name-Kings were given sinecures, such as being made Governor of Adhan drech Alcadh, and evil ruled their hearts. Loremasters gave evil advice to their charges, and many had sought to maneuver themselves into positions of mastery over their fellow Man, seeking to turn lords into puppets and forgetting their sacred oaths.
With such evil proliferating as like flies, it should then come as no surprise that the gods resolved to overthrow the Kalduorians. Man, when faced with sufficient evil, will resolve his will to oppose it, and he will be aided by his gods in doing so; some Loremasters, having no will for evil, sought ways to hide True Names, for it was in those days that the art of divination could easily reveal True Names, and so any revolt was doomed to failure and any war was won through this sorcery.
The Return to Righteousness
Six hundred and twenty-two years after the Great Migration, certain renegade Loremasters had entered into a covenant with a number of slaves, foremost among them being Dehir the Great. They instructed these slaves to forego the use of their True Names, and had in secret burned the documents that contained them; they conspired to kill those who knew their names, and to keep this secret to the best of their ability. It was through Inevitable Fate that this endeavor succeeded; concurrent to these plots were the intrigues of Kalduorian lords, who sought to turn slaves into assassins and, understanding that this power laid with the Trolls, entered into pacts with them. New ways were created to weaken the power of True Names, and secret sorceries were worked that weakened the Name Magic that had secured the empire.
Dehir's Rebellion coincided with workings of Trollish Sorcery, which confounded the efforts of Kalduorian sorcerers to dominate Dehir and his warriors. The Trolls had within their hearts a hatred unfathomable to Men of the Kalduorians, this having been inherited by those Men from the Anchuaín, who had in times long past aided in the slaughter of the Trolls. Armed with inhuman magic and the blessings of the gods, Dehir and his rebels wreaked havoc across the Kalduorian Empire.
Though Dehir had cautioned to spare the Brotherhood, many slaves liberated and many of his warriors held within their hearts an intense hatred of Loremasters; they tore down their towers and slaughtered them in the streets, and they gave no thought to sparing their families. Dehir, having no tolerance for wickedness, brought his army into order and issued reprisals for any man who had unjustly put to death a Loremaster. Despite his recriminations, Dehir was neither omnipotent nor omnipresent, and massacres continued wherever his watchful gaze was not.
At the end of the rebellion, when Dehir had been crowned the last Name-King of Kalduor, he gathered together the surviving Loremasters and put them on trial in the city of Madhintulan. There, he put to death each man that had been found guilty of aiding name-slavery, while he wisely spared those who had no part in it, even if they were otherwise immoral. He dismantled the Council of Elders, having seen the evil it led the Loremasters to, and he forbade the appointment of Loremasters - former or active - to any political position.
This return to righteousness reinvigorated the Brotherhood and allowed it to resume at once its original goal. Distrust of the Loremasters lingered for long centuries, for the Loremasters had aided the Kalduorians in keeping Laredhidan in thrall, and so Men were slow to trust in their wisdom.
Dissolution
Two thousand two hundred and three years after the Great Migration, evil had again come to the Brotherhood. Brehedha of the House of Nauda, the second of her name, had permitted her heart to hate her sovereign Emperor, and she conspired against Radûoskaû, whose reign was supported by the gods and whose righteousness is renowned. Deceiving the Brotherhood into hating the Emperor, Brehedha drew them into a black covenant with the aim of using their knowledge to her benefit.
The Brotherhood had marshaled its knowledge in hidden lore to provide Brehedha with evil magic. They had cavorted with Trolls, and used their knowledge of the Trollish tongue to convince them to raise their hands against the Empire; they used their status as the most learned men in the world to convince man, woman, and child alike to rebel against Aztalor. Loremasters in the courts of the kings of Dehirtadh had counseled rebellion against Aztalor; they spoke of the glories of the High Kingdom of the House of Dehir, they spoke of freedom and liberty, ignorant that they had already possessed these things, or convinced that the Aztalorians had withheld freedom from them.
Brehedha, whose heart was black with envy, was wholly unready to face the mighty of Aztalor. Many kings were righteous, and so discarded the counsel of their Loremasters, or they had the wise to advise them, those few masters who did not allow themselves to be overcome by evil. Radûoskaû washed over the Land of Dehir like a conflagration, burning everything before him. Like a wildfire he destroyed the old to make way for the new; the Brotherhood, which had again proven its duplicitous nature, was destroyed, its towers ransacked, its hidden libraries seized. Most of the Loremasters were slain, and Radûoskaû, who had hoped to reign in peace, turned the fields of the Land of Dehir fertile with the bodies of the slain.
Those few goodhearted souls who survived were permitted to found a new order, one which would never repeat the mistakes of the old Brotherhood.