Arcana Imperii

'Animam Deo Corpus Terrae'

Welcome my musing's humble abode! In this website, I will be posting chapters of my novel 'Arcana Imperii' as they are released. It is an alternate history/fantasy novel about three unwilling friends who find themselves embroiled in the tides of a dying era. The rediscovery of forgotten arcane arts plunges the world into chaos, suddenly enthrusting the most ambitious and power-hungry sorcerers, prophets and visionaries of the land with the power to topple kingdoms, and eventually the mere foundations of the world itself. After a century of turmoil, the city-state of Aikinaas emerges as a shining beacon towards a new way of life, a new dogma to help reconcile mankind with its unwarranted gifts in the face of self-annihilation. But the price of such an ambitious new order may prove to be costly, and soon the underbelly of this glistening utopia will find itself festering and unspeakable evil.

An ancestral tide has swept the foundations of reality itself and pushed humanity into an anti-renaissance of sorts. The mysteries of the arcane have enraptured man with dreams of endless power and enrapturing mysteries. But is man really the dreamer, or does the power dream man into existence, pulling the strings of his folly to the tune of an uncomprehensibly vast, cosmic symphony?.

Arcana Imperii is a latin expression, roughly translated to 'Imperial secret' or perhaps 'The rule of secrecy'. It refers to the act of occlusion which lays the groundwork for the exercise of power, and the existence of civic life. It relates to forbidden knowledge, withheld from the public eye in order to maintain a sense of common ground, a reality principle, the mere seeds of the possibility for orderly, stable coexistence in any given society. Arcana Imperii is thus, in a sense, that which is cast aside into the throes of oblivion, mystery and secrecy, so that life can be shielded from the unbearable chaos of reality. A slab of the world, tossed into the fire like a sacrificial lamb for the prosperity of civilization. And yet the restless human soul hungers for the fruit of knowledge. The world manifests its will to become whole once again, through the restless seekers and purveyors of undesirable truth.

Arcana Imperii represents the suspension of disbelief that prevents humanity from despairing over the futility of their every act; of their own existence. A complex, carefully crafted veil that allows man to dream and project himself into the future in a seemingly stable trajectory.

One can see this principle all throughout human history as a single thread spanning countless civilizations, cultures and traditions, like a bonfire meticulously being fed in order to fend off the unfathomably vast expanse of the unknown from swallowing all beings in its undifferentiated void. But what would happen if this bonfire were extinguished? A deluge of the soul. What kind of men would arise during the long darkness? Would it be that some plunge head first into the abyss in an apocalyptic frenzy? And who would dare to brave the uncomprehensible darkness lying beyond the feeble cage of human understanding?