Arcanists: the Unbound

Mad wizardry. Half a jest, half a doomsday. The most dangerous friends in the world.

The Arcanists are ridiculous and they are deadly serious and they see no contradiction, which tells you everything. They are wizards of every school and no discipline, whimsical and insane in the way that only the truly powerful can afford to be, and they make things: creatures, constructs, engines of thinking metal, monstrosities that should not hold together and do anyway out of sheer spite and craft.

They keep no faith and bow to no summit. Where the Exemplaris see a hierarchy of souls, the Arcanists see a puzzle, and they would like to take it apart to see how it screams. This makes the two peoples natural enemies of the mind, not merely the sword: the Dominion is order incarnate, and the Arcanists are curiosity without a leash. Their own cities are barely governed, their magic barely contained, and every so often one of their spire-towns simply is not there in the morning, leaving a crater that hums.

Yet their archmages are among the mightiest beings alive, and their armies of woven flesh and animate stone can break a legion. So the world courts them. Arcanists embed themselves in every other faction as advisors, mercenaries, and quiet hands on the loom of events, playing the long game from inside other people's histories. They keep to the high mountains and share those cold passes with only two peoples they can tolerate: the deep-delving forge-folk and the sundered dark elves.

The trouble is loyalty

A mage is a willful, curious animal, and no oath survives contact with a sufficiently interesting question. Half the factions that have hired the Unbound have been abandoned mid-war for a better experiment. To many, the Arcanists are the most cowardly people in the world, always at the edge of the battle, never quite in it, already gone when the debt comes due.

Where they stand

• Bound to: the Ironoath and the Nightspun, kin of the cold mountains.
• Woven through: everyone, and distrusted by all.
• Opposed to: the Exemplaris, in the soul.

See the Arcanists in the wiki for their units, buildings, and leader.