I. Arcane
Wizards divided over a dying resource, a doom-loop that is the death of magic.
There are no neutral institutions in the Sundered World. Every order of wizards, priests, knights, and cults is really an answer to a single question, how do you live while the light goes out, and the six orders are the six answers. They form a stack from the mortal, through the natural, to the divine, and together they are a cross-section of an age in decline.
I. Arcane
Wizards divided over a dying resource. The Wardens hoard the light, spending as little as they can; the Free Art spends it boldly and beautifully, and burns through it fastest; the Deepening chases the Void to replace what is lost, and is unmade for it. It is a doom-loop that is itself the death of magic. Their patron is the Loremaster, and their story is told in full in The Fading Light.
II. Devotional
The Faithful, keeping faith with gods who withdrew on purpose and do not answer. Theirs is faith kept toward a deliberate silence. It is the most poignant of the orders and the most brittle: when devotion breaks under the fading light, having nothing to hold, it breaks toward the Void.
III. Martial
The sworn brotherhoods, the last orders of arms. The Champion's companies of life and joy, the Sky-King's law-knights, and the Rangers who hold the failing north. They keep the forms of a heroic age into an age that no longer rewards heroism, and they are dwindling with the light they serve.
IV. Void
The cults of the Fallen, the dark-mages, and the dark elves. Where the other orders manage the light, the Void order feeds on its absence. The dying of the light is its recruiter: every despair, every failed prayer, every wizard who runs out is a door it waits behind.
V. Natural
The awakenings of the world itself, the Elementals, the beast-folk, and the Muses. The Natural order does not choose a side so much as register the score. It is the living barometer of the magic as it thins, and when it falls silent the age has deepened past argument. Read it in full in The Natural Order.
VI. Divine
The Pantheon and their firstborn dragons, the apex order that all the others orient around, now mostly withdrawn or fallen. It is the only order that has stopped acting, and its silence is the shape every other order is bent around. Meet it in full in The Pantheon and their Dragons.
II. Devotional
The Faithful, keeping faith with gods who withdrew on purpose and do not answer.
III. Martial
The sworn brotherhoods of life, law, and the failing north.
IV. Void
The cults of the Fallen and the dark elves. The dying of the light is their recruiter.
V. Natural
The awakenings of the world, the living barometer of the magic as it thins.
VI. Divine
The Pantheon and their dragons, the apex order, now mostly withdrawn or fallen.