8.6.7 Illuminai

Once the predominant religious order and guild of the southeast, the Illuminai were the proponents of a religious movement begun by the Kelki prophet Kayalenki; drawing upon the older ideals of Light developed by the Priests and the Knights of their time, the prophet's followers were noted for contracting with elementals from the Plane of Fire. These contracts served as the basis for much of Illuminai greatness, forming the roots of their sacred language, Illumine, the art of Illumination, and creating precedent for contracts with other extraplanar entities - some of which are still maintained to this day.

The Illuminai rose and fell during the Second Mortal Epoch, during which time the remnants of the Indorani and other servants of Darkness served as their main opponents. At the height of their power, they held sole dominion, in both the religious and secular senses, across the city of Shallam. Under their rule, the first monks emerged, forerunners of the Sentaari and the Grand Aetolian Library. Some few hundred years before the Grand Artifice, the Illuminai fell to an Indorani invasion, and in the wake of the city's reclamation, their ways were forgotten in favor of the more parochial religious practices common in the southeast.

In the modern day, upon Khepary 13th, year 452 MA, the Illuminai were formally revived by the command of the prophet Kayalenki, the modern-day guilds of the Luminaries and Daru merging to form its ranks. The ways in which the new order will embody their ancient heritage, while combining their own long-standing tradition, remains to be seen.