Basic Arcane
Basic Arcane is the universal foundational curriculum within the Divinati, a training programme that every member of the order must complete before any subsequent specialisation, and whose breadth of subject-matter creates a standing obligation that persists long after a graduate's career has narrowed into a single discipline. Its existence ensures that no Divinati, however deeply committed to one occult art, can claim exemption from the wider practical competencies the order requires of its practitioners.
The course matters to the order's structure because it is the institutional mechanism by which the Divinati enforce cross-functional service. In the single scene in which it is named, its authority is invoked to compel a specialist demonist to perform an artillerist's duties, and refusal is reframed not as professional disagreement but as a disciplinary breach triable before the Commission. The episode establishes that Basic Arcane is not merely a set of lessons to be absorbed and forgotten but a permanent contractual obligation binding all graduates.
Across the span of its appearance, Basic Arcane's narrative function is singular: it is the legal and doctrinal ground on which the order's hierarchy resolves disputes between a member's self-conception and the duties the order assigns. Its arc is one of invocation, objection, and enforcement, crystallising the Divinati's expectation that foundational training supersedes personal specialisation.
The System
How It Works
Basic Arcane is a compulsory foundational course completed by every member of the Divinati prior to or alongside any chosen specialisation. Its curriculum is deliberately broad, encompassing both practical military competencies such as artillery targeting and narrowly occult disciplines such as demonism. The course is not a single examination after which its content becomes inert; rather, it establishes a permanent obligation that every graduate must be prepared to apply the lessons of the full curriculum regardless of which discipline they subsequently pursued. When a Divinati's assignment falls outside their specialty, the order treats Basic Arcane as the governing authority that renders refusal untenable. - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11
Who Operates It
Every member of the Divinati undertakes Basic Arcane regardless of eventual specialisation. Dantell and Quellery are both identified as having completed the course, though their subsequent career paths differ considerably. There is no indication in the available record that any Divinati is exempted from the curriculum, nor that any external body or allied order participates in its delivery. - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11
Limits & Costs
The course imposes a cost on its graduates in the form of compulsory versatility: a Divinati trained primarily in one occult discipline may be assigned to duties drawn from a wholly different portion of the curriculum, and has no standing to refuse on grounds of narrow specialisation. A graduate who objects to such an assignment is not engaged in a professional negotiation but is instead subject to referral to the Commission for disciplinary adjudication. The threat of Commission proceedings makes the obligation practically non-negotiable, converting what might otherwise be a dispute over competence or preference into a matter of institutional discipline. - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11
History
Pretenders to the Throne Of God
Basic Arcane is a foundational training course within the Divinati, completed by all members of the order regardless of their eventual specialisation. Dantell and Quellery both undertook it, and its scope is broad enough to encompass practical military competencies such as artillery targeting alongside more narrowly occult disciplines like demonism. When Quellery protests that he is a demonist and not an artillerist, and objects to being assigned targeting duties, Dantell invokes Basic Arcane as the authority that makes such a refusal untenable, asserting that the course's breadth obliges every graduate to apply its lessons beyond their chosen specialty. Quellery's objection is overruled, and Dantell reinforces the point with a threat involving the Commission - the implication being that failure to meet the broad obligations established by Basic Arcane constitutes a matter for disciplinary adjudication rather than mere professional preference - ch 11.
Relationships
- Dantell - invokes Basic Arcane as doctrinal authority to overrule a colleague's objection to an out-of-specialty assignment, and escalates to the threat of Commission referral when the objection persists. The relationship is one of institutional enforcement: Dantell acts as the voice of the order's standing obligation rather than as a peer debating professional boundaries. - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11 - Quellery - is a graduate of Basic Arcane who, in his capacity as a demonist, objects to being assigned artillery-targeting duties. His protest establishes the conflict the course's authority resolves: a specialist's self-identification does not override the breadth of obligation the curriculum imposes. - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11
Tags
- arcane-training · #commission-curriculum