The Crown of Arcadia

Researched and composed by Soliana Joleth

As is common knowledge among scholars, the second era conflict known as the War of the Shattered Crown resulted in the loss of the most precious Imperial artifact. It is still unclear how the Crown of Arcadia was broken, as Lucan Virellus explored in his brief histories of the empire, but it is generally agreed that it was broken into three pieces at the Battle of Three Standards (a curious ordeal for three armies to meet at the battle that split the crown into three as well.) What is not agreed upon is where these fractured pieces have found themselves three hundred years later, and it is this mystery that I seek to solve. 

Peace talks between the three banners was ordained under the oath-bound dwarven clans of High Hall and Min Arktoral, but any instance of the terms laid out by these dwarves seems to have been kept out of official Arcadian records. It is my suspicion that this exclusion is to hide the terms of peace between the war-lords proposed by the dwarf-lords who, given how weak the empire was after years of civil war, could easily dominate the empire and claim its resources for themselves. This takes me to my hypothesis: The crown fragments were given to the dwarf-lords as both payment for negotiating the peace talks and as a determent from an Arcadia-Dwarf war. 

My theory supposes that one fragment went to High Hall and one to Min Arktoral. What it fails to answer is where the third fragment could have gone. Perhaps one of the war-lords kept the fragment for themselves, though the descendents of the Westreach warlord claims to have no knowledge of it. However, the Norhavenese warlord is still alive: Daimyo Cystenn Ni’Tessine of Kanzaka. He refused my meeting, which indicates he may know something. What a High Elf would want with a fragment of the Crown of Arcadia I am unsure. I know better than to press a Daimyo, so I will have to pursue other avenues for my hypothesis.