These writings are of dubious authorship and canon. As it is not in the Order of Arnath’s nature to destroy safe but erroneous texts, they are preserved for reading and contemplation.
Arnath’s Coming
The Sagas tell us that our people first came to the North of Faedrun during the darkest days of the Sun Wars, trying to find a place to escape the Syndar. Knowing that most Syndar prefer the fertile and temperate lands to the south, one group of refugees turned their attention to the Celestial Mountains in the far north. After many weeks of hard travel, they found a barely navigable pass, which is now called the Blue Flame after the beautiful ice that forms it. The pass led our people into their new home. A valley untouched by Man or Syndar that was rich in game, water, farmland, and ready access to the stone and iron to make their walls strong and their swords sharp.
None thought to ask themselves why such a place was empty.
The first few years went uneventfully, but as time went on the people found more and more evidence that Men had been here before. Old ruins dotted the valley, old fences, graves and the bones of Men. The bones were piled in great heaps and marked with strange runes that made the people uneasy, and looked as though many of had been cracked open for the marrow. None of the people had ever heard of this place, and it seemed like many people had lived here. What had happened to them?
The next summer brought the answer. Out of the highest peaks came throngs of Giants, Jötnar in the Old Tongue. They came to slaughter and burn, for no reason beside that they could. Our people fought like a mother Ice Bear protecting her cubs but were pushed back and back, until there were only three warriors left. Their names have been lost to time, but their valor will live forever. There the Three stood, holding the last door of the building between the Giants their families. The Giants were taking their time on the last door, taunting the warriors, conversing about the foulness they would inflict on the women and children.
Just as the last timber was splintering, the Giants left, screaming back to their mountain lairs. The Three advanced cautiously into the light, confused by their sudden fortune. Standing there was a great White Lion and a jet black Eagle, with two great heads. Before the people’s eyes the two greats beasts became one again, and a creature of legend, a Griffin, stood before them. The Griffin walked towards them, stretching its great wings, and told the Men that all three of the beasts were Arnath, Gatekeeper of Elysium, Defender of the Fallen and Teacher of Man, and that the Giants were his mortal foes. In the stand of those three warriors He had seen courage unknown in these bleak lands of ice and pain and that together they could banish the Giants back the darkness from whence they came!
He then set out to teach the Three the Path, how to master the Fury, Honor and Wisdom within them. How to turn the power that all people have locked within themselves into a tool for the righteous. Only by mastering all three of these very different pieces of themselves could the Three find the strength needed to face down the Giants at His side. After many months of study and training the Three accompanied Arnath into the darkness beneath the Celestials, and sealed the Giants in a great cave with mountains of rock and runes never since equaled.
There they will stay, until the appointed time when they will burst forth from that icy prison to assail the Gates of Elysium during the End times. We stood with Him then, and we will stand with Him at the end too.
In the months and years that followed each of the Three founded the Lions, Eagles and Griffins, thus forming core for Arnaths Hand, now simply known as the Order to friend and foe alike
The Ages Since
Since that day our Order has stood as a bulwark and inspiration to many. We have fought in countless wars, protecting the helpless and allied with others to crush those that used their power for personal gain. The hardest times for us have been since peace reigned in Faedrun and the followers of Light began to spread.
Following Arnath is not easy. There is much expected of us, much we must learn and master within ourselves to become whole, and a new faith that required little sacrifice from its followers was very inviting to many. The turn of the years saw the Order dwindle until just before the Rising there were barely a thousand of us left on the northern half of Faedrun, pressed to the limit just trying to maintain what we had left.