Renascentia Arcanum

The Renascentia Arcanum, or "Codex of Rebirth," is a set of very ancient tome writtens in a forgotten tongue. It is said to contain magical secrets behind the life and death of a god.

Description
The Renascentia Arcanum is split into three similar but distinct volumes. Each contains the same set of information and rituals, but each is partially incomplete, such that to obtain the full details of any of its contents, all three volumes are required.

The pages of the book are enchanted in such a way that they cannot be destroyed by any known means, but they can be removed from their bindings, which are not enchanted. The original bindings of the book are unknown, but the most intact tome, found in the dwarven ruins of Brovu, was bound in metal. Additional enchantments on the pages appear to prevent them from being copied or dictated.

The contents are unclear, but based on the name and legends about the book, it is believed that the full set of volumes contains rituals and secrets to control the lives and deaths of gods.

History
According to the ancient histories of Caruvis, the kingdom that fathered Regnis and Torm, the Renascentia Arcanum was penned by an ancient race that went extinct many millennia ago. Of this race there are no real records due to their antiquity, but there are some scattered fragments and remnants hinting at their past, with a few monuments engraved with script resembling that in the Arcanum.

Many years after the race's alleged disappearance, a strange being known only as the Elder showed up in Northmarch with all three volumes of the tome. Under now-forgotten circumstances he gave one volume each to the human kingdom of Caruvis, the dwarven kingdom of Brovumir, and the Asoan Empire to the south.

Caruvis kept the tome for study, but lost half of it when the Tormists rebelled and took part of the book with them to the new state of Torm. Brovumir's tome was thought to be lost with the disappearance of Northmarch's dwarves, but was in fact found intact by Tahl the Avatar and given to Adelbern. The ruling monarch of the Asoan Empire at the time is said to have used the knowledge in the tome somehow to gain more power, but it disappeared with his death, rumoured to have reappeared among the heimwargs of Heimcanaan.

The two separated halves of the tome became a point of contention between Torm V and Queen Voleta III "the Sun Queen", after each was coronated at about the same and claimed equal right to the book.