Covenant Mare Aeneum
"The Bronze Sea"
founded 362; destroyed 373
One of the two "twin covenants" founded by the Plenilunial Elementalists in 362. Every aspect of the founding of Covenant Mare Aeneum and its twin, Covenant Whitestone, was rooted in the arcana of Chalycidican mysticism, by which the Elementalists believed they had forged a magical link between the two covenants which would enable them to further unearth the lost secrets of the Chalycidicans. Whitestone was constructed in the chalk cliffs of the Wither Downs in Ventria, while Mare Aeneum was built on the island of Chalcyphon. Whitestone was dedicated to the elemental Air/Earth Secondary, while Mare Aeneum was dedicated to the Secondary of Fire/Water.
- Maris, filia Muscula, of House Aegidius
- Venatrix Avia, filia Vulpecula Versuta, of House Manere
- Vertagus, filius Ambages, of House Savacion
- Meles, filius Ambages, of House Savacion
- Sappira, filia Smaragda, of House Touccio
From the very start, the magi of Mare Aeneum had a reputation for eccentricity, flamboyance, irreverance and iconoclasm. Its members led the rest of the Plenilunial Elementalist Movement in espousing cross-sex apprenticeships regardless of House, and in the 360s, its Melian founder Maris openly defied the First Speaker of House Aegidius. What looked like sheer perversity to the rest of the Order, however, the Mare Aeneans viewed as a fundamental part of their Elementalist practice: the Secondary to which their covenant had been dedicated was strongly associated with the overturning of cultural norms, and the contrast between the flamboyant Mare Aenean magi and their relatively staid and normal colleagues at Covenant Whitestone was a vital aspect of the reconciliation of polarities which the relationship between the two covenants was intended to manifest.
The magi of Mare Aeneum were far more absorbed in the culture of ancient Chalycidice than those of Whitestone. Although Mare Aeneum had not been built in the same location as the third century Covenant at Chalcyphon -- it was built on the eastern coast, overlooking the ocean, not the bay -- its magi made frequent trips across the hills to the ruins of the Covenant at Chalcyphon on other side of the island, and in their excavations there and elsewhere on Chalcyphon, they uncovered a number of lost documents and artifacts which led them far deeper into Chalycidican studies than their Ventrian colleagues.
In 373, Mare Aeneum was destroyed in a catastrophe which none of its survivors were ever comprehensibly able to describe. All of the Mare Aenean magi survived the disaster, but many claimed that the experience had left them all decidedly peculiar -- even more peculiar than they had been before, which was really saying something. After the destruction of their covenant, the Mare Aeneans returned to Covenant Plenilunium Album with the exception of Venatrix Avia, who remained in Rhythnor searching for a suitable site for a successor covenant. She eventually won title to a plot of land on Taleth's Head, where the Mare Aeneans founded Covenant Hart's Desire in 377.
