[Zilta]

Zilta Varsek goes to the library in search of historical records of arcanists who experimented with enchanting magical items instead of creating new spells.

[Gmork]

Congenio Ioun

Congenio Ioun was an arcanist and inventor of the Empire. He was considered the first great arcanist of Netheril, famed for creating the popular magical items known as ioun stones in 397 NY. Congenio is known to have created at least thirty different types of ioun stones.

Congenio Ioun was born in 364 NY in the early Nether Age of our Empire and was a talented arcanist from a very young age.

At the time, Netherese priests and Arcanists alike believed that large objects such as shields and suits of armor were simply too big to be enchanted, and (mistakenly) assumed that only small or slender items—pebbles, small stones, pieces of cloth, daggers, and the like—could be enchanted to bear magic. Congenio worked under this assumption and so he worked exclusively with small, semi-polished stones. In the year 397 NY, he created what he initially called Congenio's pebbles. This was a previously unheard-of achievement: he was aged only 33 and this was the first magical item he had created, marking him as one of the greatest arcanists of his age.

Congenio's pebbles soon became enormously popular with his fellow Arcanists and were in great demand. Over the next 54 years, the anhedral, echinid, hexagonoid, spindle, pebble, star, and round stones were developed and introduced by Congenio or others.

In 451 NY, at the suggestion of a close friend, Congenio renamed his pebbles to the much more catchy Ioun's stones. Under this name, the cephaloid, cube, cylinder, decipton, dendroid, dodecahedron, ellipsoid, enneid, euhedral, hectoid, helicid, heptid, monoclinoid, nephroid, ovoid, octahedron, orthorhomboid, peg, pentahedron, prism, pyramid, rectangle, septahedron, sexahedron, tile, and tredyhedron stones were created by Congenio or others and became widespread throughout the Empire.

Congenio himself created over thirty of these, including the prism that allowed one to see in the dark and another that granted its holder a temporarily raised power and might.

He lived an incredibly long life, almost a thousand years. In 1319 NY, Congenio finally passed to the realms of the gods.