Acilia Macrinus
Acilia Macrinus, known by her moniker The Siphoness, is a member of The Mages and known Lich. Prior and during the events of Sleeping Giants, she designed and built the world's first Artificial Arcane Controller, which was later destroyed by Lyla Hellebore.
Recent Events
Sleeping Giants
During his info dump, Bigby informed the Risen that Acilia was a member of The Mages, a secret organization dedicated to preventing the Tarrasque from awakening and ending all known civilization.[1]
In a flashback, Lyla Hellebore had a brief encounter with Acilia and saw the shipment that was being delivered from Skyhammer with her own eyes. Acilia caught her snooping and erased her memory, but seeing the large blue dragon skeleton underneath Sulta Ixen brought it all flooding back.[2]
Going off of Lyla's memory, the Risen tracked down and spoke with Acilia. She confirmed that she was a Lich, and that it was her fake phylactery that they found outside of Skyhammer. As a lich, she had lived for potentially thousands of years, and had survived multiple awakenings of the Tarrasque in the past. She had agreed to work with The Mages because keeping the Tarrasque at bay was mutually beneficial - though she had survived the Tarrasque in the past, it was only a matter of time before it stumbled upon her lab and destroyed everything she worked so hard to achieve. She was not the mastermind behind The Mages, however, that title belonged to a Drow Elf named Geurion Nikodemus.
Within her lab, Acilia had two gigantic pieces of machinery. Both were large cylinders several stories tall, one was made of metal and one was made of a combination of Blue Ore and bone. The metal machine was a massive Arcane Gate, located directly on top of an Abjuration Bridge.This was one of the primary Gates used in preventing The Call. The bone/ore machine was an artificial Arcane Controller, created by Acilia herself in an attempt to recreate the naturally occurring Arcane Controller underneath Sulta Ixen. It was functional, though she was unsure if it would be powerful enough to completely replace the natural Controller in the event that it was destroyed. Elaina Nile informed her that once the Tarrasque was dealt with, then the Artificial Controller must be destroyed. Acilia disagreed.
Finally, Jordan Steingard asked about Acilia's agreement with Skyhammer, and what she's paying them in exchange for so much Blue Ore and living humans. Her answer was, quite simply, a lot of money. On top of that, Skyhammer had some rights to the research Acilia had performed. The agreement was made so long ago, however, that Skyhammer likely barely remembered she even existed.[3]
Jordan (and an unconscious Stratton Traushaft Pipsquanchy) stuck around after the rest of the Risen left Acilia's hideout. He asked her about the history of Skyhammer, and if she ever met Thalos himself. She responded that she had indeed met Thalos once or twice, back when he was first preparing for his assault on Hell. As it turned out, Acilia was the primary cause for the fiends invading the Material Plane to begin with.
When Acilia first rose to lichdom, she was granted her powers by Lady Fierna, the ruler of Phlegethos. In exchange for becoming a lich, she was required to make regular sacrifices to Fierna. These sacrifices were done at present-day Skyhammer, where a permanent link between the Material Plane and the Nine Hells was opened in order to transfer the sacrificial energy. Years later, when Nileraxxemon died and the Arcane Bridges formed, the permanent link evolved into a very power Necromancy Bridge. It was around this same time that Acilia decided she no longer needed Fierna, and stopped the sacrifices. Fierna retaliated by slowly sending fiends through the Necromancy Bridge into the Material Plane.
It was around this time that Skyhammerites showed up and began fighting the fiends back. Eventually they formed an alliance with Acilia. With her knowledge of sacrificial energies, they were able to beat back the fiendish army and imprison them in Hell, so long as a steady flow of sacrifices fed the shackles.
After hearing most of Acilia's life story, Jordan then began to wonder about lands beyond Dormia. He asked if Acilia had ever been to the other continents. She informed him that she had, but not for long enough to be able to answer any questions satisfactorily. She did confirm, however, that the other lands had their own Tarrasque problems. All throughout the entire world of Orbis, she estimated there were between 1-2 dozen Tarrasques in total. Whether a single Call would awaken all of them simultaneously or not, she could not say.[4]
After the destruction of Stir Peak and the appearance of the large white dome, Acilia abandoned her old lab (which was destroyed by Lyla Hellebore) to set up a new research facility on the eastern side of the dome.[5]
