Editing Novius Dorian (section)

== Early Adulthood & The Halls ==
Approximately one month after his nameday, Novius left King's Pride with little warning. He traveled straight to Noveste to study with the wizards in Coldhaven Academy, despite his father's protestations. While there, his arcane study veered quickly toward necromancy, where he became obsessed with raising the dead as minions to serve him in mundane affairs. He quickly became known as the "One with Bones," referring to his skeleton servants. He received his robes on 6 Lowsummer, 3242, after 20 years of study, and was named Honorary Archmage of Coldhaven, an honor given mainly due to his royal status. (His brother, Erlighein, would become the actual Archmage many years later.)

His study complete, Novius dug deep into arcane research on necromancy, traveling all across Dorian in search of relics and texts that would aid him in discovering "the secret of death," as he later called it. Despite his near immortality as a high elf, Novius was concerned with dying and prolonging his life, even if he were to be killed. He was keenly aware of his family's history of being assassinated, and thus began sowing contingency plans in case that should happen to him, especially after he became Emperor.

Novius seemed completely uninterested in relationships, or even friendships, with some historians later referring to him as asexual and more focused on his work and secret goals than anything else. This was another point of contention between Novius and his father, who wanted desperately for his son to conceive his own heir. (In the end, only Brycella Dorian had any children, and all were heirs to their father's islands in Morentar--islands the tabaxi would reclaim quickly after the Empire's fall later on.) Novius kept extensive journals of his research, with little information beyond that, aside from a few notes about his frustrations with Urmenator sending "bored women to his door."<sup>[2]</sup>

In 3209 VR, Novius was contacted by Eggleston, who revealed that he had begun construction on the Halls of Gleaming Splendor. Perched atop the back of a dead god floating in the Astral Sea (or so Eggleston claims; there are no windows in the dungeon to prove the exact location outside), the Halls were meant to be a dangerous and devious puzzle, which would beguile any who entered and left few survivors. Eggleston requested that Novius travel to the Astral Sea to help with the Halls' construction, which Novius agreed, with one condition: that he be the first to complete its dangerous trials. Novius left Avo in 3210 VR via Eggleston's spelljammer, the ''Tumblerider'', which had plane shifting capabilities, and assisted with conception and construction of the Halls' many rooms for roughly ten years. According to Novius years later, Eggleston kicked him out as he wanted to keep most of the dungeon's secrets to himself.<sup>[3]</sup>

Returning to Avo, Novius resumed his necromantic studies, taking residence in Wellork Tower in the Mincemeat Ward of King's Pride and largely disappearing from public life for around 30 years, aside from a few brief interviews with Storybearers, who described him as "pale," "gaunt," and "seemingly lifeless." One Storybearer, Hyrin Komff, noted that Novius was eating very little: "There were plates and bowl stacked up in a corner of the larder, full of rotting food he did not finish. He seemingly subsisted on little more than water and coneilsia."<sup>[4][5]</sup> He was also visited by family on several occasions, including a stint with Erlighein in the mid 3240s which may have sparked his younger brother's desire to pursue the arcane arts.

In 3258 VR, Novius was once again contacted by Eggleston, as the Halls were complete. Novius arrived a year later and spent around three years within the Halls, before finally completing it in 3262 VR. The journey took him nearly to death several times, and upon exiting, he provided Eggleston with pages of notes on how to make the Halls harder. He then left the Astral Sea, never to speak to the gnome again.