I did some lore research, and here’s what I found according to the unit descriptions in the game.
Angels that the Temple can recruit as its T7 unit are merely imitations of real angels, created via some semi-magical, semi-scientific rite. This rite is supposedly performed in “heavily protected buildings,” where the highest church officials construct angels, most likely using machinery of the Ancients (i.e., the creators of the planet Enroth, where the story takes place).
From the Archangels’ description, we find out that angels are created by placing a human soul into what is basically a golem or an animatronic construct — the Temple’s angel.
The description of Apotheosis reveals the reasons why angels abandoned the Temple’s cause. They were not as intolerant, bereft of mercy, or zealous as the Temple demanded them to be.
But where did the real angels go?
To find an answer, one has to complete the challenge of clearing a map object called the Point of Balance. After defeating its guard, the player is rewarded with a Sentinel of Glory joining their army. And it seems that they are the real deal!
The Sentinels left the Temple to “serve the balance between the Four Scholars of Magic,” an explanation that doesn’t yet make much sense. However, some information can be found in the Sentinels’ abilities, which are…
Arina’s/Naira’s/Doreath’s/Hksmilla’s Way, which are most likely related to the Daylight, Night, Arcane, and Primal magic scholars. Also, it’s clear from the images that Doreath (the Arcane magic scholar) is connected with dragons, and Hksmilla (the scholar of Primal magic) looks and sounds like something coming from either the Hive or the Grove.
And it seems that the Sentinels serve neither all of these scholars nor any particular one, but rather “the balance between” them. It’s likely that through this balance, they are able to use all four schools of magic at once, achieving some sort of divine equilibrium.
Let’s return to the Point of Balance and to its guardians — the Worldwatchers. Their description claims that Worldwatchers were created by Sentinels to “report to their masters and see if anything needs to be fixed.” If that’s true, it’s reasonable to speculate that Worldwatchers observe instances of imbalance in the world and report them to Sentinels so they can “fix” them. The description of the Point of Balance hints that the Worldwatchers should be spying on the Temple as the Sentinels are “cautious of the Church's expanding influence." Maybe the Sentinels see the Church’s affiliation with the Daylight magic as an instance of imbalance? Because, after all, it’s the balance between the Four Scholars of Magic the Sentinels are serving now. But who are these scholars?
The description of the Temple of Four Scholars, (posted by Unfrozen here https://www.reddit.com/r/OldenEra/s/zMdwTqTL0n) states that they were powerful and creative mortals now revered as gods. That explains why a peasant NPC in the first mission of the campaign refers to Arina as a goddess. But even though the Scholars are mortals, they are not dead yet, because according to the Four Scholars Shrine map object’s description “Arina, Naira, Doreath, and Hksmilla still walk Enroth. And by communing with them, they can guide heroes onto new paths”.
For now, I’m not ready to speculate or come up with major hypotheses about what’s going on with angels, but there are some questions worth investigating:
What are the protected buildings that the Temple uses to create angels?
Which part of Enroth do Scholars still walk? Jadame? Antagarich?
Do the Sentinels follow the Ancients’ orders, obey the Four Scholars or act on their own?
Also, if each Scholar represents a school of magic, shouldn’t there be a fifth Scholar responsible for the neutral magic?
The list of questions goes on. Where else do you think I should search for answers? Artifact descriptions seem like the most logical place to continue!
