by Lidellia
Some say that it is we mortals who, in the whims of our worship, cause the rise and fall of the gods. A god with a hundred believers is ten times as powerful as one with ten believers. If such theories are true, we may be, in this very moment of history, witnessing the fall of a god.
The story begins long ago, in old Masalla.
Our modern magic was born in Masalla, and it was likely the first time our ancestors began to develop cultivated and accepted methods for harnessing magical energy and shaping it to their needs.
Those old practitioners swiftly learned that among the deities of Kaelum there dwelled one god who dictated the ebb and flow of magical energy throughout the lands of Carador. Although natural cycles of magic existed, it was found that prayer to this god, called by the name of Solden, could create powerful magical effects. In those days most practitioners were, essentially, priests of Solden.
But as magical practice became more refined, and its use was directed toward the needs of war, a division began, and many of the practitioners forgot to pray to Solden. They focused instead on discovering and utilizing the underlying principles of magic. Thus, only practitioners still concerned with magical experimentation and the creation of intense and potent rituals prayed to Solden. The new ‘Substance’ practitioners left Solden behind.
While Solden still granted most of his power to the old magicians, the new ones continued to use what was available to them to create the fastest, most efficient magical systems they could. And Solden, weakened from lack of worshippers, began to grow grey.
Then the whims of the courts turned, and worship of gods grew popular again. So the new magicians, now all friends of the courts (who paid for much of their reagents and other necessary tools of practice), decided that they needed a deity of their own.
Solden, of course, was available. He was, after all, the god of magic. But with his mysterious, ponderous, ceremonial ways and methods, and his esoteric philosophies that had little to do with practicality, Solden didn’t seem fitting. They couldn’t just make up a god, so what could they do? Modernize Solden.
They simply translated his old Masallan name, Solden, into the new, Caradorian equivalent of Sebastian. They told the courts that Sebastian, the reincarnation of the dead Solden, had become more refined, more courtly, and wholeheartedly endorsed using magic for war, for entertainment, and for pleasure. The old Solden images were destroyed, buried, or thrown into the forests, and replaced with statues portraying a young, handsome courtly mage, expressive and witty and fun.
But Solden was not really dead, only greatly weakened. Yet, as the worshippers of Sebastian, who was simply an aspect of Solden himself, swiftly grew, Solden grew in power as well, and had little choice but to manifest in his "Sebastian" guise if he wished to keep his followers.
In an odd way, a new god was born.
Sebastian’s temples became places where the nobles could go to have magic done for their benefit or amusement. And the mages of Sebastian, in return for giving their magic to the higher folk, enjoyed tremendous prestige, wealth, and social power.
Still, worshippers of Solden practiced their mysterious ways in secret, even when magic was outlawed by all but court-sanctioned practitioners. And so it has remained until the coming of Queen Lillian.
With the Queen’s new renaissance, the practice of magic was abruptly made legal once again.
Since that time, the scattered remains of the old Solden worshippers, have crept out of hiding and quietly taken up their experiments and practices once again. Though they possess immense power, they are very scarce, and not all are well-disposed toward society at large. Still, some of them have come back to civilization and are spreading the word of Solden, hoping to gain worshippers among the new magicians emerging from the school at Lysandra, or from those training with private practitioners. They speak of a fresh emergence of magic, of a growing time in which new, incredible magics will shape the course of the world. And they tell the story of Solden and Sebastian, of how worshippers of Sebastian are seeing only a tiny part of the whole that is Solden, the true God of Magic.
All would be fine, but for the fact that the worshippers of Sebastian continue to gain much from the nobles they serve. They hardly want the worshippers of Solden claiming that their god is not the true god.
Today, then, most magicians wield little in the way of true power, and the majority of them worship neither of the gods of magic. There are still the worshippers of Sebastian, his priests and a few priestesses, who enjoy not only social power, but significant magical power as well. Because they are so aptly funded they have much time to study and many resources at their disposal. And there remain as well the worshippers of Solden, commanding ancient, earth-trembling magics, yet numbering so few that their power, both socially and magically, is severely limited.
The followers of Sebastian are thus far successful in their efforts to scandalize their enemy. They have begun spreading rumors that the worshippers of Solden are an evil cult, intent on using magic to gain control of non-magic using people. "Testimonies" given by "former Solden-worshippers" claim that worshippers of the arcane god practice human sacrifice, blood ceremonies, and commit magical crimes against innocents. If they succeed in their intent, knowledge of Solden and the practice of the ancient magical arts could become extinct.
On the other end of the battle, people such as myself (I am not, for the record, a follower of Solden), and the magicians and priests and priestesses who still know of the old god, are doing all they can to establish a basis of truth concerning the whole matter. All that the devotees of Solden desire is the freedom to worship and practice their arts. That such practice will impede on the territory of the Sebastian worshippers is an unintentional, but very real, fact and will likely be the cause of many troubles yet to come.