Urania

# HISTORY OF URANIA

Then came the eliseons. Ancient beings who, though they look like humans, had the ability to turn into mist, and float through the air. The eliseons built cities atop clouds and a parallel world that took place above us. They also united the many tribes and little nations of the time under their rule.
The world unification under elision rule marks the start of our calendar, and the founding of the elision empire occurred at the year 0 of our era.
The eliseons ruled with an iron fist. All other races were enslaved and had little to no freedom. Humans, being the most numerous, suffered the most. Eliseon laws imposed harsh penalties, often times a death penalty, to even the slightest crimes. The world was unified, but unified in fear, and through violence. Some attempts were made at rebellion, but it was effectively impossible to strike at the elision flying cities, and all these attempts at freedom met with torture and the execution of all participants.

THE URAN VALLEY
In the year 317, a group of humans, attempting to escape their eliseon masters, discovered a remote valley located to the south of the continent. In this valley, there were 24 huge castles, and in each of these, one single occupant. 24 people, somewhat human in appearance, who dwelled, alone, in the valley. They called themselves “the urani”, and though they did not welcome the refugees with open arms, they also didn’t stop them from seeking shelter in their valley. The urani were, as it seemed, entirely uninterested in the refugees or their plight.
However, the eliseon forces that pursued them did not enter the valley. Upon reaching its entrance, they turned around and went away. Though the refugees couldn’t really understand why, it was clear to them that place offered a safe haven from the persecution and enslavement of the outside world. Thus, they decided to stay in the valley for as long as they could.
The eliseons came back and set watches upon the valley entrance. Whoever tried to leave the valley, was immediately taken down by their watch. The refugees realized they were trapped in there, but at least they could make of their life whatever they chose, if they only remained in the valley. And so, time passed.
Little by little, the refugees realized that the urani were human only in appearance. They didn’t need to eat or drink, they didn’t sleep. They could stay completely still for days on end, and never got sick, or grew old. They were, for all intents and purposes, as gods.
Some of the valley dwellers tried to befriend the urani, some started to serve them in hopes of falling in their favor, some started to worship them. Only a few remained neutral. Though the urani seemed to make it a point of pride to ignore their new neighbors, as the years went by, they began to open up. First they started to talk to them, then, to counsel them, and lastly, they began to teach them.
The urani taught the mortals many, many things. New ways of planting seeds, raising animals for food or transport, how to build better houses and using a variety of materials, taught them of herbs and healing. But of all the things the urani taught them, the most impressive and enlightening, was magic.
Within a few generations, the inhabitants of the Uran valley, who now called themselves “urvalians”, all had some measure of magical ability. Many were true masters, capable of such incredible feats of magic as to defy even the strongest laws of nature: they could fly, they could shape mountains and create food, they could kill with a word, and bring back their dead.

THE FALL OF THE ELISEONS
Yet, through all this time, the eliseons kept their watch at the valley, and prevented the urvalians from leaving. But the urvalians watched them back, and with their newfound powers, the soon began to question whether they should let the eliseons think they were trapping them, or if the time had come to actually put them in their place. In 493, a group of urvalians broke free from the valley and struck at the eliseons. The attack not only allowed all of them to leave the valley, but they actually pursued all of the eliseons in the watch and killed them all. This was the first of many victories for mankind against the eliseon empire.
The urvalians took control of their own valley, and from there coordinated a series of strikes at the heart of eliseon forces. As the eliseons fell under the power of urvalian magic, formerly controlled regions began to rebel and join their cause. One by one, the eliseon sky cities fell, until their very capital was besieged, and, in 523, completely destroyed. The eliseon empire had come to an end.
The most prominent leader of the rebellion, an urvalian mage by the name of Inopus, founded the Inopus empire. Later on, the known continent would inherit its name: Inopia.

INOPUS AND THE MAGISTRATES
The first years of the Inopus empire were marked by a continuing persecution to surviving eliseons. Not satisfied in deposing them, Inopus pursued them wherever they were to be found, slaughtering all eliseon survivors. The eliseon race came close to extinction, and even today, very few remain due to Inopus’ persecution.
Inopus ruled his empire with a much more liberal approach than his eliseon predecessors. His most notable act was the abolishing of slavery in the year 612. People were, for the first time in their memories, free.
But Inopus would not allow just anyone to share in his rule. His empire was centralized and monolithic, and allowed for very little social mobility. He had a paranoid hunger for control and power, and would not let any of his citizens have their lives not defined by the new empire’s laws. Chief among his fears, was the fear of being deposed, and to prevent that, he made the teaching of magic illegal.
Inopus also closed the Uran valley and decreed that the urani should be left alone. After the fall of the eliseon empire, thousands of people started to show interest in the valley and the urani in specific. Inopus couldn’t allow others to talk to the urani and learn the same secrets that he and the other urvalians discovered, so not only he forbade any worship to the urani, but he also attempted to remove this information from all known books and texts.

THE MARINER WAR
Perhaps the greatest mistake of Inopus was the mariner war. The mariners are an amphibious humanoid race who lived underwater, in their kingdom of Tir-Na-Mara. Like the other races, they had been oppressed by the eliseons, and like them, they broke free when the urvalians toppled the eliseon empire. However, due to their aquatic nature, they had always been a closed-out society that had little actual contact with the “dry-landers”, as they would call it.
But Inopus saw in them a possible threat, and in 876, decided to strike preemptively before they had time to plan an invasion of his empire. The first attacks were only marginally successful, and it became soon evident that it was much harder to attack an underwater fortress than an aerial one. The mariners struck back and quickly recovered much of their lost territory. Their chief strategy, though, wasn’t just retaliatory, they focused on capturing mages, and extracting from them the secrets of their craft.
As the war dragged on, and mariner raids on coastal cities became more and more vicious, Inopus was forced to direct an ever-increasing number of resources to deal with them. The appearance of mariner mages seemed to drive him mad in his efforts to eliminate them, and the war taxes became impossibly high. Famine spread through much of the land, as the people became unable to cope with the taxes, and with famine, came civil disorder, and rebellion.
In 902, after much negotiation, Inopus and the mariners agreed to an end to all hostilities. It is written that Inopus was forced to this ceasefire by his generals, as even they were threatening to rebel if the war wouldn’t come to an end. This was Inopus last chance to try and keep his empire together. It was, however, already too late.

INOPUS IS DEPOSED
Inopus’ advisors, all urvalians who had fought against the eliseon empire, rebelled against him in unison. In 903, Inopus was deposed and executed away from public eyes. No body was ever produced, and evidence of his death is dubious even today. Many, at the time, thought that he was let go, and lived away from public eyes for the rest of his life. It is, however, improbable that one such as he would accept this fate so calmly, and thus the private execution theory is still the most accepted one.
Aware of how power had corrupted Inopus, his advisors decided to establish a shared rule between nine magistrates. They split the empire in eight areas of activity: Economy and trade, Laws, Police and Army, Instruction, Infrastructure, Espionage, Culture, Magic, and to each of them one magistrate was elected. A final one was elected as moderator, and to him fell the deciding vote when the eight couldn’t agree on a specific policy.

THE MAGISTRATE’S RULE
The time of the nine magistrates was a time of great enlightenment and advance for the world. Magic was again taught, and many schools were opened throughout the empire. The Uran valley was reopened, and people were allowed to see the urani once again.
Among the greatest accomplishments of the magistrates are the unification of language, which lasts until today, the unification of currency, which allowed for increased commerce and an economic boom, and the unification of laws.
The magistrates also erected huge stone monuments in honor of their own wisdom and power. Many believe that coded in the glyphs inscribed in these monuments are obscure magical secrets that have thus been lost. They also created and gathered objects of immense magical might, and hid them away to prevent others from misusing its powers. Many of the labyrinths they created to protect these items are still untouched, and its secrets await to be brought to surface once again.

NALVIR, THE PROPHET
In the year 1500, there was already a large cult to the urani spreading throughout the empire. The cult gained strength, and as it spread, so too did its philosophy fall under heavier and heavier scrutiny, in which it didn’t always held. Because the urani never said they were gods, and never denied it, and because they flat out refused to talk about it, it was difficult to establish exactly how they should be worshipped, and what could be expected of them.
For one young scholar, such inconsistencies simply could not stand. His name was Nalvir, and he sought to clear every point of faith once and for all by going to the source of that knowledge: the urani themselves.
As was to be expected, the urani received him – meaning that they didn’t prevent him from entering their home, but they also said nothing, and mostly ignored his pleas. However, Nalvir was persistent, and at one point – after three years of attempts – one of the Urani decided to ask him what was it that he wanted after all.
Nalvir asked the urani to teach him everything there was to be known about life, death, the universe and everything else. The urani though that request was unlike all others they had heard, and considered it for forty two days. In the end, they told Nalvir they didn’t have the answer he sought, not the complete answer anyway, but they knew more about it that he did. The urani told him they would be willing to teach him everything they knew if Nalvir would undergo through twenty four tests: Six tests of intellect, six tests of willpower, six tests of character, and six tests of strength. Nalvir accepted, and went on to undergo what became known as “the urani trials”. It took him five years to complete them all, and at the end, though exhausted beyond measure, Nalvir was granted the right to learn from the urani everything they knew. The first and only individual to this date known to have gained this right.
The urani taught him for twelve years: six months for each urani. When Nalvir emerged again from the uran valley in 1520, he was no longer an avid young scholar, but an accomplished spiritual master.
Nalvir returned to the empire and started teaching about the philosophy he learned from the urani, which, in most points, was completely opposite to that which the cult to the urani preached. He found great resistance to what he had to say, especially in the great cities, where the cult to the urani was already well established. It was in the country, in the small towns, that he found fertile ground to his teachings.
In little time, Nalvir gathered a following which numbered thousands. The simple way he taught his philosophy allied with the spiritual depth it contained was irresistible to many. There were even some converts among the cultists of urani. Tensions between the two groups rose quickly, and soon Nalvir faced death threats and assassination attempts.
However, that didn’t deter him. Nalvir kept wandering throughout the empire, never staying in one place for long enough to put the established powers at risk, but also staying enough to say what he had to say to whoever wanted to hear. Among his followers, many accomplished fighters and mages stood out as they counseled him and saved his life on numerous occasions.
One such follower was Elia Varnon, a very, very powerful human sorceress who found in Nalvir’s teachings the definitive truth, uniting magic and spirituality. Varnon performed many miracles – some say more than Nalvir himself, and became known as Nalvir’s second in command. Many say they were lovers, and though the exact nature of Nalvir and Varnon’s relation has never been proven, that didn’t stop many plays and songs to be written about their romantic and tragic love.

VARNON AND THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE
By 1543 Nalvir was for all practical purposes the leader of a huge moving army, who now called themselves “nalvirians”. The constant danger to Nalvir himself and to the nalvirians soon lead his trusted friends to start talking about retaliatory strikes and taking over the cult of the urani. Up until then, Nalvir had managed to keep a peaceful stance towards the many threats and abuses he and the nalvirians suffered, but at one point, it became clear that with a concentrated effort, they had an actual chance of neutralizing these threats by their core: attacking the cult itself.
Varnon, however, had a different, more ambitious approach. She wanted to take over the whole empire. Not many supported her, but she was convinced of her ability to do so. Singlehandedly, if need be.
Nalvir was radically against that notion. “A position of power corrupts easily”, he said, “and one cannot hope to follow a path of enlightenment while putting himself in the way of corruption”. Varnon didn’t dispute that, but believed that even if she were to corrupt herself to political power, it was a necessary sacrifice in order to assure that Nalvir, the nalvirians, and his teachings would survive.
In that time, the magistrate of culture had also been assigned a role as overseer of religious matters, which basically meant making sure the cult of the urani weren’t causing too much trouble. His name was Yardun, and in his much dealings with the cult, he ended up taking the cult’s side against the nalvirians on numerous occasions: preventing them from entering some cities, ruling against the nalvirians on legal disputes, and even sentencing some of them to death after a skirmish with cultist followers.
In 1545, Varnon and a small band of mages struck at the city of Kaastanati, where Yardun lived, and there they killed him. It was the first time since the rebellion against the eliseons that a mortal managed to kill an urvalian. The other magistrates were forced to retaliate, and amassed an imperial army to attack Nalvir and his followers.
The imperial army outnumbered the nalvirians three to one, and accounting for the fact that among the nalvirians were elders and children, their actual fighting force was much smaller. In an attempt to prevent a massacre, Nalvir asked to parlay with the imperial generals. He offered himself as prisoner in order to spare the life of his followers, which the generals promptly accepted. Nalvir was imprisoned and taken to the capital of Inopia. Most of the nalvirians, stunned at this news, followed quietly.
While in prison, the generals which interrogated Nalvir were genuinely impressed with his eloquence and character. So much that three of them wanted to just set him free. The magistrates themselves interrogated Nalvir in the matter of his followers, his faith and his intentions towards the empire, and found it difficult to put any blame to him at all.
Meanwhile, Varnon, taken with remorse for having caused the imprisonment of her spiritual leader, attempted a daring rescue of Nalvir from the imperial capital. In a session where Nalvir was being interrogated by the magistrates, and, as legend goes, just when the magistrates were about to clear Nalvir of all charges, Varnon struck, took down the imperial palace’s defenses, and entered the interrogation chamber. She fought the magistrates in their own home, and there, before her master, she defeated them all.
Nalvir was so enraged at Varnon’s act that before Varnon had a chance to recover from the fight, Nalvir expelled her from his followers, forsook their friendship, and left, never to look at her again.
But the magistrates were gone, and the empire, as was known back then, was no more.

VARNON’S RULE
Varnon was so wounded at Nalvir’s refusal of their friendship that she missed the chance to take hold of the empire. For centuries, the magistrates had been the single, most unquestionable source of authority. Many believed they would last forever. Without them, people all over became unsure of who or what to do, whose order to follow. While the many regions of the empire fell into administrative chaos, Varnon locked herself away in the imperial palace for many weeks. From the chaotic outlook of the empire, regional leaderships arose, and some of those started to rule their own pieces of the empire autonomously.
When Varnon finally snapped out of her depression, she found the empire divided, and talks of civil war spreading like wildfire. In order to put a stop to this, she crowned herself empress, and forced an oath of fealty from the eight most influential regional leaders. Varnon’s reputation was still strong, and nobody wanted to cross the one woman who managed to kill all magistrates, so they did swear allegiance to her, and were thus proclaimed kings of their regions.
That didn’t encompass the whole of the empire, though, and many smaller leaderships still struggled against themselves. Most of the first years of Varnon’s rule were spent dealing with these small wars in order to establish the power of the eight kings, and more years were spent dealing with the kings themselves as they fought over pieces of their borders whose ownership wasn’t quite clear. More often than not, Varnon had to impose a ruling by force, reminding the kings of her power and how she could easily take them down. While that did work in the short term, resentment against her only grew as time went by.
For all of Varnon’s horrible diplomatic skills, and even though she had been cast out of the nalvirians, it is undeniable that she was instrumental in establishing the nalvirians as a solid religious institution throughout the empire. She passed, and enforced many laws which allowed them to preach without fear of reprisals, and gave them exemption of many taxes that were usually imposed on citizens. It seems that she never stopped trying to repay her debt to Nalvir, whatever that was in her mind.
Also, Nalvir’s expelling of her from his followers had a huge impact on how the nalvirians would organize from there on. It became forbidden for a nalvirians to take on a political role, and this separation of the nalvirians from political power lessened many worries that some leaders had about trusting nalvirians in their lands.
Nalvir passed away in 1566, at the age of 87. It is said that in his last days Varnon visited him one last time, in which they spoke in private. Nobody know what they talked about, but after this meeting, Many of Varnon’s secretaries and officials reported that she seemed calmer, tranquil, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

THE DRAGON WARS
Fearful of Varnon’s power, and unwilling to trust someone who only ruled by use of threats and force, the eight kings secretly amassed all magical power they could. In 1763, Varnon executed the daughter of the king of Hadler that was staying at the imperial palace after she found her trying to smuggle out secrets from Varnon’s personal library. This execution was the tipping point in Hadler’s allegiance, and the king openly declared war against Varnon.
Varnon, enraged, called all other kings to her aid, but to her surprise, they all declared war against her, in defense of Hadler. Varnon took matters into her own hands, and as she mobilized her army for defense, she herself attacked the city of Aliansar, Hadler’s capital.
However, even though the nobles knew they couldn’t defeat her face to face, they knew enough to evade her attacks, and Hadler’s king and family hid away from her for time enough for the kingdoms’ forces to attack the imperial lands.
Varnon had no option other than return to protect her lands. As powerful as she was, though, she couldn’t be everywhere at once, and little by little, she lost ground to the kings. In 1768, the capital of Inopia was surrounded by the king’s armies. This siege dragged on. Varnon had more than enough power to protect her last remaining capital, but still, whatever ground she gained through her own efforts was soon lost. Her armies were broken, dispirited and worn out.
In 1778, after ten years of siege, a focused strike by the king’s armies took over the imperial city and forced Varnon to fall back to the palace. It seemed all was lost for her. In a last, desperate attempt, she produced a magical artifact from the time of Inopus that was locked away in the palace’s vault: a crown that could control dragons.
Dragons had always existed in Urania. They were the undisputed masters of the skies, and the sighting of one dragon was enough to put many farming communities in a state of panic. They lived forever, they were huge, ferocious beasts, and immensely magical.
When Varnon seemed ready to fall, what came to her aid was an army of dragons raging through the skies. The devastation they visited upon the kings’ armies was unheard of. Thousands of soldiers died like flies. The cerulean river ran red with blood.
Amidst the dragon onslaught, one of the kings, along with a group of heroes, managed to reach Varnon and fight against her. He was Thurdren, king of the now lost kingdom of Thurigia. Thurdren fought Varnon and, in a desperate, suicide attack, managed to break her crown just as he was disintegrated by one of her spells.
All of a sudden, the whole of the dragon army was freed from Varnon’s control. Blind with fury for being thus used, the dragons directed their wrath to the ones who had most offended them: humans in general.
No one was safe anymore. Destruction ran rampant. Varnon knew even she could not win this fight, fled to the kingdom of Thurigia, and once again by force declared herself queen of the new kingdom of Varnon.
Not one stone was left standing of the imperial city. When the dragons were through with the city of Inopia, they began ravaging the countryside, killing anything that moved in two legs. Their rage was unending. So much death and magical power was released in the imperial lands that many monstrous mythical beasts migrated there, and retaking them became impossible. In time, the forest took over what was once the cosmopolitan center of the empire, and to this day, that became the accursed land known as “Inopia Forest”.
But the dragons were not content on destroying the center of the empire. They wanted to end mankind. And mankind, with no option left, responded. As more and more cities fell to the dragon’s wrath, the kings gathered mages from every corner in hopes of finding a solution for the crisis.
Varnon, in her new kingdom, was having problems of her own to establish her power, and being most distant from the devastation area, opted to stay out of the fight against the dragons, at least until the dragons had weakened the other kingdoms enough for her to make a comeback.

THE EIGHT SACRED WEAPONS
Unsurprisingly, the dragons stood clear of the uran valley, and like seventeen hundred years before, refugees found its place to the valley. This time, though, for an unexplainable reason, the urani weren’t uninterested in the human’s plight. In fact, they seemed very troubled by the excessive human presence in their home, and flat out told them all to leave at once.
The urani gave them all one day to clear the valley. Some refused. When dawn came the next day, they were all dead. The leader of the refugees, a nalvirian priest called Theron begged the urani for help against the dragons, in the name of the friendship they bore to Nalvir. Some of the urani simply laughed at him. One uran, a female known as “the white lady”, took pity on them and told Theron of a way to overcome the dragons. He would have to uncover eight ancestral weapons, reforge them under specific spells, and recreate them with the power to pierce the dragon’s defenses, while protecting its user from their breath.
News of this quest spread, and soon every man and woman with any kind of fighting skill was looking for the weapons. In two years they were all found, taken to the city of Tetrehahn, where they were reforged and Theron re-enchanted them. They were: a bow, a sword, a spear, an axe, a staff, a trident, a knife and a morningstar.
Now the war took a different turn. Armed with the eight weapons, mankind was able to stave off the dragon’s attacks. Dragons were incredibly powerful, but they were actually few in number, and every one that fell to the human forces was a victory worthy of many armies.
Defeating the dragons took great strategic planning. The first battles were bloody massacres where most fighters died and the weapons were nearly destroyed. As time went by, the many forces involved in the battle against them banded together as a single, cohese fighting organization known as “The Dragon Scourge”, a company that exists until today. Having developed specific strategies to fight these beats, the Scourge used massive armies as distractions to give eight fighters the opening they needed to strike at each dragon.
Victories mounted for the Scourge’s forces. At last, in 1800, after over twenty years of destruction, the dragons stopped fighting humans and dispersed.
The Dragon Scourge, however, was not disbanded. It continued to hunt down dragons wherever they were. They nearly wiped them all out, and legend holds that the few remaining dragons only avoided death by turning themselves into humans, and living among the very people they once sought to exterminate.

THE VARNON WAR
In 1801, Varnon declared war against all other kingdoms. After twenty years battling dragons, they were battered down, their economies were in chaos, and their forces were worn out. Varnon easily conquered the regions by the elder sea.
After the initial momentum, though, the war lost most of its speed, and each victory came at greater and greater cost. Varnon herself fought in the front lines, and it was mostly because of her that her armies got their victories. Little by little, she advanced.
By 1807, she conquered Ehren. By 1813, Lok surrendered. Nelion feel in 1820 after Varnon eradicated their entire royal lineage.
Unbeknownst to her, though, the mages of the kingdom of Khodre, the fiercest of spellcasters, had been studying a way to increase their magical power since the first war against her, before the dragon wars. They developed a secret technique by means of which a mage couldn draw power from nearby vegetation, destroying the vegetation but gaining a considerable boost to spellcasting. In 1823. Varnon was tricked into a single combat against the queen of Khodre. In this fight, the near entirety of Khodre mages assisted her, and as the history goes, they drained the whole kingdom out of vegetation. The influx of magical power was so great that not even Varnon could withstand it. She, the queen, all mages involved and a great part of the population was turned to ash. The great sorceress, lover of Nalvir, empress of Urania, at last, was defeated.

THE MAGICAL PURGE
In the aftermath of Varnon’s death, almost all of her conquests were lost. The population of Ehren rebelled and started killing mages. The people of Nelion began a revolt and overthrew the local government, instead installing a democratic government. The rulers appointed to the kingdom of Lok proclaimed independence, only to be murdered by remaining members of the royal family.
Most notable of all, though, people all over seemed to have had enough of magic. A mage killed the magistrates, a mage destroyed the empire and unleashed the dragon wars, mages devastated the kingdom of Khodre and turned it into a desert wasteland. Mages seemed the cause of all world’s ills. They simply had to be stopped.
In 1825 a council of influential nobles, generals and scholars gathered and signed the “alliance for the purge of magic”. Their goal: to eliminate magic, magical knowledge and magical artifacts. To this end, they gathered all known techniques used to fight against spellcasters, and started to recruit mostly people who already displayed a measure of magic resistance.
The world leaders, who were also quite displeased with mages in general, did not oppose the purge at first. With free reign to do as they pleased against mages in general, the purge began a thorough hunt of any spellcaster, whether they were man, woman, elder or youth.
The purge grew as more and more people victimized by one or another mage joined their ranks. Soon, they were a sizeable army that commanded a handful of castles and fortresses. At first, some mages fought back, but mages were not as numerous as the purge’s agents, and sooner or later, they were either captured of killed.
In 1838 the purge’s tactics shifted noticeably. Instead of killing mages on sight, they began capturing them whenever they could. The reason for this soon became apparent: the purge had developed a technique through which they could destroy a person’s magical aptitude. Mages thus devoid of their powers became dim-witted, depressive folk who served as a living reminder of what happened to those that dared try spellcasting.
Throughout this time, only the kingdom of Varnon didn’t welcome the purge’s forces in their lands. The purge, though, didn’t let that stop them, and smuggled undercover agents into Varnon for years. In fact, the kingdom of Varnon, a self-proclaimed magocracy, was the target of all of the purge’s efforts. They were the constant enemy, the last, great foe to beat.
As time went by, the purge began to slowly, but steadily lose favor with local nobles. For one, the nobility didn’t much care for the presence of a sizeable army in their lands who weren’t answerable to them. And then, there were the matter of their growing abuses. The purge started to see not only spellcasters, but anyone with magical aptitude as a potential threat. Thus, they hunted down and sometimes spirited away random people just because they were suspected of having magery. This didn’t really help their relations with locals. Also, they would imprison people just for having had some relation with a mage. Their hunt, as it were, was bordering paranoia.
The purge slowly shifted from an organization with a clear purpose to a political weapon. Sometimes, a noble would invite them into his lands because he wanted to get rid of a rival. These maneuvers had a tendency to backfire, but always ended by increasing people’s fears in the purge.
Oddly enough, this served to bolster the influence of the church of Nalvir like nothing else. People were already afraid of mages, now they were afraid of those who hunted mages, they never really trusted the nobles, who would they turn to? Only the church provided them any sort of solace.
Most likely, the purge would have ended magic in Urania if not for the secret efforts of the Varnon magocracy.
Just as the purge sent undercover agents into Varnon, the Varnon leaders attempted to return the favor by selecting five elite spies and sending them to infiltrate the purge. Their adventures were largely documented (and mostly embellished), but after a long period of trials, they at last got into the purge’s inner circle.
What they discovered, though, was staggering. The purge was being secretly controlled by an undead wizard called Xargon who was in fact feeding off the power of captured the mages. As he drained their ability, he increased his at the expense of destroying it in the others. Not only that, but the purge made extensive use of magical artifacts to identify people with magical potential and bring them to Xargon. The purge’s ideal was, in fact, a lie.
These spies further discovered that Xargon planned on taking over the entire world, turning every intelligent being into his own private source of power. The mages were only the first step, the most immediate threats he had to eliminate before revealing himself.
With this knowledge, in 1871, the leaders of Varnon sent the purge a message indicating they were willing to talk, to surrender their mages to the purge. Such offer obviously had to be discussed at length, and the purge’s leaders gathered at their headquarters in the fortress of Sydon. During this gathering, the Varnon spies barged into the room and handed them all the proof showing they had all been lied to from the start.
A few of the purge’s generals refused to believe what they were seeing. Most did, though, and turned against Xargon then and there. The ensuing battle was devastating, claiming the lives of mostly everyone present. In the end, Xargon could not be defeated, but was so weakened he fled to another plane, never to be heard from in Urania. Many of the survivors believe that had they used actual magic against Xargon, he wouldn’t just have ran away, but he could have been in fact destroyed.
The purge effectively ended in 1871. Most of its soldiers lost all faith in the cause after finding out that it’s all been a farce from the start. Even for some of those who did still believe in the cause, the doubt gnawing at back of their minds robbed them of much of their zeal: wouldn’t killing mages actually make Urania more vulnerable to future threats like Xargon’s?
Only the kingdom of Ehren opted to maintain the purge’s forces, now a branch of their own military. In fact, Ehrenians became so abhorrent to magic that spellcasters are now forbidden into their kingdom, under penalty of death. That is the last vestige of the purge that remains.

THE AGREN ISLES
As the nations of Urania were recovering from the devastating Varnon wars, a discovery shook the entirety of the balance of power among them. In 1879, a young independent captain from Khren, trying to find a new commercial route that would go around the planet and reach Ehren without crossing Hadler seas, stumbled upon a group of yet undiscovered isles. She was called Leana Agren, and these were called the Agren Isles: a place of lush vegetation, savage natives, mysterious stone ruins, and gold… lots of gold.
At first, Leanna and her crew kept the discovery a secret, and performed many trips to the isles, from which they brought so many gold that it is said even the lowest of her crewmates was able to get himself a castle and retire to a life of luxury. Eventually, though, the secret came out, and in 1893, the kingdom of Khren sent its first colonization expedition to the Agren isles. Other nations followed suit: Hadler and Tray being the first ones. In a matter of a few years, the whole of the Agren isles was split among these nations. The other nations: Lok, Nelion, Ehren and Varnon, got little to no presence in the Agren Isles, and resorted to financing piracy in order to get their hands on Agren’s gold.
Many other independent captains had the same idea, and by 1920, the whole of Urania had entered an unprecedented age of piracy.

THE WORLD AT WAR
Piracy ate at so much of Khren’s, Tray’s and Hadler’s profits that war became inevitable. Of all the nations that financed it, Lok was the most brazenly obvious. In 1928, Tray declared war on Lok, on the grounds that an attack on its merchant vessels was an attack on Tray itself.
Lok knew it had no hopes of winning a war against the now enriched nation of Tray, and thus, resorted to a military alliance with Hadler. Hadler signed the military alliance treaty with Lok with the promise from Lok that its financed pirate vessels would leave Hadler alone, and also because this war was the perfect pretext to acquire some of Tray’s islands. Faced with a war against two fronts, and unwilling to call off its war with Lok, Tray signed an alliance with Khren. Khren was an old enemy of Hadler, and was avid to acquire some of its continental territory.
Now, four of the seven uranian nations were at war. Throughout this entire crisis, Varnon kept quiet, having closed its borders since the end of the magical purge. Nelion and Ehren signed a military alliance, in hopes of protecting themselves from the war.
However, in 1935, Hadler arranged a marriage between its king and Ehren’s recently widowed queen. The marriage would make their offspring the one ruler of both kingdoms. Moreover, Hadler agreed to ban mages from its territory, as Ehren had, at the birth of the royal heir. Such marriage would not only make Hadler-Ehren the most powerful kingdom in Urania, it would put the Hadler-Lok alliance in such an advantage against Tray-Khren that their victory in the war was a foregone conclusion.
However, the day the marriage was about to be performed, Ehren’s queen and bride was found dead in her quarters. Upon investigation, Ehren’s royalty found evidence that she had been murdered by hired assassins paid by Hadler. War was the only possible reply to that.
In spite of their alliance, though, Nelion hesitated to go into war with Ehren against Hadler. They even mentioned that in their view the queen’s assassination wasn’t properly explained. This meant the end of their short-lived alliance.
As the rest of Urania fell into a bitter war which raged on land and sea, Nelion fortified its armies and vessels and prepared for the worst, when they too would be inevitably dragged into this conflict.

THE OCUPATION OF HADLER
Then came Surana Kaylen, an Ehrenian general whose brilliant strategic planning granted her several victories in the first stages of the war against Hadler. In this meantime, Lok attempted to invade Ehren, but was unable to bring a significant force to pass through Nelion’s controlled waters. This allowed Ehren to put pressure on Hadler as Hadler was forced to also face advances from Khren.
In 1943, Hadler’s capital of Aliansar fell to the armies of Surana Kaylen. This was followed by the unconditional surrender of the rest of Hadler’s higher nobility. Hadler was officially occupied by Ehren. Hadler’s ruling family fled to their Halderani islands in the Agren archipelago, and from there mounted a resistance against Ehren.
However, Khren wasn’t too happy about Ehren’s control of Hadler and maintained its border war, aiming at the conquest of lands it considered rightfully theirs. Tray was now fighting Lok alone, and without Khren’s support, their war became a war of attrition that soon degenerated into a bunch of skirmishes, as both nations turned their attention to the protection of their naval fleet.
Ehren also faced many internal problems while occupying Hadler. Mainly: groups of mages banded together and started to resist the occupation, due to Ehren’s policy of banning magic and outlawing its teaching and use. Such guerrilla effectively prevented Ehren from ever establishing a permanent control in Hadler, and kept the kingdom as an occupied state, instead of an integral part of Ehren, for many years.

THE AGREN INDEPENDENCE WARS
Hadler’s royal family, while in exile in the Agren archipelago, soon found out that it couldn’t possibly hope to recover Ehren anytime soon. Ehren effectively blocked any orders they could send into the mainland, and as Ehren’s anti-magic aura expanded, it even prevented magical communication with the mage resistance.
Help came to them from Varnon. Even though it was literally on the other side of the world, Varnon had agents in the Agren islands that communicated with Hadler’s royal family, and told of treasures buried under Agren’s mysterious stone temples which could help them unite all islands under their rule.
Nobody really knows the extent to which Hadler’s royal family worked along with the agents from Varnon, but on 1989, a swift blow was struck simultaneously to the Agren islands controlled by Tray and Khren. Most of their ports and forts were simultaneously seized by armed forces and declared themselves for Hadler’s prince, Deoren Ramus. Deoren used the forts to shoot down or capture all nearby military vessels, and in 1989, declared the Agren isles independent.
This naturally enraged Tray and Khren, but Tray could ill afford to strike at Agren with full force, or else they knew Lok would seize the opportunity and invade. Khren, too: if they fought Agren itself, they would lose the momentum of its relentless attack on occupied Hadler, and allow Ehren to finally assert its control over that land.
Therefore, with nothing but a few local battles and after having dealt with whatever was left of Tray and Khren’s navy in Agren, the Agren independence was an established fact.

THE CURRENT AGE
As we near the year 2000, the nations of Urania still battle among themselves. People’s distrust of magic remains: mages can be expected to be received with suspicion wherever they declare themselves. Only in Varnon can one receive any kind of formal training in magic, but the magocracy is closed to outsiders ever since the purge.
Khren and occupied Hadler are locked in a war of skirmish for their ever-shifting borders. Ehren banned all things magical and is intent on keeping it that way. The Nelion republic has been quiet for some time, and is known to be building a massive military.
Ever since the dragon wars, the urani have left their valley and spread throughout the world. Now, they can be found throughout the kingdoms, though no one really knows what prompted this change, or why they actually do anything.
The year is 1990.

# THE URANI

They existed in the beginning, and it is believed they will be there in the end. For this reason, the very world is named after them, as if they were the witnesses of time itself.
Physically, the Urani look like humans. Most of them, anyway. They have two legs, two arms, a neck and a head. Most have eyes, nose, ears, and everything else you could expect of a human being. That is where their similarities end.
The most notable characteristic of the Urani is also the one they display the least: they are believed to be omnipotent. At the very least, mankind hasn’t yet seen a limit to what they can do. They disintegrated every living human in the Uran valley in 1790. Some say they're the ones who created the sylvans, and entire species. And lore tells of many, many more extraordinary feats they performed, feats which not even the most powerful mage could replicate, yet.
The Urani are also said to be all-knowing. For sure, they know all secrets of magic, for they were the ones who taught magic to mankind. They know all secrets of the spirit, for they taught Nalvir the whole doctrine of the church. There may well be no limits to their knowledge.
Yet, for all their power and knowledge, they seem not to use it at all. They are definitely not interested in ruling the world (or else, they would be ruling it). They also don’t seem moved by humanity’s plea. Helping others, righting wrongs, overcoming great disasters, none of that elicit the slightest response in them, with very, very few exceptions (such as Nalvir and the eight sacred weapons).
The Urani do not need to sleep. They do not drink nor eat, and can stay weeks, sometimes months just standing in the same position, like statues. They ignore what most people tell them, as if others didn’t exist. However, if attacked, they will defend themselves. No one who ever attacked an Urani remained alive for more than a second after. Most were disintegrated on the spot.
There is much lore, and much more speculation about them.
There are 24 known Urani. Most people really hope that this is all there is. Each Urani is given a name that is descriptive, for they never gave their true names to anyone. Each Urani, except for one, has a sign, a rune that identifies them. These 23 runes are the 23 letters of the current alphabet.
They are:
* THE SILENT SCHOLAR
* THE WHITE LADY
* THE FACELESS ONE
* THE HEARTLESS KNIGHT
* THE CONDUCTOR OF STORMS
* THE TIME KEEPER
* THE MASTER OF NAMES
* THE SERPENT DANCER
* THE BLOOD LORD
* THE DREAM STEALER
* THE UNSEEN SLAYER
* THE WATCHER IN SHADOWS
* THE LIGHT BRIDE AND THE NIGHT GROOM
* THE MASTER PLAYER
* THE BEAST SHIFTER
* THE LORD RULER
* THE DEATH DEALER
* THE SLUMBERING WIZARD
* THE IMPRISONED BETRAYER
* THE NIGHT WALKER
* THE STONE EATER
* THE WIND BUILDER
* THE LOST BROTHER, who is missing from the world.

# NATIONS OF URANIA

direita|semmoldura|300x300pxTray is a northern kingdom ruled by Tray Naharot, one of the original magistrates who was killed by Ellia Varnon, but in his case, brought back through magic soon after.
Tray is a self-sufficient kingdom with few international relations. The trays (citizens of Tray) believe themselves high and mighty and see little point in learning from others. Even their wars against Lok and Varnon were quick and subdued in intensity.
Tray is an absolutist monarchy and Tray Naharot has been the uncontested king for centuries now, so trays like to keep things as they are. Tray Naharot is known to keep his power and influence by using a very competent silver tongue and keeping his nobles appeased by giving them exclusive rights while the rung of the population lives by with the minimum necessary to survive.
In spite of their isolationism, Tray is a very liberal place where prejudice is at all low and whose population do their best to avoid messing with other’s businesses.

LOK
direita|semmoldura|328x328pxLok is a kingdom situated south of Tray and is also a neighbor of Nellion, Varnon and Tir-na-Mara. It is a monarchy, but the succession is not decided by birthright, but instead by bidding on an open auction where the highest bid takes it all, which makes it the only kingdom whose ruler actually pays to rule.
The current ruler is Lok-Ray Daynor, who was a very successful merchant prior to becoming king. It is customary that anyone who ascends to king appends "Lok" to their name.
Lok contains extensive farm fields. Its greater export is food, and is also the place where the most famous chefs to study on.
Lok is also very expansionist, but not through military expansion, instead, through an economic one. Lok clearly intends to rule the world with its coin and products, and by having all other kingdoms owe them great debts after aiding them post-war.
Lok’s political system of government, called a “merchant monarchy”, allows for the greatest mobility in all of Urania, and it is known as a place where anything can be bought or sold. Everything in Lok has a price, as the saying goes.

VARNON
direita|semmoldura|300x300pxFounded by Ellia Varnon after her escape from the dragon wars, the kingdom of Varnon is the only magocracy in Urania – a place where mages rule the lower classes. In Varnon, being a mage is everything, so much that many citizens opt to undergo the dangerous awakening ritual, where they are taken to the brink of death and then back, in hopes of developing magical aptitude.
However, and maybe because of that, Varnon is also the place which faces the greatest problems with magical creatures and monsters. There is actually very little rural life in Varnon. People flock in tight and smelly towns because no sane person would want to venture in the wilds of Varnon.
Varnon’s social structure is based, by necessity, in the great independence of their cities, which are actually city-states, and only loosely connected through a central government that instead of passing laws, issues more like guidelines. In fact, the only thing the High Council of Varnon, which is their ruling body, can do without being contested is a call to war, because varnians do understand the need of banding together against common threats.
Varnon is ruled by a council of 7 “archmages”, who are mediated by a “magocrat”. The current magocrat of Varnon is Agatoth Jorvin. Succession is decided by the remaining archmages voting on a new one when one of them dies or chooses to resign.

NELLION
direita|semmoldura|300x300pxThe kingdom of Nellion, ruled by Nellion Drathis, is home to the best sailors in all Urania. Also, home to the worst pirates.
Nellion is the most populated kingdom in Urania. Their current ruler is said to be a benevolent king whose policies have been just and fair, and whose main focus is the safety of the people. However, that could all change in a heartbeat.
Nellion is a millitary monarchy. The king is not decided by birthright, but among the nobles who have the greatest military might, and the way to prove that, of course, is through war. Therefore, Nellion has been home to the bloodiest wars of succession in all history. The Nellion king is not someone who has a divine right to rule, but the most powerful among the dukes, and when the winds of political alliances shift, the most powerful duke could easily be taken down.

EHREN
direita|semmoldura|300x300pxOnce a thriving kingdom where mages were openly accepted, Ehren is today a place where magic is banned, where casting spells is a crime, and whose anti-magic paranoia creates a group-think that magic itself should be extinguished.
Ehren is a feudal monarchy where both sexes have equal rights to succession. The current king, Trinnu Havrock, is an old time war hero from the Hadler occupation who served directly under Surana Kaylen (the conqueror of Hadler).
Ehren is also known to be home to the “alliance for the purge of magic”, a once international organization dedicated to hunting and exterminating mages, which has since become part of Ehren’s military, its elite force in purifying the world.
Ehren has recently conquered and occupied Hadler, and the imposition of Ehren’s anti-magic ideology has since caused no end of troubles for them. However, they are not about to leave Hadler, as they see this occupation as more than a military expansion, but an important first step in ridding the world of the abomination that is magic.

KHREN
direita|semmoldura|300x300pxKhren is a highly militarized kingdom where the best Uranian martial fighters can be found. It has had its share of wars in the past, especially with Hadler, but since the geopolitical focus shifted to the Agren islands, and since Hadler was occupied by Ehren, Khren has found itself fighting in more fronts than it could deal with, and has since focused more on border protection than on military expansion.
Nevertheless, its ancient enmity with Hadler has since shifted to a present enmity to Ehren, after Ehren conquered lands that Khren considered theirs. To counter Ehren’s advances, Khren struck not only at Ehren’s occupation of Hadler, but also at its ideology, hiring and employing many mages in its covert attempts of fomenting a rebellion.
Khren is an absolutist monarchy where merit and advancement can be found almost exclusively in war. There is very little social mobility outside of the military, and social tension runs high in Khren.

HADLER
direita|semmoldura|300x300pxHadler has been a kingdom in war with Khren since its beginning. However, it was Ehren which, in the end, occupied it. Ever since, Hadler has been officially an Ehren protectorate. This occupation, however, is not going smoothly. Hadler has been the stage for many attempts at rebellion, terrorist attacks, kidnapping of nobles and guerrilla warfare. It is a known belief that everyone in Hadler is one way or another involved with the resistance.
The fact that Ehren has been pushing its ideological agenda against magic is also not helping.
Historically, Hadler has been home to the richest metal deposits in the Inopian continent, which made it the meeting point for weaponsmiths and armorers alike. Hadlerian steel has always been recognized as of the best quality there is, and Hadler nobility used to wear weapons and armor so magnificent they could only be described as magical. Of course, all these items have since been confiscated by the purge.

TIR-NA MARA
Tir-na-Mara, the mariner kingdom, is situated in the great sea in the middle of the Inopian continent. It is a solitary and isolated kingdom, not because of any desire to be so, but simply because most species have trouble breathing underwater in order to reach them.
The tir-na-marans are a peaceful folk who cares little for expansion, war or even commerce. They live their lives with tranquility and unburdened by worries, and pity their dry-lander cousins who spend so much time fighting amongst themselves.
Tir-na-Mara is better described as a group of city-states whose only connection is a great reverence for their queen and her bloodline. They are a matriarchal monarchy in which succession is not decided by blood, but the queen, during her lifetime, chooses the girl who will succeed her upon her death from the general population. In fact, it has never been the case that the succession of the kingdom has passed to someone of the same family.
Few people go to and back from Tir-Na-Mara, but whatever news they bring is of a calm place, where one would definitely choose to spend their twilight years, if they could only live there.

# CHANGES TO FATE CORE COMBAT RULES

INITIATIVE
Instead of a "Notice" test, initiative in combat is a fixed value equal to the sum of the character's "Notice" + "Athletics".

ATTACKS ON MULTIPLE OPPONENTS
Any character can attack multiple opponents in combat. To do this, they must divide their attack value as they wish among the attacks they intend to make. Effectively, it's as if all characters had the "***Whirlwind Attack***" stunt, but which can also be used it with "Shoot" checks.
When attacking multiple opponents, the final attack must have a value of +1 or more. You cannot split a +1 attack into infinite +0 attacks.

DEFENSE AGAINST MULTIPLE ATTACKS
When a character is going to defend from several attacks in the same combat turn, they can divide their defense value between the attacks they are receiving. If they take more attacks than they can divide their defense value in, they can still make a defense test with a value of +0. If the character assumes the "full defense" stance, they use the +2 bonus on all their tests.

# MAGIC IN URANIA

To understand magic in Urania, it is foremost to understand the nature of magery.

THE NATURE OF MAGERY
Magery is the name given to a person's magical aptitude. Barring innate magical races, it's not a natural occurrence. Nobody is born with magical aptitude, and nobody develops it over the course of his or her life. Instead, magery is stolen, snatched away from the hands of death itself.
Sometimes, certain individuals face a near-death event through accident, disease, or even an attempted murder, but manage to recover. This is most common with heart attacks or strokes: the individual passes out, his heart stops and they "die", only to miraculously return soon after. This is a very rare occurrence indeed, but it happens, and whenever it happens, the person comes back from the clutches of death with magery.
This is the only known way for a mortal to gain magery: to die, and then come back, and in this way, anyone can gain magery, at any age.
Nobody really knows why that is. Why is it that going to the great beyond and coming back allows a person to cast spells? Is it a gift? Is it a curse? Is it stolen, or is it given? Theoreticians and thaumatologists debate this for days without end. The fact, though, is that it does.
This occurrence is very, very rare, and the fact is that in ancient times, very few people ever became mages. However, as healing spells were discovered and improved upon, it became increasingly easier for existing mages to artificially cause someone to undergo death and return. This can be achieved by poisoning the individual, and then neutralizing the poison, or asphyxiating him and then regenerating their body, and so on.
Therefore, as it stands many mages are able to artificially cause someone to gain magery. However, even under the best of circumstances, the rate of actual survival of a process such as this never goes over 10%. More often than not, it is around 1 to 2%. Some mages never attempt this on their own, arguing that the risks are too great. Others, who are willing to acquire apprentices at any cost, may try to grant magery to some poor individuals. In Varnon, the acquisition of Magery (or rather, the chance to acquire magery) is granted as a reward for valuable favors to the ruling families, and is often seen as a great honor. There are many families willing to allow a mage to attempt to kill and revive their sons or daughters in exchange for a minimal reward, or maybe even the chance that one of their sons will live a better life.
When an individual gains magery, they also undergo something called “The Change”

THE CHANGE
The acquisition of magery after a near-death experience is something very, very traumatic for the mage. So much that very few of them ever talk about this with others – even other mages. It is often terrifying, almost always confusing, and sometimes, it is so pleasant that he or she wouldn’t want to come back to life for anything.
This trauma, though, changes the mage. It often changes them entirely. This is "the Change", the change in personality in the returning mage.
The mage who returns is so unlike the one who died that it is believed that upon returning, it is actually someone else who came back. A person who was loving and charitable may return greedy and callous, a pacifist may return a bully, a disrespectful person may return responsible and sensible. It is very rare to find a mage who did not suffer some severe change upon returning.
In terms of the character sheet, all of the personality aspects may get switched after their return from death. If this happens during the course of a campaign, when the character returns they should change all of their personality.
Also, a returning mage comes back with one or more aspects that signify their near-death experiences. Players creating mage characters should acquire an aspect related to one of the following conditions: Any addiction, alcoholism, chronic depression, delusions of any kind, flashbacks of the near-death event, survivor's guilt complex, insomnia, acute anti-sociable behavior, bipolar disorders, recurring nightmares, blackouts, hear voices, any strong phobia.
It is common that over time, mages overcome these disadvantages as they come to terms with their near-death experiences. However, many carry the psychological scars of their experience throughout their whole lives.

WHAT MAGERY DOES FOR YOU
Magery itself affects a person in only a few ways. For one, whoever has magery can sense someone else’s magery if there is skin-to-skin contact between them. This feeling is automatic: no roll is required. For this reason, many mages wear gloves and show only little skin.
Other than that, magery has nearly no impact on a person’s life. A person can go through life with magery and never make use of it. A mage that finds such an untrained individual (a rare occurrence indeed), will definitely try to convince them to learn magic, and all things considered, almost anyone offered that chance will accept it.

LEARNING MAGIC
Magic is considered mostly as an art form, and only a little as a science. This is because, like art, there are techniques for learning it and increasing your skill, but every student learns it differently, and a good teacher will not try to impose on the student his own techniques, but rather, will try to find the student’s way of learning, and from there help him develop his own magic.
You only improve in an art it by doing it, and in magic this also holds true. That is why it is mostly impossible for a non-mage to actually learn another mage's spells: it doesn’t matter how many books on painting you read, you won’t ever get good at it unless you actually try and paint.
Therefore the process of teaching a spell is a process of discovery for both student and master.
Magic in Urania follows the rules for "Expanded Words of Power", found **HERE**.
Also, alchemy is considered a branch of magic, and its rules are found **HERE**. Alchemists do not need magery to create potions, but their "Alchemy" rolls are modified by the current mana levels as described below.

FINDING A TEACHER
Mages are very, very rare in Urania. So much that finding a teacher that knows a specific word of power can be an adventure of its own.
Characters can try to find a teacher by inquiring locals, researching lore, following up on clues and the like.
Finding a teacher requires a character to make a roll for a skill based on how he wants to find the teacher: It could be “contacts” to find someone with that information, or “resources” for buying that information from someone, or “lore” to research famous teachers. This is the “search roll”. It takes a person one week to attempt a search roll. If more than one character is searching at the same time, they all roll and only the best result is considered.
The search roll difficulty is 1, plus 1 for each additional word of power being sought.
If the roll fails, then the characters failed to find a teacher in the area. It may be, though, that there IS one, and they just failed to find it. They can try again in another week, at a cumulative -1. After three consecutive fails, no further attempt is possible.
Usually teachers will require some sort of payment for their services. There’s no “usual fare”, as mages are so rare that teachers may require wildly different prices. A good basis is $1000 per week of work, but sometimes teachers require other forms of payment, such as:
* A student may teach something back to the teacher in return. This is the most usual form of payment required.
* The students will help them with his enchantments for a specified time.
* The students help them by cleaning the house, doing the dishes, and other mundane tasks, thus freeing them to do research work.
* The students agree to acquire a specific arcane item or ingredient for the teacher.

RULE CHANGES FOR MAGIC IN URANIA
BURNING UP
Every apprentice learns from his master one thing before all others: “One day, sooner or later, one way or another, you will be tempted to perform a spell that is beyond your capabilities. When that day comes you will know: you are facing your own death, for that is now most of us die.”
Mages in Urania extract energy to power their spells from their own bodies: that is why they spend fate points, and sometimes physical stress. However, they can go beyond that. When a situation gets dire, a mage is able to burn up their own body structure, injure themselves permanently, and with that, achieve an enormous boost for a single spellcasting.
When a character chooses to burn up, they are assuming a ***permanent consequence that will never go away***.
Burning up grants the character a +10 bonus to any single spell cast.

BURN-OUT
After a character casts a spell for which they burned-out, they are unable to do so again before one day has passed. This is called magic burn-out. Because of this, even though burning up may give a character a powerful edge once, this is not something that can be done repeatedly.
MANA LEVELS
Spells require ambient energy, or "mana" to work. Certain, rare places, have abnormal flows of mana which may impact spellcasting positive or negatively.
Mana levels come in an array of penalties or bonuses to spellcasting rolls. Thus, in Urania there are: -3 mana zones, +2 mana zones and so on.
A -4 mana zone is so strong that it simply negates all spellcasting, regardless of how good the roll was. A +4 mana zone is so strong that spells can be cast without the mage expending 1 fate point. Most of Varnon's spellcasting schools are built atop +4 mana zones.
Under a -4 mana zone, all mages have their magery negated. Even by touching another person with magery, they would not feel their aptitude.
Magical creatures have problems in mana zones lower than -2. They take a penalty of -2 to all their rolls in -3 mana zones, and will actively attempt to flee from -4 mana zones with all their might.

LIVING IN HIGH MANA ZONES
Non magical creatures who spend an extended period of time in a +3 or +4 mana zone will start to experience some unwanted side effects.
Every full 2 months spent inside a +3 or +4 mana zone, a non-magical creature will make a "Physique" roll. On a failure, the target will acquire a negative aspect representing a small, undesirable supernatural effect.
When a creature accumulates 3 such aspects, and gain one more, they will permanently become a magical creature. At that point, they will cease to gain supernatural aspects.
If a creature spends only a little time in a high mana zone and then leaves, this effect will dissipate. A creature ceases to feel the effects of the high-mana zone if it spends at least half the time away from it as it did inside of it. For this reason, even if high mana zones are all the fuss for casting spells, even mages only make sparing use of it. Some mages, though, do crave the increase in magic ability it brings, even if at the expense of some unpredictable weird stuff.
Supernatural aspects acquired through living in a high-mana zone can only be lost after the character has spent at least half time away from it as it did inside of it. However, it is not possible to revert the change into a magical being. Once that happens, the character is locked in that state for the rest of their existence.
Normal folk react very badly to someone with visible supernatural aspects.
MAGIC RESISTANCE
Any non-magical creature can purchase a special stunt called "***magic resistance***" This stunt grants the character a +2 bonus to resist any unwanted magical effect. If such individuals also have magery, their relation to Mana levels differs from normal. They feel the effects of a mana level as if it were 1 point lower, then the mana level is positive, or 1 point higher, if it is negative. This means that a mage with magic resistance, under a mana level of +4, would only get a +3 to their spells. Likewise, if such a mage were in a -3 mana zone, they would only get -2 to their spells. Therefore, such mages *cannot be blocked* by a -4 mana zone.
MAGES AND SOCIETY
Although mages are rare, their existence is spread out enough that they can’t be ignored. For better or worse, mages have made an impact in uranian history and society, and are regarded differently depending on the region where they are.

MAGES IN VARNON
Varnon is a magocracy, meaning that mages rule the nation and only mages can have any kind of official standing. The only exception is for soldiers and city guards: these can be non-mages, and in fact, many of these actually even have magic resistance.
In Varnon, only mages can have any social status. In fact, even a mage who’s not part of the government has “Status 1”, which places them under a different law, “Mage Law”, and a different set of punishments.
How can Varnon have so many mages when in the rest of the world they are so rare? They make their own mages. Many families, especially the poorer ones, enroll their children in their mage program in hopes of giving them a better future. These children are then killed, and brought back to life: a process that is sure to cause someone to develop magery. Unfortunately, this process has a very low rate of success: about 5%, so it is always a gamble. Those who survive, though, enter the world of status and true power of Varnon society.
Every mage in Varnon is registered. Varnon differentiates between registered and unregistered mages, the latter being those who are from another country. Foreign mages face a hard time in Varnon, for even though mages are trusted and well regarded, foreign mages are subject of a great deal of scrutiny, which can make their lives difficult.
Although mages rule, and only mages can be officials, the populace is not discontent with this setup. General people actually live pretty well in Varnon in comparison to all other kingdoms: mages provide healing, good crops, instruction and education for everyone, communication and transportation that no other place can compare to. There is no extreme poverty in Varnon, and no famine at all. Although people do get sick, they don’t die from it, as no plagues can withstand the casting of powerful healing spells. The wealthier ones even have the option of purchasing life extension spells from master alchemists. In terms of social welfare, Varnon could well be considered a utopia.
All of this magic use, though, have consequences. Varnon is a haven for magical beings and attracts more each year. Varnon’s forests and plains are very, very dangerous places, and to travel from any one place to the other can be extremely hazardous. To make matters worse, the power of magical creatures have only grown since Varnon became a magocracy.
MAGES IN EHREN
In Ehren, magic is forbidden. Use of magic is outlawed, and, in recent years, anyone with magery was asked to leave the country, or else. This started in the magic purge, 180 years ago, and never stopped. Even after the magic purge ended, the king and lords of Ehren believed that mages were still, and would always be a threat, and therefore had to be treated accordingly.
Not that mages have much of a reason to go to Ehren anyway. More than 100 years of persecuting and suffocating magic have caused the entire nation to radically drop their mana levels. Nearly all great cities in Ehren are -4 mana zones, and the rest of the nation’s mana level isn’t far behind, -2 being the best mana level one could find there.
All this aversion to magic in Ehren caused a curious phenomenon: the number of people with magic resistance increases every day. It’s very common to find in Ehren people born with magic resistance. Curiously, when a person such as this undergoes a death experience, their return with magery makes them very, very valued apprentices (especially in Varnon), so Ehren’s aversion to magic may, in fact, be creating a new generation of extremely powerful mages.
MAGES IN TIR-NA-MARA
Tir-Na-Mara differs from most kingdoms in how they deal with mages in that they not only accept them, but also integrate them in their culture, without granting them too high a status. In the mariner kingdom, mages are accepted like any other occupation would be. Though they are still too few to have an actual “mage school”, mages are known to help out rulers, to fight alongside and against each other, to improve as well as hinder other’s lives, just as you would expect from anyone else. Tir-na-Mara can be considered the only kingdom that deals with mages in a balanced way.
MAGES IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Throughout Inopia and Agren, mages are still distrusted and viewed with fear by the general populace. Even though the magical purge ended over 100 years ago (in most places, at least), mages are still viewed with suspicion by most. Many instructed people overcome this prejudice quickly as they learn history, and find out what has the exact role of magic been in Inopia, but most people do not have the luxury of such instruction, and thus, the prejudice remains.
RANK AND KNOWLEDGE
A mage usually spends 15 years in apprenticeship with a master, a time in which his learning is split between performing services for his mentor (most of which are menial tasks). Most mages come out of apprenticeship with a "Primordial Language" skill of 2. Therefore, those with a skill level of 1 are considered “apprentices”.
With a "Primordial Language" skill of 2, a mage is considered a “journeyman”: a mage who is starting out in the world, knowledgeable enough to be independent, but not yet a big player in the realm of magic.
With a "Primordial Language" skill of 4, a mage is considered an “expert”. Such mages will most likely have mastered a few words as well and have developed lasting friendships and enmities with other mages.
With a "Primordial Language" skill of 7 or more, a mage is considered a “master of magic”. Very, very few masters of magic exist in Urania.

# MENTALISTS

Anyone can be a mentalist in Urania. Mentalists follow the rules for Psychic Powers, found **HERE**.
Because they are very, very rare, society in general hadn't had a chance to react to them. In most places, a mentalist may use their powers and pass perfectly for a "silent" mage, if they so wish. However, some people who know of their existance harbor nagging suspicions that the subtle nature of their powers may mean that they are more present, and in more stations of power, than most people can imagine...

# URANIAN MARTIAL ARTS

Players who wish to create martial fighters purchase a stunt called “***Martial Training in <Name of the lineage>***”. This stunt grants them access to a number of "***Martial Techniques***" listed below. All listed martial techniques are known when a specific martial training is selected. However, if a character selects more than one “Martial Training” stunt, in different lineages, and they possess overlapping techniques, these overlapping techniques are not learned twice.
The six lineages are:
* ***The Breath of Strength***: Fighters who learn to increase their physical strength through secret breathing techniques. They know: Power Blow, Breaking Blow, Kiai, Flying Leap, Pressure Points, Pressure Secrets, Push, Palm of Steel.
* ***The Immaculate Path***: Fighters who learn to defend and strike against magic, magic users, magical monsters and threats. They know: Blind Fighting, Magic Pushback, Mental Strength, Pressure Points, Mana Block, Nature Cleansing, Mana Sensing.
* ***The Steel defenders***: Fighters who learned to fight against and hunt down dragons. They know: Elemental Tolerance, Ultra Block, Mana Sensing.
* ***The Subtle Walkers***: Elusive fighters who learn the arts of becoming unseen and moving without being noticed. They know: Invisibility Art, Hypnotic Hands, Lizard Climb, Light Walk, Hypnotic Hands, Precognitive Parry.
* ***The Weapon Masters***: Fighters who excel at using any king of weapon and, in fact, learn to use anything as a weapon. They know: Throwing Art, Zen Archery, Instant Draw, Weak Point Strike.
* ***The Iron Fighters***: Fighters who learn to increase their own resistance and protection against physical and mental threats. They know: Mental Strength, Steel Skin, Last Resort, Will of Life.

MARTIAL TECHNIQUES
These are the new martial techniques that fighters can acquire, according to their martial lineage:
* ***Blind Fighting***: Like the self-name stunt, your ability to attack with Fight works unimpeded by conditions like darkness or other visual impairments.
* ***Breaking Blow***: When you attack a target and successfully deal damage, you can choose to spend a fate point and deal another damage of 2 points. This, effectively, allows you to recude 2 of the target's stress laters at once.
* ***Elemental Tolerance***: These characters learned to endure the elements through intense exposure, in a training that is brutally inhumane. The end result, however, is that they can withstand sudden exposure to intense bursts of elemental damage with little to no effect. This allows them to protect against all dragon breath weapons as well as most attack spells. When targeted with an elemental attack such as these, the final damage to the character is reduced by 2. They may opt to spend a fate point and reduce it by 5 instead. This only protects against elemental damage. Bladed, blunt or mundane attacks are unaffected, but it could protect against non-magical elemental damage, such as a torch or a flamethrower. This skill cannot protect against extended exposure to an element, such as walking on fire or trekking across the north pole.
* ***Flying Leap***: You can make incredible leaps. If you make a successful "Athletics" roll to jump, you can spend a fate point and leap high into the air, crossing over an entire combat zone with one single jump. You can use this to move two zones and attack in the same combat turn. You may use Flying Leap to jump into someone as part of an attack. Such attacks are at an extra -2 to hit, but if you do hit, your final damage is increased by +2.
* ***Hypnotic Hands***: You can confuse and befuddle an enemy in combat with your hypnotic moves. You can make a "Provoke" test against the opponent's "Notice". On a success, you grant them the "dazed" aspect, which may impair physical attacks or defenses. When you successfully apply "dazed" to an enemy, you have the option to spend a fate point and prevent them from performing any attacks in their own turn.
* ***Instant Draw***: If you have a weapon, it always counts as being ready to strike or defend, even when you are completely taken by surprise.
* ***Invisibility Art***: You can make a Stealth roll to hide even against people who are actively looking at you straight on. However, this can only affect one person at a time. Targets can resist with their Notice skill.
* ***Kiai***: You can channel your inner energy outward in a mighty shout (kiai) that freezes lesser foes. This counts as an attack. Roll a Quick Contest: your "Will" skill vs. your target’s "Will". You can only attempt a kiai against enemies in the same zone as you. If you win, you grant them the "dazed" aspect, which may impair physical attacks or defenses. When you successfully apply "dazed" to an enemy, you have the option to spend a fate point and prevent them from performing any attacks in their own turn. This skill only works against a single victim; everyone can hear the shout, but your energy is focused on that one foe.
* ***Last Resort***: Through a brutal and traumatizing training, you learned to just keep going when others would have long since fallen. Once per scene, whenever you would have been knocked out on a fight (such as, when taking more damage you can soak), you can spend a fate point and instead continue fighting.
* ***Light Walk***: You can stand on surfaces which wouldn’t normally be able to support your weight. You can step on fragile surfaces, such as thin ice, collapsing floors or rotten wood logs with no penalty. More fragile surfaces require an Athletics roll per turn, with according difficulties: Thin branches, bamboo trunks: difficulty 2. Silk paper, eggs: difficulty 4. Water: difficulty 6.
* ***Lizard Climb***: You can scale vertical or near-vertical surfaces – walls, steep hills, large tree trunks, etc. – like a gecko. You must climb facing the surface, using (empty) hands and feet, or with your back to it, using elbows and heels. You must perform an "Athletics" roll per turn when climbing these surfaces.
* ***Magic Pushback***: You learned to keep magic at bay at any costs. Whenever you are targeted by a spell that requires a resistance, and you fail the resistance, you may spend a fate point and automatically resist the spell's effects.
* ***Mana Block***: This is the ultimate anti-mage strike. Like “pressure points”, it allows you to strike at specific points in the body, but with the express intent on blocking the flow of magic and reducing, or even removing the opponent’s ability to perform magic. You must make a successful unarmed attack with "Physique" at -2. If it hits, every success shift imposes a -1 penalty to the target's spellcasting rolls for one scene.
* ***Mana Sensing***: You learned to hone your perception and sense uses of magic or supernatural powers even if you are not magically gifted yourself. Whenever you are targeted or in the target area of a spell or power, you can sense that power with a successful “Norice” roll. If the magic or power is hidden or somewhat subtle, this skill roll may suffer appropriate penalties. This can be used to sense when an invisible opponent is nearby (less than 5m away), but it cannot be used to strike at it.
* ***Mental Strength***: You can actively focus your mind to resist any sort of magical attacks, not only mind-affecting ones. Upon failing a spell resistance, you are allowed a second resistance roll with your "Will".
* ***Nature Cleansing***: This allows you to better protect against any magically-created damage. Upon being struck with any sort of damage that has been created or amplified through magic, you can spend a fate point and make a "Physique" roll. Every success shift allows you to ignore 1 point of magical damage. You must be aware of the incoming damage.
* ***Palm of Steel***: You learned to use your hands as, literal, deadly weapons. Your unarmed strikes with your hands are able to cause cutting and impaling damage. Your maximum damage with your hands equals your "Physique" skill, and if your attack succeeds with style, your maximum damage is increased by one.
* ***Power Blow***: You are able to focus your energy and deliver massive blows to enemies. When you attack a target and successfully deal damage, you can choose to spend a fate point and increase your damage in +3. You can combine this technique with "breaking blow" or "flying leap".
* ***Precognitive Parry***: You are able to use "Fight" or "Athletics" to defend against attacks that normally come in too fast to parry – bullets, beams, etc, or even when you are unaware of your attacker, such as in surprise attacks.
* ***Pressure Points***: This is the art of striking pressure points in order to disable an opponent. To use this ability, you must make a successful unarmed attack with Physique. This attack is at -2. If you deal at least one physical stress point of damage, roll a Quick Contest of Physique vs. the victim’s Physique. If you win, you apply the "Numb Arm" aspect to your target (Or any other "Numb Limb" you desire). You also get as many free invocations of this aspect as was your margin of success.
* ***Pressure Secrets***: This is the knowledge of the most vulnerable vital points of the human body. It allows you to maim and kill by crushing and tearing vital organs and nerve clusters with deadly precision. To use this ability, you must make a successful unarmed attack with "Physique". This attack is at -2. If you hit, and cause 2 or more points of damage, you can spend a fate point to reduce your damage by 2 points and force the opponent to assume a physical consequence, or be knocked out.
* ***Push***: You can throw yourself at an enemy and violently knock them away, forcing them to move to an adjacent zone. These opponents land on the floor and must spend their next move action standing up in order to freely aco on their turns. This is resolved as a "Physique" -2 roll against an opponent's "Athletics".
* ***Steel Skin***: Through painful and hurtful training, you learned to harden your skin and resist most forms of damage. You have one extra physical stress slot.
* ***Throwing Art***: You can throw anything as if it were a lethal weapon. Any object, in your hand, can be thrown for a max damage of 2. Objects which already have a max damage (such as knives, shurikens, etc) increase their max damage by 1 when thrown.
* ***Ultra Block***: You can spend a fate point and perform a "Fight" defense to block area attacks with your shield. If successful, you, and everyone behind you, is protected. This allows you to select, within your zone, who you want to protect or not.
* ***Weak Point Strike***: You can strike at targets in their weak points. If an opponent has already received at least one point of damage in a conflict, you can spend a fate point and perform a Fight attack at -2 and strike at that same point again. If successful, this attack will bypass the target's armor, if it still has any.
* ***Will of Life***: If you have been taken to death’s door and fallen over the other side, you can still, by sheer force of will (or stubbornness), hold on to dear life and prevent your own demise. If you receive damage which will know you out, you can, once per scene, for free, reduce the incoming damage by 2 points. This can be used alongside with consequences to reduce the damage even further.
* ***Zen Archery***: You use your mind, as much as your body, to shoot an arrow. You can ignore up to 4 points of penalty (or of increased difficulty) while shooting, as long as these penalties are due to poor sight, distance or relative movement to the target.

HONOR PATHS
Martial fighters would be nothing but over-trained thugs with expensive blades if not for the one characteristic that defines them, the one thing that turns their fighting into art, and that is Honor. Therefore, every martial fighter worth of their name follows what is known as an “Honor Path”.
An honor path is a specific behavior which, if followed, imprints upon the fighter a sense of rightness, of being honored and of belonging to something greater. They are a source of inner power for the martial fighter, and that power comes back to help them when they need it most.
Each honor path specifies a behavior which the martial fighter must adhere to. Whenever the martial fighter behaves in concordance with their honor path, they gain “honor points”. These points can be used, later on, in combat, to give the fighters an extra edge against their opponents.
The honor paths can be associated with certain negative psychological traits, however, these are not to be followed blindly. A fighter of the “Truthfulness” lineage, for instance, does not have to always tell the truth, even though its honor path specifies exactly the same behavior. Following an honor path is a conscious choice.
Honor points can be gained and stored like fate points. They can be lost, too, if the character acts against their honor path, but losing honor points below 0 has no negative effects for the character.
A character has no maximum limit of honor points.
A martial fighter must choose one and only one honor path.

USING HONOR POINTS
Honor points are used as extra fate points during combat which can only be used to power up martial techniques, attacks or defense rolls. It cannot be used to power up spells or any magical abilities.
THE 6 HONOR PATHS
* ***Vows and Promises***: These fighters gain honor whenever they make a vow or a promise to someone and manage to fulfill them. This vow or promise must be something clearly challenging which would put them in direct danger. Trivial vows do not count. Failing to fulfill a vow, or refusing to perform a vow when it is socially expected to do so, cause the loss of honor points.
* ***Truthfulness***: The fighter gains an honor point whenever they speaks the truth and/or prevents a lie from being perpetrated, if that would put them in an awkward or difficult situation. Allowing a lie to be spread, even by omission, cause the loss of honor points.
* ***Protection of the weak***: The fighter gains honor points whenever they defend the weak from someone strong who would exploit them. They lose honor points if they willingly allow such injustices to take place.
* ***Obedience and dependence***: The fighter gains honor points whenever they fulfill a mission. Such fighters need to have missions and tasks handed to them and these must be something worthy of their skills, trivial tasks will not do. They lose honor points for willingly abandoning or failing their missions. These fighters are not required to accept any mission thrown their way. They are free to refuse any such mission, but once accepted, they must see them through.
* ***Pacifism***: The fighter gains honor by preventing violence and bloodshed, at risk to themselves. These fighters must go out of their way to look for alternative solutions for conflicts which do not include direct confrontation or killing. They are allowed to fight in self defense, but only while it is absolutely necessary. They lose honor whenever they fail to stop violence when that could be avoided.
* ***Sacrifice***: The fighter gains honor by putting themselves on the line to protect others. Whenever they takes a hit to stop someone else from being hurt. They lose honor when they chooses not to defend others from danger in a situation where they could do so. However, there is no harm in failing to defend others if it is clear that the situation is completely hopeless and would obviously cost the fighter’s life.

# THE CHURCH OF NALVIR

CHURCH DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES
Clerics of Nalvir enjoy a number of special privileges in relation to other occupations, and also share a number of duties.
Firtly, nalvirists are bound by a parallel law, called "church law", and can only go to trial by their peers. If a nalvirist commit a crime, local authorities cannot put them in trial, but must send them over to the church for a ecclesialtical one. However, if a crime is commited against a nalvirist, and the criminal is not of the church, common law will apply to them. This creates a situation where, if there is a suspicion that a church member may be involved in a crime, local authorities have to cooperate with ecclesialtical investigators in the uncovering of the crime.
In order to apply church law equanimously to all nalvirists, all nations agreed to treat all church members as their own citizens. Therefore, nalvirists have no boundary restrictions and cannot be prevented from travelling anywhere. If they are in a country at war, they cannot be targeted by enemy armies, as killing them would also be like killing a citizen both opposing nations.
Nalvirists are forbidden from having or holding any public office, or belonging to any class in any government. If a noble from a monarchist country enters the church, they musy forego their birthright in order to be ordained. They pay taxes to the church, and receive income from the church, as well as security. In this manner, the Church of Nalvir acts as a form of parallel government in Inopia. One which is, slowly and steadily, growing.
Nalvirists are not entirely free to choose their occupation within the church. If tragecy befalls a church member, and they are incapable to perform their functions anymore, the church will attempt to relocate them to another place or position where they can still be useful. In this, the church central authority can be very draconian, as they expect no idling by their members. Nalvirists are expected to work every day, until the moment where they cannot absolutely go on. In such extreme cases, the church grants them a comfortable retirement, and sees to their expenses. However, although comfortable, this retirement is not luxurious by any standard.
Being in the Church is an occupation for life. Eventually, sometimes, some church members commit such crimes that they cannot be allowed in the church anymore. In these exceptional circumstances, the Church, then, excommunicates the nalvirist and hands them over to local authorities, who almost always deal the death penalty.

ENTERING THE CHUCH
Not anyone can become a nalvirist. To get into the Church, the person first has to prove they have something to contribute, an in order to sort them all out, the church performs regular tests which anyone can attent to, for a fee. If a person's result in any of those tests is deemed admissable, they are invited to join the Church in a specific capacity. Admission tests are also open to church members who desire to change their current position within the church, and that is the main medium through which church advancement is performed. In this sense, the Church of Nalvir can be though of as a form of "Scholarium", where it is study, and not birthright or past performance, that determine one's place.
Admission exams are doled out and evaluated according to whatever the church needs at time. The church is divided in "Orders", and each order has their own duties.

THE ORDER OF THE PRIESTS
The most known church members are priests, those who perform community gatherings, spread the Word of Nalvir, and tend to the wellbeing of communities, usually serving as local psychologists and improvised doctors. Important skills for priests are: Rapport, Empathy, and to a lesser extent: Lore.

THE ORDER OF THE TUTORS
The order of scholars who keep the church's vast libraries, engage in research, promote expeditions, study nature, and also the ones who organize the church's admission exams. The Tutors have vast universities across Inopia, and are the organization one aspires to if they desire a life of learning. Important skills for tutors are: Lore, Investigation and to a lesser extent: Contacts.

THE ORDER OF THE SENTINELS
The sentinels are the army branch of the church, and they serve varied functions such as private security, tactical operations, and armed protection for other church members. They are usually employed to uphold church interests, but eventually do work as public guard on some cities that have so fallen in chaos that are incapable to police themselves. Sentinels have a wide latitude of action, and are a good option for church player characters who associate with non-church members, because they may be sent on all kinds of missions in the name of the church. Important skills for sentinels are all combat skills.

THE ORDER OF THE KEEPERS
Keepers are the investigative order of the church. They investigate and judge crimes commited by other church members, and sometimes also work with other local law-enforcement in order to help them solve a particularly difficult case. Important skills for keepers are: Investigation, Contacts and to a lesser extent: Lore and Rapport.

THE ORDER OF THE MONKS
The monks are the contemplative and theological order of the church. They are usually cloistered individuals who live their lives in contemplation and reflection of church philosophy, in hopes of fully understanding the message of Nalvir. Monks serve as an intellectual support for the other orders, specially in difficult cases where an external outlook would further benefit an unbiased decision. Monk "suggestions" are highly regarded by other orders, but their frugal lifestyle and harsh conditions make it so that few deliberately want to enter the order.

THE ORDER OF THE ARCANES
The Church is not only tolerant of mages, but has actively incorporated them into its structure as a separate order. Arcanes are the Church's mage clerics, and are the best option for magical instruction outside of Varnon. They are responsible for studying magic and, in particular, magical threats and how to protect from them. The existence of the order of arcanes has already created tensions between the Church and the nobility of Ehren, but on the whole, other countries tolerate arcanes just a little better than unaffiliated mages. Important skills for arcanes are: Primordial Language, Alchemy, and, to a lesser extent: Lore.

CHURCH PHILOSOPHY
The philosophy of the Church of Nalvir is compiled in a huge book called the "Unending Pages", compiled by Nalvir himself at the end of his life. They are usually summarized in the seven religious "dogmas":
* ***The Dogma of Creation***: There is one Creator, who fashioned the world, the individuals, the sky, and the many universes. The Creator emanates creation through seven Limitless Aspects: Limitless Power, Limitless Wisdom, Limitless Balance, Limitless Time, Limitless Space, Limitless Possibilities and Limitless Body. The seven limitless aspects are known as the seven "Celestial Dragons".
* ***The Dogma of Spirituality***: Every individual is comprised of a spirit and a soul. The spirit is the function of Limitless Power in the individual, and the soul is the function of Limitless Wisdom.
* ***The Dogma of Evolution***: The goal of life in this world is to achieve perfect balance between spirit power and the soul wisdom. An individual thus perfected integrates within himself the three first aspects of the Creator. Such individual ascends materiality, overcomes death, and continues his journey only through spirit.
* ***The Dogma of Cosmology***: Urania is a spherical world around which the sun and moon endlessly rotate. Urania is not in any of the many universes; it is a universe in itself. Looking up to the sky at night we can contemplate the many universes as each appears to us as a star.
* ***The Dogma of Oneness***: Urania is the central world, the standard from which all others derive. Everything that happens in Urania is reflected one way or another in each of the countless worlds, like the warped reflections of a broken mirror.
* ***The Dogma of Reincarnation***: In order to achieve perfect balance, whenever every individual sleep at night, they incarnate in one world of the many universes and live and entire life. At the end of each of those lives, they wake up again, to live another day in Urania. In each life they live at every night, they evolve one more step towards perfection.
* ***The Dogma of Free Will***: Individuals are always free to choose their own path in life, and even choose not to walk towards perfection. This Free Will is a function of Limitless Possibilities within the individual, and is always sovereign. It is impossible to remove all choices from a person. No matter how dire a situation may be, there are always choices. Therefore, mind your choices in life, for each has the potential to lead you closer to, or away from perfect balance.

DIVINE POWERS
Some church members develop more than just skills and knowledge, they sometimes integrate so much with Nalvirian dogma that they derive true supernatural powers from them. These are known as "Divine Powers". Any person in Urania may develop these powers, if they study Nalvirian scripture for long enough, but usually, church members are those who develop them more often, and of them, the Monks are by far the most prolific.
In order to perform divine powers, a character must acquire a special stunt called ***Divine Attunement***. This stunt allows a character to bless another, and also to to purchase a special skill, called "***Divinism***".
Each level in divinism allows the selection of one specific divine power, listed further below.

THE BLESSING
Divinely attuned characters can bless someone else. The process is as simple as the attuner saying what the blessing is, and the target accepting it. The effect is that the attuner creates a new aspect on the target, with the description of what was stated.
For example: an attuner may say: "I bless you to a long and fruitful life". If the target accepts the bless, they may gain the aspect: "***Blessed to a long and fuitful life***".
This new aspect cannot cause a target to gain over aspect limit of the campaign, but may be used by a character to change one aspect into the one specified by the bless.
A character can only have one "bless" aspect. If an already blessed character receives another blessing, they must choose to either keep the former, or replace it for the later.
The blessing doesn't just help the target, it create an unbreakable metaphysical connection with the blesser. Blessers are able to feel if the ones they blessed are in danger or have died. They are also able to allow the ones they bleesed to use their fate points as if they were their own, and likewise, with their consent, blessers can use the fate points of the ones they blessed as if they were their own. This can create a "pool" of fate points several characters can use, if they were all blessed by the same person.
A character can only maintain 1 blessing connection, plus one more for each point they have in the Divinism skill. If character bless more targets than they can maintain connections, they may permanently release one of their previous connections in order to establish the new one, or not establish a new connection and simply create a bless aspect on the target.
LIST OF DIVINE POWERS
A character can only use a number of divine powers **per game session** as their skill in Divinism. If they expend all their divine power uses they may still use these powers, but each usage will cost one fate point.
Any of the listed divine powers can affect the blesser, or any one of their blessed with whom a connection is maintained.
* ***Celestial Toughness***: Target gains one extra stress slot, either physical or mental, that last until the end of the game session.
* ***Heavenly Intuition***: Choose a skill and one of the 4 actions (overcome, attack, defend, or create and advantage). The target gains a permanent +1 to that skill's action until the end of the game session.
* ***Embrace of Protection***: The target gains a +2 to all supernatural resistances until the end of the game session.
* ***Mana Shaper***: The target gains a +5 bonus to a single spellcasting roll.
* ***Regeneration***: Target immediately recovers all lost physical stress slots.
* ***Mental Clarity***: Target immediately recovers all lost mental stress slots.
* ***Divine Strike***: This power grant a target the ability to cast a specific elemental attack. Choose an element: Fire, Ice, Lightning, or Stone. The target gains the ability to cast a magical attack, as an attack action, of the selected element. This is a ranged attack that can strike any opponent on the same zone, or on adjacent zones at -1 penalty. The attack roll is based on "Will" or "Physique", whichever is better. This attack has no max damage. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Divine Shield***: The target receives -2 damage from one specific element: Fire, Ice, Lightning, or Stone. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***True Sight***: Target gains the ability to see invisible or hidden things, and the true nature of things. They could look into a remaining dragon, or a surviving unicorn, and identify them for what they are. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Angelic Flight***: The target sprouts angelic wings which can propel one at about 20 m/s. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Angelic Halo***: The targets gains the ability to emit a bright white light. This light is strangely soothing and inspires confidence in those around the target, granting a +1 bonus to all Rapport, Contacts and Deceive. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Disguise of Nature***: The target gains the ability to shapeshift into a mundane animal of equal or lower size. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Empireal Negation***: This power can undo another character's divine power. Unlike other powers, it can be targeted at anyone within the same zone as the blesser. There is no resistance, a specific divine power working on the target simply ceases to take effect.
* ***Transcendent Knowledge***: The target is infused with transcendental knowledge that cannot be explained away. Choose one skill, the target increases this skill's value by 1 point. This is not a bonus to roll, but an actual increase in skill, which also increases whatever effects the enhanced skill point would bring. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Inanimate Uplift***: When this power is used, one equipment being touched by the target increases its quality by one level. This lasts until the end of the game session.
* ***Unassailable Mind***: The target of this power have its mind immunized from supernatural manipilations. It cannot be read, manipulated, found or attacked. There is no resistance involved, such powers simply will not function on the target's mind. This lasts until the end of the game session.

* There is a **portuguese version** of this document.