Firanis

Eight thousand years ago the Empire of Jinryu gathered together the greatest wizards, sages, and architects of magic to create a weapon the likes of which the world had never seen. The Untouchable Empress intended to use this weapon to bring the entire world under her heel, and upon its completion she swiftly used its power to lay waste to a rebellious and problematic city within her own domain. What happened next is not entirely clear, but the weapon was stolen and an insurrection swiftly lead to the death of the Empress and everyone associated with the old regime. In her final act of spite, she had all records relating to the weapon's creation destroyed.

With no accurate depictions of the weapon, it passed hands as a magical oddity and trinket for centuries thereafter. At the time scholars believed the weapon was enormous, but we know now that in its inactive state it is little more than size of man's fist. However, in those intervening years accidental activations laid dozens of cities to waste. It is perhaps a poor testament to the predilections of humanity that it took so long for its second function to be revealed. Amid the devastation of the Rending Plague, a small child stole an ornate and expensive-looking ball. It is from her account that we know that in its sealed form the ultimate weapon is a small metallic sphere inlaid with strange runes. She heard whispers coming from the device, and they asked her what she wanted. She replied that she only wanted her family back. Instantly the sphere split in two and from it emerged the ultimate weapon. It whirred to life and unleashed its power. Everyone in the city saw only a blinding light, heard only a deafening cacophony, and felt only a scouring heat. When mortal senses returned, so too had the lives of all those claimed by the Rending Plague.

The young girl kept the sphere a secret, but the fact that she had developed uncanny magical powers proved more difficult to hide and she was conscripted into the imperial academy at the age of thirteen. She came to understand the nature of what she possessed, and resolved to learn how to master the weapon and use it to bring good to the world. She left the academy at the age of seventeen to do just that. Though she wished only to use the restorative powers of the weapon, her writings indicate that destruction and restoration must remain balanced. History remembers her only as the "Mother of Mercy", and she lived for nearly two-thousand years by utilizing the powers of the weapon. She eventually disappeared from the annals of history, and so too did to the weapon for another thousand years. There are several miracles or calamities in the intervening period that could possibly be attributed to it, but there are no reliable written accounts such as the works left by the Mother of Mercy so the details remains unknown.

The next confirmed appearance of the weapon was in the hands of the madman Galzinra, possibly the first to use it for its intended purpose. He laid waste to cities and used the weapon's power to restore his own soldiers to life after battle. Galzinra himself had acquired the weapon by buying it from a traveling merchant, and after discovering its true power went from a farmhand to a conquering warlord upon discovering its power. Galzinra was ultimately betrayed, however; one day the weapon simply refused to work for him, and he did not live for much longer thereafter. The weapon then fell from one hand to the next in rapid succession, occasionally disappearing for decades at a time before re-emerging.

At this point, the frequent activations of this weapon were attracting divine attention, and even the most aloof deities were growing concerned. While some were legitimately worried for the welfare of mortals, most were alarmed that its powers were rapidly growing and given time could potentially threaten divine being. Moreover, the abjurations placed on it by its creators had grown in power with the weapon. They were now so great, in fact, that even the gods could not locate it.

Thus began the great inquisition, where chosen champions of twenty-six gods fanned out across the world to find and destroy the ultimate weapon. However, every time they closed in on it the weapon eluded them. It continued to pass hands as if it had a will of its own... and indeed, by this point it did. Eventually the inquisition disbanded as the weapon disappeared from history for centuries at a time.

The next appearance of the weapon - six thousand years after its creation - is the first time we hear of its named. It is called Firanis, and it is no longer a tool but an object of worship to its fanatical followers. False copies of the weapon - far less powerful, but still functional and drawing their divine energy from the original - were spread across the world and used by the cult. No single individual knew whether they held a copy or were the lucky one to hold the true Firanis. The reality was that the true weapon passed outside of its cults influence, and what few accounts we have of the era indicate that it gained many new powers, including the ability to change its sealed form. It could now appear to be anything; a wooden totem, a brass bell, musicbox... all forms we know it took to pass from one hand to the next.

This tumultuous period came to a sudden end, and the cult of Firanis died down over a few decades. The lesser copies of the ultimate weapon were mostly destroyed by the second inquisition, and became rare but potent reminders that Firanis really did exist. To this day, there are those who still pray to this strange idol... and some still hear its response.

The divine status of Firanis is an active topic of theological debate, even among the cults of Firanis themselves. The general consensus is that it is no longer in Maniaron, but it is still passing from one hand to the next in some other distant plane. There is no doubt that it still exists somewhere out there, and its divine power continues to grow.