Seer Crisis

The **Seer Crisis** was a major event of the late Mage Imperium.

## Background

At the Twilight of the Mage Imperium, the authority of the ruling “Seer Council” was severely undermined by the increasingly widespread rumor that Seers across the Imperium had lost the ability to commune with Adalna, the patron goddess of the Imperium. Explanations were various and conflicting. Some called it a trial of faith while others claimed that Adalna had been destroyed, consumed from within by some elder horror hinted at in the oldest and most maddening texts. Others still took the matter as evidence that the Seers were frauds from the start and that the entire Imperium was built on a lie. The official line remained that Adalna communed with the Seers as much as ever, and that any rumors to the contrary were seditious fabrications. Whatever the truth, the response from the Imperium was inquisition and mass execution on Aeldrum, while on the frontier worlds where the Seer Council’s hold faded with every passing year, there was only silence and a polite fiction that all continued as before.

## History

### First Crisis

The Seer Crisis slowly germinated from the first seeds of rumor in the mid 18th Century After the Convenant, before becoming a more immediate threat to Imperial stability. When Grand Admiral Horatio, the de-facto head of the Imperial Navy for half century after the Episurian War, died, there was no official line of succession. The remaining Grand Admirals were largely men of Horatio’s generation, chosen as allies and yes-men of the old man. The youngest was 100 years old at Horatio's death. With a hoary and decrepit elite echelon, the Navy had no clear leadership, and the Seer Council proved too weak to impose a central authority.​​​​​​ The resultant devolution of authority to local naval officers, the Imperial Diet and the Sector Governors laid the foundation for decades of corruption and secret military armament which would unfold spectacularly after the Sundering in a wave of civil wars, coups and brutal "restorations" of the Imperium.

### The Lechtan Uprising

*Main article: Lechtan Uprising*
Adalna’s great silence slowly entered into academic discourse on the fringes of the Imperium, though all discussion was severely repressed on Aeldrum proper. Various Seers and unsanctioned psionics claimed to hear her voice, and some went as far as to rebel against the Seer Council. Though such “Revivalist” heresies were usually short-lived and brutally curtailed by the Inquisition, one Revivalist Seer, Corron Lecht, claimed to be an avatar of Adalna and transformed his supposed connection to the goddess into a full crusade against the “imposter council” that ruled Aeldrum. “Lechtan” uprisings occurred across the Imperium, but the heresy had its roots in the Norelle Sector, where Lecht had untold followers and has even managed to sabotage naval sites and seize ships to build his “Revival Fleet.” His ultimate ambition was nothing short of taking Aeldrum and installing himself as an absolute theocrat, and carved his domain ever closer to the Imperial Core.

### The Inquisitorial-Legate Schism

*Main article: Inquisitorial-Legate Schism*
As the Seer Crisis deepens and confidence in the moral authority of the Seer Council wanes, bulwarks of Imperial power have emerged both at the core of the Imperium and on its frontier. A class of Seer Legates, including Seer MacDonald of Hybern, has been created to restore order to rebellious sectors. Granted the authority of the Seer Council within their respective sectors, these supposedly temporary Legates have become a permanent fixture across the Imperium, vying with and often browbeating sector governors. Parallel to this system of control is the Imperial Inquisition, which actively searches for and roots out heresy; this function sometimes brings the Inquisition into conflict with the Seer Legates.

In one shocking development, a Grand Inquisitor, Radovan, has accused a Seer-Legate, Lammus of the Sigmus Sector, of Apostasy for communing with a god that, Radovan alleges, could not be Adalna. Lammus, a candidate for the Seer Council (see below), denies this allegation and has, of course, declared Radovan a traitor the Imperium. The Seer Council has hesitated to summarily denounce Radovan, lest it tip its hand toward Lammus as candidate, but also has been loathe to conduct a trial of either party. Moreover, few Grand Inquisitors have been willing to renounce their colleague, perhaps eager for a precedent that would further strengthen their vast legal powers.

For his part, Radovan has fled the Sigmus Sector in search of support, perhaps another Seer-Legate prepared to hear his evidence and try Lammus in absentia. He could well seek out the support of Seer-Legate MacDonald of Hybern, another candidate for the Seer Council and his former master. MacDonald is a figure of near-religious adoration in his own right (leading to accusations from some that MacDonald is a Revivalist in Imperialist’s clothing).

### Mass Apostasy

*Main article: Spurning of Adalna*
While Adalna’s apparent silence led some to pursue a religious revival, other elements of the Imperium have interpreted the Seer Crisis as the death of Adalna and, with it, the state creed of the Imperium. In an Imperium already increasingly skewed toward secular institutions and beliefs, many have abandoned religion altogether (a position barely tolerated by the highest Imperial authorities), but others have sought new gods, minor and great, real and fictitious. These apostates are hunted by the Inquisition throughout the Imperium, but several major faiths have begun to claim the souls of the Imperium, on some worlds rivaling the Adalnan state creed. Kirvan sympathizers have turned into converted zealots, frontier physicians now worship Idolmar as often as Adalna, those of elvish heritage look all too often to their Enclave cousins for spiritual guidance, whispering angels of the Lords of the Pentacle ensnare Princes and commoners alike, and all across the Imperium a thousand minor gods and greater demons are worshipped by secret cults that subvert and even assail the Imperial Creed. The result is spiritual and political fragmentation, eroding the foundations of the Imperium and threatening to alienate regional secular governments ever more from the Seer Council. Attempts to counter this phenomenon are cautious, for reconversion can swiftly turn into Revivalism, a movement perhaps even more dangerous and destabilizing than mere apostasy.