Creation of the Wixen World (Concordant)

## Creation of the Wixen World

### The Empire of Atlantis

Approximately 15,000 years ago, the Empire of Atlantis rose to prominence in the Mundane World. It started as ten kingdoms under the united rule of Emperor Atlas of House Atlantaea. The rulers of the ten kingdoms under Emperor Atlas were all his younger brothers, each given a kingdom to rule in exchange for their loyalty to the Empire.

While one of the Kingdoms was located in the Canary Islands, most of the Empire was centered in West Africa in what is now the Sahara Desert, but 15,000 years ago, the desert didn’t exist and the land was lush, green, and tropical with many rivers and a massive lake that dwarfed the combined size of North America’s Great Lakes. The Imperial Capital was the City of Atlantis, located outside the Pillars of Hercules in present-day Mauritania south of the Atlas Mountains in an area today known as the Eye of the Sahara. The city consisted of three circles of land and two of water, with a large canal to the south that led out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Over the centuries that followed, the Empire grew, establishing colonies throughout the Mediterranean, including but not limited to the areas later settled by the Minoans, Phoenicians, and Greeks. One of the oldest and largest colonies was on the Greek Island of Santorini, then known as Thera, which in time became a sort of secondary capital. Meanwhile, the imperial capital in Mauritania was the largest city in the empire and a major trading hub. It became a melting pot for many cultures and religions across the Empire and beyond. It would not be wrong to say that the city never slept, as there was activity at all hours of the day.
In roughly 12,000 BCE, the Empire was rocked by religious unrest and disagreements between the followers of the polytheistic pantheons and early proto-Abrahamic religions that believed in monotheism. What began as minor unrest grew into skirmishes and finally an all-out war. For a couple of generations, the two sides were evenly matched with neither side having an advantage over the other. Thus, the Gods were content to let them fight it out. However, the tide of the war began changing circa 9,600 BCE when due to a series of successful ambushes, guerilla tactics, terrorist actions, and assassinations of key leaders, the monotheists began to gain the upper hand.
The monotheists were brutal, taking large numbers of prisoners. Many of these prisoners were enslaved and had their tongues cut out so that they couldn’t spread their blasphemous polytheistic beliefs. Many of the men were also castrated, root and stem, so that they couldn’t sire any children who might grow up and become polytheists. Still more were given the choice: convert or die. It wasn’t at all uncommon for some to be executed even after they’d converted. If a priest believed that a person wasn't being entirely honest about their conversion and were still practicing polytheism in secret, they were often declared heretics and burned at the stake.

Many of the Gods and Goddesses of the world’s pantheons were getting increasingly concerned as the monotheists began racking up more and more victories and killing those who refused to convert. They were also not deaf or blind to the ever-increasing desperation and pleading in the prayers they were receiving from their followers, begging them to intercede on their behalf. In a previously unprecedented move, strongly urged by the Fates who warned that the issues in Atlantis were only the beginning, representatives from all of the world’s major pantheons met and discussed what to do about the situation. The result of these talks was the agreement that they would all band together to create a new world for their faithful where they could live in peace, away from the threat of the monotheists’ zealotry.

Once this world was created, the Gods saved their faithful followers and moved them to hidden enclaves of the new world far from their homeland. Thanks to the cruelty, mass executions, and castrations they’d suffered at the hands of the monotheists, there simply weren’t enough people left to rebuild Atlantis to its former glory.

As the Atlanteans had been worshipers of what later became the Greek Olympian Pantheon, the Olympian gods were given the task of punishing the monotheists that remained in what was left of the Empire. For about eight years, Demeter cursed them with crop failures that got worse and worse with each year, as more and more starved. Eileithyia cursed them with fertility issues that worsened each year. Apollo cursed them with plagues. Aphrodite cursed them with ugliness, while Eros broke up many of their previously happy marriages by shooting them with his lead arrows that made people fall out of love instead of the golden ones that caused love.

### The Destruction of Atlantis

Then finally in 9,452 BCE, in a single day and night of catastrophic destruction, Hephaestus caused all the volcanoes in West Africa to erupt. Poseidon sent hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Zeus sent down lightning bolts crashing down on their heads. The result was the nearly complete eradication of these early monotheists, as any trace of Atlantis was either washed out to sea by the tsunamis or lost forever in the sands of the Sahara by 3,000 BCE when the once lush and green Saharan region suffered from mass desertification. Creating one of the largest deserts in the world that is to this day one of the least explored places on Earth due to the extreme heat and lack of water or other resources.
The remaining devout Atlanteans, few in number and protected from the cataclysms, were given a divine task by the Gods to travel around the globe erecting a portal building in each enclave whose walls were inscribed with the required information on how to access and operate the portal, and the rules governing the wixen who would live in the newly created magical world, magically readable in any language.

The Atlanteans and their wixen were instructed in how to build ships that could travel by sea or fly through the air, and when needed turn invisible to be unseen by any locals. The airships would be guided by the Gods to each enclave, although the route took hidden from them until they reached their destination. So, over the next 5,000 years or so the Atlantean crews visited each of the more than 125,000 enclaves around the world executing their task.
As new cultures developed, the Atlanteans integrated into them, such as the Phoenicians, Minoans, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and early Greeks shared their knowledge and helped them thrive. When the time came for the first wixen to migrate to the magical world, the Phoenicians, the last of the Atlanteans delivered to them the remaining airships and their secrets.

## Characteristics of the Wixen World

The Wixen World was created in a separate dimensional bubble by the combined wills of many pantheons of Gods on 22 March 9500 BCE. It is flat rather than a sphere with its lands mirroring the Mundane World's land masses and linked to them, accessible via predefined portals in Enclaves on the Mundane World. Being flat, there are distinct eastern Pacific and western Pacific Oceans at the edges of the Wixen World which are NOT linked and divided roughly down the middle of the Mundane Pacific Ocean. Similarly, there are northern and southern edges to the Wixen World.

The Wixen World is orbited by a Sun crafted by the Gods which tracks northward and then southward over the course of a year approximating the Mundane World's Sun, thus preserving the two solstices and two equinoxes, the special solar positions occurring at exactly noon on the special days thanks to the Gods. Seeing as the Sun rises and sets at the same time everywhere on the Wixen World, there is no need for time zones as used on the Mundane World. The Wixen World Year as described via its Sun's movements is exactly the same length of time as the Mundane World's year.

There is also a Moon orbiting the Wixen World, its phases accommodated by the Gods only programmed exactly over the length of an entire month, in addition to extra full moons added at the will of the Gods. The night sky has also been created to mirror that seen from various positions in the Mundane World.

The drifting northward and southward of the Wixen Sun's orbits allow for seasonal changes in temperature, but the Wixen World's climate is controlled as much by the overall magic inherent in its creation by the Gods, and is in general much more temperate than the climate of the Mundane World, especially to the far north and south.

### Origin of the Flat Earth Myth

The Wixen World is the origin of the myth that the Earth is flat, as while the mundane Earth is indeed a spherical planetoid, the magically created copy that is the Wixen World is not. All of the land that exists on Earth was copied over to the Wixen world upon creation. However, the Earth's bodies of water were not copied in their entirety. In the Wixen world, the oceans and seas only extend 100 miles out from the coasts of the world's continents and 50 miles out from the coasts of the world's islands. Because of this, there are many places in the Wixen world where it is simply not possible to sail there by water. And if you sail too close to the edge in a ship that is only capable of traveling on water, it is entirely possible for your ship, your crew, and everything else on it to fall off the edge of the world and down to the Mundane World below.

There are magical perception filters which prevent mundanes from seeing this when it happens, though it very rarely does. By the current day, all Wixen ships that are built to travel distances of more than 200 miles are enchanted with spells that allow them to sail on the water, but also lift vertically up out of the water and sail through the skies as a skyship. It's through the use of the skyships that trade and travel between continents that are more than 200 miles away from one another and don't have chains of islands providing a link between them is possible. Theoretically, you could use a broom to make such a journey, but it's the exceedingly rare wixen who'd be willing to sit on a broomstick for a journey of only 20 miles, let alone one of 200 miles or more.

Thus, the myth that the Earth is flat is due to generations of squibs, squibborns, and wixen who chose to live in, or at least visit, the Mundane world spreading tales of their homeland in the Wixen world. While the vast majority of these details were completely scrubbed from Mundane records with the passage of the International Statute of Wixen Secrecy, there are a few vague details that persist to this day. It's these details, along with the ignorance or dismissal of scientific fact and active imaginations which has led many of a special breed of conspiracy theorist, typically known as a Flat Earther, to believe that the mundane Earth is flat, when nothing could be further from the truth.

### The Hundreds

The Wixen world is divided into intrinsically indivisible sections, known as Hundreds, each measuring 12,000 acres or 18.75 square miles. Each of the Hundreds has a magical anchor that ties the magically created land to its corresponding location on the mundane Earth. In this way, the flat magical lands are topologically mapped to the spinning mundane globe, in effect covering the globe with small plates. Being an artificial construct, each Hundred also has a set of magical controls affecting its environment and general health.

### The Enclaves

Special hundreds known as Enclaves, which exist partly in the Wixen world and partly in the Mundane as magically hidden lands, are scattered across the world. Like the Hundreds, the Enclaves are also 12,000 acres, except that only 6,000 of these acres are in the Wixen world, while the other 6,000 are magically hidden lands in the Mundane world. At the center of each Enclave is a portal which allows travel between the Wixen and Mundane worlds. Any humanoid or creature that has magical genes, even if they're dormant like in the case of a squib, can pass through the portals unharmed. For those that do not possess these genes, however, it is extremely inadvisable for them to attempt to use the portals unless they have a death wish. Any entity not in possession of the necessary magical genes will, upon using an Enclave portal, be incinerated due to the high concentration of magical ambiance which a body that has no magical genes is incapable of coping with. The body is essentially flooded with so much energy that by virtue of not having magical genes it doesn't know what to do with. Thus, the body is instantly incinerated.

Each Enclave is located at the center of a cluster of Hundreds surrounding it. On average, this translates to one Enclave for every 24 Hundreds, creating a land area of approximately 460 square miles. Within each of these clusters are four magical focus sites that are each tied to one of the four elements of Fire, Earth, Water, or Air. The Gods of the various polytheistic pantheons provided the initial power to these focus sites when they created the Wixen world. The focus sites are essentially large magical batteries which collect and store a portion of the magical energy used every time an inhabitant of the Wixen world casts a spell, uses a magical ritual, or performs a special magical Rite. It's the focus sites which store this excess magical energy that power the Enclave portals and the Hundred anchors. It is possible, using a special spell, for a wixen to tap a focus site directly to cast a more powerful spell than they would normally be able to cast. However, doing so without the permission of the local lord or ruler is inadvisable and one can never tap a focus site and draw out all of its power as to do so would place the portals, anchors, and the very environment of the cluster of Hundreds that the site is in at risk.

## The Migration Laws

When they created the Wixen world, the various Gods agreed on a series of laws that would govern those who migrated from the Mundane world to their newly created world. These laws are immutable and still in effect to this day, as no power in the Wixen world save for the Gods themselves can change them. And seeing as how these laws have existed unchanged for more than ten millennia, it is highly unlikely that the Gods will change them anytime soon. Especially considering that any such change would require the unanimous agreement of every single God and Goddess across every single pantheon. And getting them all to agree on something is not an easy feat. In fact, when they banded together to create the Wixen world it was both the first and last time it's ever happened.

* **Rule #1:** No monotheism. The Gods and Goddesses didn't expend their energies to create an entirely brand new world for their followers to see it polluted by people who would almost certainly want to see their monotheistic faiths become the dominant religions in the new world, as they are in the old. Essentially, if you're a monotheist, there's nothing wrong with that, but you have an entire world to call home in the Mundane world. The Wixen world is not for you. You can still practice magic though many Wixen would question why anyone would worship a monotheistic deity when the vast majority of the monotheistic faiths declare magic to be evil and it's practitioners to be committing a grave sin worthy of death. Still, if that's what you want you want to do, more power to you. You can visit the Enclaves, that is the sections of them located within magically hidden areas in the Mundane world, for shopping and socializing with your fellow Wixen, but you are not welcome to use the portals and travel to the Wixen world itself.
	+ **Exception:** This rule does have an exception in the form of a grace period for squibborn witches and wizards born in the Mundane world. They are not required to convert to polytheism immediately the first time they come to the Wixen world. However, they are expected to have done so, faithfully and truthfully, by the time they reach their Age of Majority or they finish their standard education at one of the Wixen world's magical schools, whichever comes last. Standard education does not include gaining Masteries. If they don't convert faithfully and truthfully by that time, they will be automatically ejected from the Wixen world and the portals will not work for them. They will be barred from returning unless and until they convert to the worship of a polytheistic pantheon. The only requirement is that your belief must be true and faithful, and the pantheon in question has to exist. You can't make up your own or convert to the worship of a fictional pantheon of gods, say from a video game or fantasy novel, and expect the portals to unlock for you.
	+ If you choose not to convert and continue to live in the Mundane world, you must live under the terms of the International Statute of Wixen Secrecy and any other laws passed by the ICW, or the Ministries for Magic of your home country, or any other countries that you visit or spend any time in that are meant to hide the existence of magic from the mundanes. So, you can keep your monotheistic faith if you want to. Nobody will stop you. But you will be barred from the Wixen world, and you will, under penalty of criminal prosecution, be unable to use magic, potions, magical artifacts, or anything else that could reveal the existence of magic in front of mundanes who don't already know about the existence of magic.
* **Rule #2:** You don't try to expand where the Gods tell you not to go. There are many instances in the Wixen world where historical empires of the Mundane world exist in the Wixen world, but the borders of the territory they control are not the same as they were before their migration. This is because the Gods and Goddesses placed limits upon where those who migrated to their world could expand in order to guarantee that the followers of each of the polytheistic faiths whose deities lent their energies to create the Wixen world would continue to have an area that was solely the home of their followers. This doesn't mean that you can't travel to or even live in the territory of a different pantheon than you worship. It just means that the various empires when claiming the lands that make up their empires were restricted from venturing to certain areas. One example of this was the Roman Empire, as they were forbidden from attempting to reclaim their lands in North Africa, Asia, or certain parts of Western or Eastern Europe. Of course, as a militaristic power eager to reclaim all the areas they held influence over in the Mundane world, they did lose a fair number of soldiers testing the limits until they realized and accepted those limits. They were not the only power to run up against the limits, but they were perhaps the most stubborn in accepting them.
* **Rule #3:** No slavery of any kind. Whether it be chattel, indentured, sex, wage, or any other form of slavery you can think of and even those you can't, it is illegal in the Wixen world. The Gods and Goddesses reserve the right to smite anyone who attempts to own, buy, sell, or otherwise enslave another sentient being. Just don't do it. You will not enjoy the result. And don't try to use the "I'm a masochist" excuse. You WILL NOT enjoy it. Period. Full stop.
* **Rule #4:** No mundane animals or livestock can be transported to the Wixen world through the Enclave portals. All importation of mundane animals or livestock must be done through the merchants of the Phoenician Empire, who have been granted a permanent, divinely-blessed monopoly on the acquisition, transport, and sale of mundane animals and livestock from the Mundane world. Anyone who attempts to horn in on the Phoenician's monopoly in this industry will, if caught, be subject to the judgement of the Phoenician Empire's criminal courts, regardless of their Empire of origin. And don't think you won't get caught. Because you will, no matter how good at sneaking you think you are, the Phoenician patrols will find you and you will be arrested, tried, and if found guilty, convicted and sentenced as the Phoenicians see fit. In this, no other Empire will be willing to intercede as to do so would be going against the will of the Gods.
* **Rule #5:** Due to the intricacies of the magic that control the Hundred anchors and Enclave portals, only the Gods can change the ownership of any stretch of magical land throughout the Wixen world. For the continued good health and prosperity of the Hundreds and Enclaves, it is important that their owners perform regular fine-tuning of the flows of magical energies through their controlled territory.
* **Rule #6:** All land within the Wixen world must be owned by an Empire or Kingdom, as the ownership of the magical lands is tied to the blood and bloodline of the King or Emperor. While the King or Emperor can transfer control of a parcel of land to someone else, that person doesn't own it. It's still ultimately owned by the King or Emperor. And it is for this reason that you will never see anybody in the Wixen world calling for the abolishing of their monarchy. The monarchs in the Wixen world rule by Divine Right, as in the Gods blessed them and their rule, so abolishing the monarchy would mean going against the will of the Gods. Of course, if the monarchy were abolished and the King or Emperor no longer owns the land of the Kingdom or Empire, or if a royal or imperial bloodline truly goes extinct (meaning there is no possible chance of a dormant line ever being revived because nobody alive possesses the bloodline) then the land would revert to an unclaimed state. No land or territory in the Wixen world can be lived on if it's in an unclaimed state. The land itself will essentially become incorporeal if it's unclaimed and anyone living on it will fall through the land down to the Mundane world below.

## Special Magical Rites

There a series of magical blood rites which can be performed in the Wixen world, with various effects.

* **Rite of Blood Inheritance:** A rite which will reveal the bloodline and potential inheritances of the person who gives their blood when performing it. This rite can reveal that a person bears a royal, imperial, or noble bloodline... but it can also reveal that a person bears a commoner bloodline. It can reveal special magical abilities that their bloodline possesses, and whether they've inherited the ability to use them, and it can also reveal the existence of a marriage or betrothal contract. The person doing the rite is legally and magically bound to fulfill any contracts that the rite reveals them to be a party to. This particular rite can only be done by the goblins of Gringotts Wixen Bank. It will not work if anyone else attempts to do it outside of Gringotts and you run the risk of getting in serious trouble with the goblins if they find out you did it. Which no sane person wants.
* **Rite of Claim:** A rite which allows the person doing it to claim magical ownership of unclaimed territory for one's bloodline. This Rite can not be performed on land that is already claimed and the Gods must agree with the claimant's request to own the land.
* **Rite of Empire:** A rite which allows the King or Queen of a territory to turn their Kingdom into an Empire and gain the special perks granted to the Imperial Bloodlines by the Gods. There is a territorial size threshold that must be passed before this Rite can be performed. Performing this Rite means that the person doing it is making a request to be recognized by the Gods as an Imperial Bloodline. They can reject your request for any reason they like and while they are not required to explain why they rejected your request, they will usually give you some clue as to why so that you can try to remedy whatever issue made them reject your request.
* **Rite of Transfer:** A rite which allows the ruler of a Kingdom or Empire to transfer control, but not ownership, to another person's bloodline. This is the method that Kings and Emperors use to create the nobility. The lord and head of each noble house becomes responsible for the fine-turning of the flow of magic through the territory. The noble house also gains the incomes generated on the land while it remains in their control. But they never actually own the land. The King/Emperor still owns it and can take it back at any time.
* **Rite of Conquest:** This rite allows a person to win ownership and control of an already owned territory, transferring ownership and control from one person's bloodline to another person's bloodline. Like most things in the Wixen world, however, this will not work without the blessing of the Gods.
* **Rite of Proxy:** This rite allows a ruler to designate a trusted witch or wizard to perform the Rite of Claim on unclaimed territory or Rite of Conquest on claimed territory on the ruler's behalf, transferring the magical control and ownership to the ruler's bloodline instead of the bloodline of the person actually doing the ritual.
* **Rite of Control:** Similar to the Rite of Conquest, except that it only transfers magical control of a claimed territory, but not ownership.
* **Rite of Merger:** This rite merges control and ownership over two separately owned territories into one jointly owned and ruled territory. This Rite is what the original Pendragon Seven used to create the Britannic Empire when they merged the Empire's seven core territories into one large territory that was jointly owned and ruled by all seven houses. They still had to the Rite of Empire to be recognized as an Empire, however.
* **Rite of Submission:** This rite allows the owner of a claimed territory to willingly submit and transfer ownership of their territory to the bloodline of another, with the blessing of the Gods. This has been used multiple times throughout history. Such as when the Kingdoms of Greece and Troy willingly joined the larger Byzantine Empire, and when the various Kingdoms in Great Britain and Ireland beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Camelot willingly submitted to the rule of Kings Arthur, Gwaine, and Merlin after their migration to the Wixen world.
* **Rite of Succession:** A rite which allows a person to ask for and potentially receive the blessing of the Gods to become an Heir to a royal or imperial throne. This ritual cannot be done until the person doing it is age 13 or older. It is possible to be considered an heir before age 13, but until you do the Rite, the Gods haven't given you their blessing, and thus you don't get any of the special perks of being a member of a Royal or Imperial Bloodline.
* **Rite of Coronation:** A rite which allows a person to ask for and potentially receive the blessing and thus the Divine Right to ascend to a royal or imperial throne as the ruler of a Kingdom or Empire. This Rite can not be done until the person doing it is age 15 or older.