Magic Arts of Paedelos

"*You are given this gift not to lord over others and to rule as you see fit, but to rule in the image of the Gods. You are one of their lesser spawn, a scion of Ator, a scion of Puradas. Your very life is a divine gift, one only given by the kind ones that lay above. Your power, a treasure to be held close at heart and examined. You were born into this world to teach, to instruct, and to be instruments of change. You may live well beyond your family, you may blind others with your power, but you will remain as you are - a man. Corruptible.*"
— Delis Moenon, the Caenic founder of the Pyromantic Arts in Aea.
   Within every single creature born into the world, there is a shred of Ator - a single, immutable piece of the Mother within every being in this world. They are all Her children in a way, for they are born of Her, beget by Her, live within Her, and will ultimately return to Her. Her mightiest children, the secondborn of the Godlings, had one among their number that looked to mankind for many things - Puradas, the kindest and mightiest among the secondborn. Puradas looked to mankind for inspiration, for insight into the ingenious minds of Ator's finest creation. He watched them build cities and go to war with one another, and watched in great fascination as they fell in love and fell into hatred, and fought over petty things and over grand things. He became so infatuated that, one fateful night, he set his eyes upon an Aescantiri noble girl. An heiress by the name of Vellen, who had been betrothed to a Lord she did not love to advance her family's goals in the vast dominion of antiquity Aescantir. It is said that Puradas took to the world in the guise of a young prince, promising everything to her should she elope with him. He wore her down, day by day, giving her more and more extravagant gifts. She snuck out with him and they walked through the city streets of Qormara and Selingel, they walked the palatial grounds of her ancestral estate and they laughed together. They looked into one another's eyes, and stopped at the foot of the gate.

Puradas, smitten at first sight, had slowly made his way into the heart of the mortal girl. She smiled, and lifted a hand to his face and pulled it closer. When their lips locked and the kiss was made did their souls lock, and the two grew inseparable. When he was introduced to her father, he meant to send him off until he noticed something. He had an aura, a power about him that made him stand out. When he noticed that the father had seen his deception, he cast it off. Before her family he stood bare, a glowering tower of divine light. And so, after showing himself, he robed himself in his deceptive mortal cloak, and he came to her father and knelt. He kissed his ring, and asked for his daughter's hand in marriage. Her father, being requested by a God for the hand of his daughter, immediately gave it. As soon as he had said yes Puradas took her to the realm of the immortals, to the land of the immaterial, in the godly planes. He made of her starlight, and gave unto her immortality and eternity within his realm.

In the following years after he had children with her. Demigods that proliferated throughout the realms of man, whose names are forgotten to time. They are the ones that would give Puradas' blood, the blood of the gods, to mankind. It unlocked that shred of Ator present in every human the godsblood coursed through, and gave them power beyond their more mundane kin. They could create flame from their palms through thought, they could twist the insides of men, and cause buildings to shake and shatter - and so much more. The earliest of the Magi set to scholarly pursuits; chronicling and studying their blood and it's abilities. The first true names of these antiquity Magi, these guides, mystics and sages, were men of the likes of Moenon and Phetras, Dalkinas and Imon. The eldest among these names were Phetras, who was the first Eastern scholar to unlock the abilities of manipulation of fire and lightning, to turn the ground to mud, to create water out of thin air, and to move objects from across the room. Others discovered more fanciful things, like flight or teleportation or invisiblity, but their names and their discoveries were almost entirely lost to time through the means of ambition or pettiness. Before the Godswar, when Magi congregated together, they created the first Conclaves. These were mass gatherings of Magi that gathered to give one another knowledge, to debate and fight with words and sometimes with their blood, and to pool together their collective might and thought. When hundreds gathered, they became Concerts. When thousands gathered, they founded the first Universities. Hundreds were erected mostly across Aea, where many Magi would gather. The West proved to be a magical nexus, a place of great power unlike any other, and on key ley-lines were built grand sprawling fortress complexes that would host vast libraries, debate halls, and elements of schooling. They would teach new prospective Magi, and become an influential force in the world unlike any other. When the Universities were founded, Magi became common throughout the higher echelons of society to the point that most Kings and Nobles were men of magical blood, and their word was backed by both the sword and the blood of the Gods. This would all change with the Sorcerer-Kings.

They came and they went, but before they left they demolished most of the Universities. Only two stood after their invasion and occupation, and those were the Red-Gold University and the University of Yet. The Yettish were halfway flooded under the waters of Kasura, relegated to the lowest of Universities due to the Godswar. The Red-Gold University, in contrast, grew and blossomed to be the greatest power in the world. They gathered hundreds of thousands of Magi within their walls, and fended off invasions of great kingdoms, the Sorcerer-Kings, and even fought in the Godswar as the first war-magi. The old antiquity Magi, the scholar, teacher and sage, died with the Godswar. What came from the ashes of that destructive conflict that spanned stars was the new era of Magi - arrogant, corrupt, and vicious. The new Magi were monsters in the clothing of men, able to bend men in half with the flick of a wrist, and siphon from them their own life force to extend their own lives. These practices were already done before the Godswar, but to such little amounts that most Magi were seen as mystical teachers rather than dangerous warriors. The Red-Gold University had specialized in martial applications before the Godswar, but was among the lower echelons of University ranking. When they were the last ones left, they were all that the Magi became.

In the modern era, Magi are few and far between. With the death of Puradas, the start of the Godswar, and the death of Vellen by her own hand, the godsblood has slowly weakened over the centuries; pale shadows of their once mighty power. They have bled and died, and their bloodline is running thinner and thinner to the point less and less halfbloods, let alone pureblooded godspawn, are born every year. The population of the Red-Gold is slowly shrinking, and the Greentide killed what few Magi were in influential power in Naros, as well as cut Myr and the Red-Gold by extension off from the rest of the continent. And man, fickle and corruptible, will turn on one another rather than do what Puradas envisioned they would with this gift - live with mercy.

The wheel continues to turn, and so does the world burn. Puradas weeps for his children, where'er he strides.