January 25, 2010

Continued Exposition: The Anarchy Edition

As you could probably tell, this is so far just a big dump of setting and history.  As I stated previously, this is the history of the world in which the story will take place.  I must admit, the story itself has not progressed beyond the scope of a couple neat ideas and one or two scenes.  But, in all reality, that's how I roll: I take an idea, I work up the backstory to a ridiculous height, and then I try and squeeze a story into it.  It may seem like a bad process, but trust me when I tell you that it is.  Anyways, to the two or so individuals who would even trudge this far into the mess, I suppose I should continue on.

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and hearing on the news that every priest in the world died overnight.  That's what happened to the Church of Destiny.  There was not a single Child of Fate that resisted, and in the morning, their bodies were found sprawled in their churches.  The people panicked; riots broke out, and everyone was convinced that the world was coming to an end.

Many of the former followers of the church would eventually form a new religion, and call themselves Atoners.  This religion was formed as an answer to the mass suicide by the Children of Fate.  The Atoners stated that the Children of Fate were showing humanity the true path to salvation; that life was a punishment, and that only through death could a person be pardoned.

Every Atoner church differed from the other, for there was no cohesive bond between the churches; rather, they were separate entities all formed under the same idea.  Some were more radical than others, and amounted to little more than suicide cults.  However, several of the institutions would flourish, and last until the modern day.  It is from these churches that the Pardoners originated.

The Pardoners were extreme Atoners who believed that simply accepting death or even killing one's self was not enough, and that only by saving the people from their punishment could a person truly do good in the world.  Pardoners will kill as many people as possible, by any means available, until they are caught.  Few Pardoners are ever arrested, however, for they insist on fighting to the death, or, if they are captured unaware, do all that they can to kill themselves.

It is also during this time that blood magic was reinvented.  Blood magic had previously been the following of the mad, for it required the caster to either conduct extremely difficult and elaborate ceremonies to do any real magic, or to sacrifice their own bodies; an incredibly painful process, and one that often killed the mage, sometimes after the first casting.  However, with the return of free will in such a reckless fashion, the great minds soon discovered a solution.

By experimenting on willing Atoner subjects, the mages found that the power of blood magic, unlike the other magical forces, did not derive from the otherworldly, but from the human body itself.  With further study, the mages learned that a blood mage could use any living creature to channel power through; what's more, they also found that the subject need not die, and could be an independent individual from the blood mage.

With this, the art of blood magic returned, and soon many blood mages could be seen across the world, often with a train of senseless human slaves, each one with the markings on their forehead to prepare them for easy summoning.  As the age of free will lingered, and the other magics faltered and failed, blood magic endured, and became the only practical magic in the entire world.

So, yeah, just a couple more huge ideas to put down, clarify, and work into this whole mess, and then I'll actually be out of stuff to catch up on.  Ideally, that would mean time to work on the plot, but we'll see what new crap pops up from now till then.  Anyways, it's still rolling around in my head, which is always a good sign.  Next update will probably clarify magic up a little bit, since it seems confusing as written and I'm the person who's supposed to understand it.  But, for now, it's that, and that's the best I can do tonight.  Morning.  Screw it; time is relative.

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