Joseth Occius
Joseth Occius walks with the smooth strong strides of an experienced traveler. From a distance he is just another Mgorongoron making his way along the rough-worn roads of Athenea's eastern frontier; sandals stepping beside deep ruts worn in from trains of supply wagons accompanied by scores of Commonwealth soldiers. Travel through eastern Athenea's frontier is dangerous, especially for a lone man on foot, but Joseth is no common tribesman. Beneath weathered robes of purple, gold and white, armor and weapons are well conealed along with visual clues about his unusual heritage, upbringing and religious indoctrination.
Men of Joseth's faith are whispered of throughout Sion as 'The Doomed', a term of both wonder and derisement. Mysterious as they are feared, Clerics of Cronus are wanderers without a homeland, pilgrims without a temple. Harshly pragmatic, their attitude about the world is poignantly cynical, suspicious, dogmatic and rarely law-abiding. Clerics of Cronus walk in the footsteps of the prophet Hozia, a figure of history little loved by other mainstream faiths on Sion. The Church of Pentos actually hunts down followers of Hozia with paladins, executing them mercilessly as heretics and idoloters. A fate Hozia himself suffered in martyrdom. Clerics of Cronus are the leaders and defenders of the followers of Hozia, wandering throughout the world to uncover relics and establish settlements.
Joseth felt his lips muttering one of Hozia's holy chants, a favorite of his tutor Zedekiah who suffered horrible burns from the spells of searing light employed by the paladins of Pentos. Zedekiah escaped death and survived in obscurity Llong enough to finish Joseth's religious education years after Joseth's father (and the rest of his settlement of Hozia's followers) perished. Joseth often heard himself muttering that chant whenever his mentors memory haunted him. He missed the old rascal a great deal and carried his staff as a memento.
Joseth himself only survived the destruction of his fathers settlement because Joseth's mother was the daughter of a Mgorongoron tribal chief and quite a fierce woman. She fled back into the Commonwealth of Athenea for protection into the tribal territories with her son, already nearly a teenager. Joseth grew up torn between two ways of life. His grandfather Kimotho (the tribal chief) and the rest of the tribe mocked the Gallian customs and lifestyle he was raised in as 'foreign foolishness.'
Joseth was educated harshly in the ways of tribal life... herding cattle, hunting, fighting and back-breaking labor. The other youth called him 'Bulu Fojusi', Mgorongoron for 'Blue-eyed idiot'. At a certain age he was expected to marry and take his place in the tribal order, but after his mother died Joseth left the tribe for good. Or so he thought.
Joseth returned to the Gallian settlement of Gallicus to the south, hoping to find some answers in the ruins of his fathers settlement, but all he found was ashes and dust. Joseth tracked rumors of other survivors for close to a year before he finally found Zedekiah, an elderly Cleric of Cronus who tutored his father before him. Joseth learned many things from Zedekiah...
The Origins of Lutheria and the Reign of Luther
Long ago, before the Great Republic of Gallia formed the continent was divided into city-states ruled by oligarchs turned tyrants. One such state went through a period of revolution led by a Warlock named Luther, an outsider trained in the arcane arts by the evil Kingdom of Khimera across the sea on the island of Chival. Luthers powers inspired great fear, but he claimed he never sold his soul to the demons the way other Khimeran Warlocks had.
He credited his powers instead to an ancient and powerful artifact. Luther claimed this artifact possessed a great magical intelligence belonging to the great god Cronus. Other priests spoke against Luther and this artifact, claiming Cronus was a god of chaos who could not be trusted. Nevertheless, Luther's genius paired to the powers of this artifact convinced many would-be allies of his right to rule.
Luther's ideas were highly unorthodox and advanced for his time. He credited many to the artifact as 'revelations of Cronus'. Luther preached about a system of laws that held all men as equals with mutual responsibility for the greater good. A doctrine that was highly unpopular with petty lords, yet welcomed by commoners.
Slowly over the course of several years, Luther gathered an army of followers and prepared to lead an uprising to overthrow the reigning nobles and depose the seated King. His campaign was frighteningly effective, aided by his own cadre of trained warlocks, advanced alchemical items and superior masterwork weapons of steel forged by spell and enchanted with wicked powers.
In victory the people rejoiced and named Luther the new Lord Ruler and renamed their lands Lutheria in his honor. Luthers government was equal parts magocracy and oligarchy. His code of laws was erected in stone at the center of every town square chiseled into a stone obelisk. Luther's reign was long and prosperous. His people were well fed, educated and empowered. Lutheria's wealth, marvels and monuments soon became the envy of the continent.
A highly independent and intelligent lot, Lutherians were craftsman, artists and architects without rival. Yet still were they also debauched, greedy and sinful. Luther's laws had little basis in morality, so long as order was observed. Slavery and all manner of indebted servitude quickly became the norm.
The Gallian Church of Pentos
Neighboring nobles saw Lutheria as an intollerable growing threat, attempting several invasions, pressing their borders, slowing Lutherias expansion as much as possible. Nevertheless, Lutheria's smaller military managed to fight off armies of far larger size for decades with their warlocks, advanced siege-weaponry and impressive defensive fortifications.
It was the the advent of the Church of Pentos in Gallia that threatened Lutheria more than the enemy lords ever could individually. Its tenants labeled Lutheria's laws blasphemous and Cronus as evil and unjust. A rising fervor of religious fanaticism promised to crusade against Lutheria. All the enemy lords had to do was join the faith and find their ranks swelled to an overwhelming advantage.
The Prophet Hozia
It was during this period the prophet Hozia came to Lutheria. The Lutherian people were stunned to witness Hozia's uncanny resemblance to Luther himself. Paintings and sculptures everywhere proved it.
However Hozia was a much different man than Luther, in many ways his opposite. Though every bit a genius and individualist, Hozia was a Cleric, not a Warlock. He claimed to receive powers directly from Cronus through prayer. Labeling Luther as an idolater and false prophet who misused an artifact to gain absolute power. He went further to say Luther was beholden to demons with a plan to strip the land of its wealth and conscience.
Like Luther himself, Hozia went underground and went about gathering followers and preparing an uprising, though he had far less time to accomplish it than Luther had. Hozia warned of the holy crusade gathering against Lutheria, preaching it would destroy them all within the year if they did not depose Luther.
Unlike Luther, Hozia preached that man should not live in gluttony and sin just because he could. Hozia believed in honesty, humility, passionate expression and individual freedom.
He believed laws should serve the greater good by protecting the individual. That the prosperous many should uplift the unfortunate and unlucky few. A dogma that directly contradicted the laws of Luther where the old, weak, sick and disabled were discarded.
As Hozia's following grew, Luther became incensed at the threat to his rule by this 'impostor'. Luther quickly became every bit the evil tyrant Hozia warned he was, cruelly imprisoning and executing anyone known to associate with Hozia's cause.
In the worst days of Luthers reign, Hozia revealed a remarkable secret to his closest followers explaining that he was not actually Luther's brother at all, but that they were in fact the same person, split in form and consciousness. In essence, Luther was another version of Hozia who had been corrupted by the unholy Demon God Herod.
Herod lured Hozia into retrieving a crystal shard beneath the caverns of Khimera under the guise of a stranger. The moment he touched the shard, Hozia became enlightened about Cronus because the shard was actually a piece of his consciousness, lost at the doom of the old world at the start of the first ice age. Hozia was overwhelmed with knowledge, and in that moment of vulnerability Herod convinced Hozia to imagine what sort of tyranny he could accomplish with such a powerful relic.
A part of Hozia's consciousness split as he imagined such a thing, manifesting a villainous version of himself named Luther. Luther snatched away the shard from Hozia and immediately undertook the tutelage of Herod becoming a powerful Warlock. He then made his way to the continent of Gallia where Herod hoped to spread his influence.
Hozia meanwhile was imprisoned by Herod, but protected and empowered by Cronus who saw in him a true believer worthy of his power. Many years later, after Hozia spent enough years in meditation to gather his strength, he escaped Herod's prison and made his way after Luther.
in the end the secret to defeat Luther was Hozia's martyrdom facing off against the Crusaders of Pentos... for by allowing himself to be destroyed, Hozia also ensured Luther was destroyed. Hozia's meditations on Cronus brought forth wisdom beyond most mortal beings understanding which he preached to his followers. Here is but one example...
The Nature of Magic & the Great Wheel
To understand the nature of magic one must first comprehend the nature of the great wheel. Time is the mechanism that keeps the great wheel of The Planes turning. As time moves, things change. The relationship of time and change is measured with age. Time is a constant omnipresent force, or rather, the relationship of change to the passage of time is constant.
Nothing on the great wheel is permanent. Time changes all eventually and the breadth of time itself is inconceivable. The planes were not always as they are known now, nor will they always be. It is likely that the planes shrink and grow and merge in every possible way. It is also likely that innumerable variations of the planes will exist, and have existed.
Magic is the antithesis of time. Magic creates, magic changes, magic destroys when it can at the will of those that manipulate it. Magic should not be confused with the spark of life, light and dark, the substance of the soul, or part of the nature of good and evil. Magic is apart from all those things, and also part of all those things because just as energy and matter never disappear magic merely changes form.
Think of a rock. That rock was not always a rock. A rock is made up of other things in a different state and combination then they were before. A rock can cease to be a rock. It can crumble to dust or melt into magma but as a rock it can only be a rock. A rock will not grow into a tree but a seed can. A seed is alive and therefore designed to grow, live and die when conditions permit it. Likewise the rock only came to be when conditions permitted it to form over time and it will not change again until time passes or something changes it. This understanding of things living and not living as we know them, does not apply to magic.
Magic is a unique form of energy that exist in all things. Magic bonds everything to everything else. It is invisible and intangible and amorphic. It can be anything at anytime but it will not always exist as it was or could be. A magic rock is still a rock, and just as the rock can only exist in certain circumstances for an impermanent amount of time so will the magic in the rock.
Magic can be used in innumerable ways by anyone with knowledge of spellcraft. No being is immune to magic entirely or live apart from magic because magic is everywhere, and part of all things. The force of magic is invisible and intangible and undeniably powerful. In some ways magic is like a living force. It can grow stronger, or weaken, when other magic is added to it. Magic can be used to block other magic, absorb other magic, or change other magic.
There are some questions about magic that will probably never be answered. Does magic exist as part of something else outside the great wheel? Is magic finite like energy and matter seem to be? Will there ever be a version of the universe without magic? Only Cronus can grasp such concepts, as most gods are merely ascendant versions of the mortals they once were.
No being, or god, has lived long enough to watch a world form and disappear. The origins of the planes, magic, and time itself will forever be a mystery. Most believe they intimate a design of a supreme power. However If you believe in free will, then surely those beings that think for themselves have some impact on the nature of the great wheel. Or If you believe in destiny you could say that everything that was and will be has already been anticipated by the creator and nothing you do will ever change your fate.
Regardless of its origin, the nature of magic is still largely unknown. Commonly held theories about magic in its various forms are at best quaint observations. There is no difference in arcane and divine magic other then the means to summon it. Faith and spellcraft are more or less equally daunting disciplines to master.
Magic does change form in a sense. It is believed that compressed magic, like that in magical items, is dangerously unpredictable. A magic artifact for instance will actually gain strange properties or powers it never had after enough time passes, especially those with sentient personalities. Cronus himself exemplifies this property of magical intelligence. As his own magical consciousness changes over time, his power and influence over the world grows (he acquires new domains as his clerics learn and explore the world, using his spells to manipulate the world in many different ways).
Zedekiah's final Words
Zedekiah's last words to Joseth revealed a secret about why his father sought out his mother. He explained that an ancient relic revered highly by her tribe might actually date back to the age of Cronus and thus hold great secrets of great powers of that lost age. If so, Clerics of Cronus had a responsibility to study and safeguard it.
Joseth's Quest
Of course the tribal ancestors believed Mawu was the source of most magical power on Mgorongoro and the maker of the sacred relic, but Joseth knew better. Mawu and the oldest gods of mankind were not the oldest gods on Sion at all. His god, Cronus, predated all others, (except perhaps for Herod and the major demihuman gods who also existed on many other worlds) and for that reason tribal shamans and druids didn't trust Cronus.
Joseth knew some ruins and relics predated all known history, a fact many clerics and shamans would never acknowledge. Joseth was careful not to speak of things as fact beyond the scope of tribal knowledge, making claims about the relic they honored and alternate theories about its origins.
When he came back to the head village of the Omoro tribe to study the relic, he learned it had recently been stolen by a shaman who stole away with a group of warriors and shepherds herding cattle to market in the nearby town of Dreadhill. The chief and the tribal elders were beside themselves with worry. Never before had one of their own betrayed them like this. Joseth remembered his conversation with the chief quite vividly.
Kimotho: "You must hurry and find the sacred relic Mtoto." (Mtoto = Mgorongoron term for grandson) "It's loss will anger Mawu and weaken the tribe without its magic!"
Joseth: "Oupa, Mawu will do no such thing. That relic wasn't created by him in the first place." (Oupa = Mgorongoron term for grandfather)
Kimotho: "Yes it was! Mawu left it for our ancestors to find it thousands of years ago, a gift for our worship! If you question this, you risk the wrath of the shamans who will curse you as a non-believier!"
Joseth: Swallowed and rephrased. "I believe the relic belongs to the Omoro tribe. Regardless of its actual origins I will do my duty and recover it."
Kimotho: "I will hold you to your word Joseth! You're just as foolish as your mother Mtoto, your fascination with the foreigners ways will twist your mind with lies. If you are not careful you will loose your way!"
Joseth resisted the urge to react to the harsh words about his mother. His grandfather was nothing if not blunt. Somehow Joseth managed to maintain his calm and received the chiefs blessing to retrieve the relic, despite the fact Joseth wasn't quite convinced he would actually honor his promise to return it to the tribe.
Chief Kimotho's choice upset several other tribal warriors who all clamored for the honor. Bitter and harshly opinionated though he was, Kimotho understood Joseth was the best suited to recover the relic because he was best suited to interact with the foreign world to find it.
And thus Joseth found himself on the road to Dreadhill, following the tracks of the great herd of cattle with a full days lead on him...
