Marketh, The Bastion Of Oppression (rough)
Marketh, The Bastion Of Oppression
My name is Taiku Altergrund, I am a denizen of the last great city to stand after the great war. For you to understand the world as it is now, you must first understand our history. You see, 367 years ago there was a war that was waged over whether or not pure science, pure magic, or Alchemy, the perfect combination of magic and science, was to be the true way of thought. Sounded like a simple answer right? WRONG! The answer was as complex as the ideas themselves, and because of this a war was waged.
Magic was the oldest form of thought. It was the manipulation of reality through nothing more the twisting of pure energy into matter and force. Heal the most grievous wounds, fly, grow taller, even cheat death. All were made possible though the pure and unwavering belief in the forces of magic, not to mention the fact that when you wavered the back lash whenever you casted a spell was tremendous. However, magic is nothing more than a 'wolf in sheep's clothing', as to use it you pay with life force, and more often than not with the life force of others. This caused most magic wielders to look old and decrepit, or those they taught to age at accelerated paces. There was one other problem. If you used magic to much at one time or too often, not only would you age, but there was always the risk of attracting demons and other such unpleasant supernatural beings from the elemental realms . When a caster was truly unlucky, they would conjure a demon, This often resulted in mass murder and possessions.
As with any problem, there was a temptation to it as well. If one could make a deal with a demon, he or she could avoid aging from magic and gain unprecedented power, but they would have to pay the demon whatever it wanted. This ranged from souls of the innocent, to eating rotten food. Cults would form regularly to worship certain demons and devils, and each was lead by a person who m had personally dealt with the being directly. A few of these cults even came to be in power of major governments. Magic's hold on the world was soon shattered when science came along and put an end to the rampant demon infestations.
History says the Merlin, Solomon, Circe, and Vladimir Rasputin were only some of the greatest occultists. Each of them having story after story told about them, and of their occult followers in our world today. Merlin is the patron of universal magic users who seek to be skilled. Rasputin is lead in the necromancy cults, as he chose to wait till after the war ended to reform his body once more. Solomon is revered as a god of divination, and wisdom. His church aids law enforcement in the solving and prevention of crimes. Circe's legacy brings us to elemental-ism, a form of magic where the wielder takes control of 1 element of the world such as fire, gravity, water, metal, or air. There are more specialized schools and more of these magical leaders then i would care to mention in this brief history of the world, but we must press on.
When science started to take a hold it produced many of the things that magic did, but it did so without the risk of demons, devils, or worse. It lacked raw power though, so to the dismay of many leaders it could not entirely weed out magic. Automobiles and planes, replaced flight and teleportation spells in many smaller areas, though many major cities kept their standing networks. Hospitals which supplied proper medicines and surgeries, kept the use of healing magic down except in the most dire situations, and even aided healing magic in understanding more about how the body worked. Lastly, the ability to share information between people eventually rose up about 1200 years ago. The internet was amazing, the ability to learn anything you wanted with the click of a button. This was the last straw for Magi.
If you pay any attention to the world you live in, you should understand I come from a time where, the same people were born, but the world was so much more mechanically flexible, and historically different. Your world war 2 never happened, because Hitler was slain at birth along with all the other Nazi leaders, the Hindenburg never crashed, and the titanic never sank. Our world was beautiful until Alchemy was discovered and popularized.
Alchemy was the end result of the internet being brought about. With the advent of the internet magic users were able to develop connections to science to empower their spells and reduce their own personal risk. Alchemy provided the best of both worlds, as well as enabling the weak to have some form of power. This worked by moving both energy and matter around. While it still took a toll on the body, the cost was usually the same detriment of an overdone work out at a gym, or getting stabbed. This allowed many alchemists to have the same power as magic users, and made them extremely skillful like scientists.
The process of Alchemy's birth was a long one. As I said the war was only 367 years ago, and as such it took just over 800 for alchemy to become a threat. The leaders of science and magic were so settled in their ways, they did not want Alchemy around. They each wanted the world to follow their own creeds. Alchemy provided many people a safe and powerful alternative to science and magic. With all the political problems having both science and magic being around caused, not to mention the economic train that was constantly placed on the lower class because of the extreme costs of each art, the common folk preferred alchemists because everything was a resource to them. Problem was, Alchemy was so complex and involving, less than .6% of the world possessed the skill to do it by the time the war had broken out. To put this into perspective. 29% of the people on earth could perform magic, and 38% were working in a science career or were a soldier.
It began with protests going violent, and the media blowing it out of proportion. This caused the world to go into a massive uproar over the intolerance, and each day the rage surmounted. Eventually, small communities began to kill each other off, and then the panic ensued. Once pandemonium was in full rage, The Magi, Soldiers, and Alchemists initiated the full scale war.
City after city burned to the ground, as spell after spell, demon after demon were sent forth to crush anyone not gifted in the arts. some major cities were simply teleported directly into hell. Though it cost the Magi whole armies to do it. Their cost started to mount and their unquestionably superior fire power became their greatest weakness.
The scientists had far better luck in maintaining their armies. The anti-magitech they had created easily trounced any caster foolish enough to rely solely on raw magical power and not skill with it. Problem was the cost of creating the anti-magic pullets and shields drained the scientists of resources quickly. But their numbers and skill often won them battles.
The city of Serlamet, was the bloodiest battle of the war. Raging for 1 month, each side lost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of men and women. The once luscious city gardens known for the potent aroma of roses, tulips, and lilacs, the play grounds which spanned multiple stories and more than one hundred acres, the river passing though it on the bike path made of the finest stone, and lastly the private food vendors, whose food more often than not satisfied even the most ravenous hungers. Nothing remained of the eye catching skyscrapers that once pierced into the outer stratosphere, the global economy was destroyed the day the Zalen and Hawend's stock marked burned to the ground. Homes belonging to innocent mothers, fathers, and millions of children were all bombed....with no survivors. This was a war that seemed to hold not sacristy, and threatened to destroy the last senates of society. Eventually Scientists and Magi came to a stale mate at the Global Capital City Marketh. The one city the Alchemists were able to keep. Because every alchemist on earth had fled there after the fall or Serlamet, no one army could penetrate the defenses the alchemists had created. Neither army was able to reach the other, and this is where things changed..
Unable to penetrate the walls with either of their own armies, they realized that science or magic alone were not enough. Sounds good right? Sadly, that was not the case. Their conclusion was to simply have each function separately but aim at the same goal. The drastic diversity in the methods they employed to breach the city overwhelmed the few surviving alchemists. In one final callous sweep, everyone who had ever preformed or studied alchemy was murdered. This was the closing battle of a war that lasted for 47 years, and cost the world 4,893,568,000 citizens. Yet 367 years later, we have rebuilt the world from scratch. Repopulated, and restored many of the lost cities., and even settled the differences between science and magic. There is one change to how the world fundamentally works though,; everyone is an antrhomorph. yes we are all Furries.
I am Taiku Altergrund., and I am a member of an underground society dedicated to teaching and practicing alchemy. Alchemy, which is believed to be the cause of the great war, is outlawed and punishable by death. Each of us use either magic or science as a cover for our actions. If we use science, we claim ownership of magi-tech, and if we use magic, we claim a deal with a rather benign costs like eating eggs constantly. I use no such cover. I live in a house made of red brick trim, black shingles, and Emerald Green siding, with a Ruby Red front and back doors each on a sheltered deck space. Now that you know what i am, and why the world is the way it is...the story can truly begin.