Ruthenia Truelove - On The Nature of Divinity and Mortality
Feb 9, 2020 15:49:14 GMT
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Post by Ruthenia Truelove on Feb 9, 2020 15:49:14 GMT
After much determination I have come to the conclusion that I am tired.
My mind is sharper than ever before but my body no longer wishes to comply. Fatigue sets in far sooner than it used to, I am unsteady on my legs and I can barely hold my food and drink down half the time. The arthritis in my fingers is only getting worse and somatic components become more difficult and more painful with each passing day. My ointments are starting to fail and even False Life is losing its effectiveness.
Yet I still stand resolute. I traded my beloved wand in for a rod that I also use as a walking stick, and I sold off the fitted dresses for these loose ones. They're ugly and I despise having to wear them but what's left of my figure is so much worse. I've cut my hair for I was barely able to withstand the weight of it all on my head, and I stopped that childish habit of applying belladonna to my eyes to make them look more inviting. The days of harvest festivals, of raucous dancing and modest courting were over long before I withered and became this.
I do admire the fairer folk in that regard. An elf of my age is but a child to them and were I one I would have several more centuries to continue my work. And yet, I do not wish to be one of their kind. No, I would grow complacent, content to leave it for a week, then months and then years, before eventually forgetting everything I have learnt. No, it is the agony I endure with every note I take and every spell I transcribe that focuses me and reminds me of what I must do.
Of all the schools of magic none is reviled and persecuted as much as necromancy, and yet I'd argue that the clerics and paladins who perpetrate the rejection of my kind are far more adept at it than we mages could ever hope to be, for there has been one competence that, despite our best efforts, still evades us.
Resurrection.
Supposedly the most holiest of magics, to call forth a soul departed and to return it, mind and body, to life once more. And yet, woven right there in the Weave is the truth, for all who care enough to look. Resurrection is necromancy. And any cleric, sufficiently powerful, can do it.
So then why is it that the study of it is so repellant to them? Is it because I require corpses for my research? Surely that has no bearing on things if their souls aren't here? Maybe it's because they think we torment the souls of the dead? A common misconception, it's precisely because we can't yet call the soul that we do this. Sometimes I wonder of they fall into that trap of thinking that skeletons and dark colours and strange ladies who live on the outskirts of town must be evil, as if every person and every action could be codified so neatly into a grid.
And so my reward for my efforts? Mobs with pitchforks baying for my blood and clerics and paladins determined to destroy me for the glory of their Lord. The last one they sent was just a boy, such a shame...
They believe their faith shall be rewarded, and they're right of course, their faith has rewarded them. But what of the thousands of pious people across this land? Why are they not chosen? I've witnessed the most faithful amongst us with not a mote of power as well as the most insufferable crooks and braggarts able to smite down a building. The fact that selection is up to the higher powers is a clear sign that they do not wish to give us full agency over our lives. But look at all we've built, all we've done, each and every race. Are we not deserving of our emancipation?
Ilmater did not ease their suffering the day the plague came even though I held steadfast to all his tenets, and Chauntea refused to listen to the songs of her faithful as their crops began to wither and die. In the end only I was left standing, not thanks to the powers of any god but by my own knowledge of herbalism and the medical arts. Faith rewards you if you are lucky, but study and practice will never fail you.
That is why this needs to happen. Anyone, and I truly mean anyone, can learn the arcane arts. The gods however are very easily capable or denying the divine powers. Why then, when we are capable of delivering death as easily as beating someone over the head with a rock, should we be disallowed from bringing someone back to life? What gives the gods, who move people and blessings and disasters around like pieces on a dragonchessboard, be the ones to determine that instead of us, who have to live with the consequences?
I have my theories on the nature of divine magic, most of which involve the Divine Apparatus, a name I've tentatively given to the framework by which mortal man is linked to the gods. Essentially they receive their spellcasting ability from their patrons through this and it's what lets them perform their various miracles. Thus to gain access to similar powers one must either:
A. Circumvent the Apparatus entirely. Given that we already know that resurrection is necromancy, it follows that it surely is possible without divinity at all, we just do not know how yet.
B. Forcibly gain access to the Apparatus. If they refuse to let us have the power we'll just break in and take it by force. The means by which to do this are lost on me.
C. Destroy the Apparatus completely. This should result in all of divine magic becoming arcane in nature, free for everyone studious enough to learn. If B was an implausible solution however, this is surely close to impossible without triggering a cataclysmic event on par with the Spellplague. A shame, this is my favourite solution as well.
I've attempted to research all three of these solutions yet my time has always been taken up with either finding the means to survive or having to be a fugitive, being chased out of my home time and time again by those zealots. I even prefer the practicioners of the Old Religion, at least with them it's just land disputes as opposed to ideological ones.
With all this, does it not make sense that I am tired? I am tired of the dogma, I am tired of running and hiding and I am so tired of not having made any progress. That's why I'm emigrating to the frontier continent of Kantas. I'm hoping to find, if not a community that's more accepting of my arts, then at least one where organised religion is weaker than here in Faêrun. And if not that, at least a quiet spot for me to continue my research. But I refuse to run or hide for a single second longer.
I am Ruthenia Truelove. Mage. Fugitive. Physician. Necromancer. And I have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. If this is my last stand so be it. I've danced between life and death for so long that neither scares, but if I am to live then my research will continue no matter what. This is who I am and what I must do, and neither fatigue, nor pain, nor death will ever change that.
My mind is sharper than ever before but my body no longer wishes to comply. Fatigue sets in far sooner than it used to, I am unsteady on my legs and I can barely hold my food and drink down half the time. The arthritis in my fingers is only getting worse and somatic components become more difficult and more painful with each passing day. My ointments are starting to fail and even False Life is losing its effectiveness.
Yet I still stand resolute. I traded my beloved wand in for a rod that I also use as a walking stick, and I sold off the fitted dresses for these loose ones. They're ugly and I despise having to wear them but what's left of my figure is so much worse. I've cut my hair for I was barely able to withstand the weight of it all on my head, and I stopped that childish habit of applying belladonna to my eyes to make them look more inviting. The days of harvest festivals, of raucous dancing and modest courting were over long before I withered and became this.
I do admire the fairer folk in that regard. An elf of my age is but a child to them and were I one I would have several more centuries to continue my work. And yet, I do not wish to be one of their kind. No, I would grow complacent, content to leave it for a week, then months and then years, before eventually forgetting everything I have learnt. No, it is the agony I endure with every note I take and every spell I transcribe that focuses me and reminds me of what I must do.
Of all the schools of magic none is reviled and persecuted as much as necromancy, and yet I'd argue that the clerics and paladins who perpetrate the rejection of my kind are far more adept at it than we mages could ever hope to be, for there has been one competence that, despite our best efforts, still evades us.
Resurrection.
Supposedly the most holiest of magics, to call forth a soul departed and to return it, mind and body, to life once more. And yet, woven right there in the Weave is the truth, for all who care enough to look. Resurrection is necromancy. And any cleric, sufficiently powerful, can do it.
So then why is it that the study of it is so repellant to them? Is it because I require corpses for my research? Surely that has no bearing on things if their souls aren't here? Maybe it's because they think we torment the souls of the dead? A common misconception, it's precisely because we can't yet call the soul that we do this. Sometimes I wonder of they fall into that trap of thinking that skeletons and dark colours and strange ladies who live on the outskirts of town must be evil, as if every person and every action could be codified so neatly into a grid.
And so my reward for my efforts? Mobs with pitchforks baying for my blood and clerics and paladins determined to destroy me for the glory of their Lord. The last one they sent was just a boy, such a shame...
They believe their faith shall be rewarded, and they're right of course, their faith has rewarded them. But what of the thousands of pious people across this land? Why are they not chosen? I've witnessed the most faithful amongst us with not a mote of power as well as the most insufferable crooks and braggarts able to smite down a building. The fact that selection is up to the higher powers is a clear sign that they do not wish to give us full agency over our lives. But look at all we've built, all we've done, each and every race. Are we not deserving of our emancipation?
Ilmater did not ease their suffering the day the plague came even though I held steadfast to all his tenets, and Chauntea refused to listen to the songs of her faithful as their crops began to wither and die. In the end only I was left standing, not thanks to the powers of any god but by my own knowledge of herbalism and the medical arts. Faith rewards you if you are lucky, but study and practice will never fail you.
That is why this needs to happen. Anyone, and I truly mean anyone, can learn the arcane arts. The gods however are very easily capable or denying the divine powers. Why then, when we are capable of delivering death as easily as beating someone over the head with a rock, should we be disallowed from bringing someone back to life? What gives the gods, who move people and blessings and disasters around like pieces on a dragonchessboard, be the ones to determine that instead of us, who have to live with the consequences?
I have my theories on the nature of divine magic, most of which involve the Divine Apparatus, a name I've tentatively given to the framework by which mortal man is linked to the gods. Essentially they receive their spellcasting ability from their patrons through this and it's what lets them perform their various miracles. Thus to gain access to similar powers one must either:
A. Circumvent the Apparatus entirely. Given that we already know that resurrection is necromancy, it follows that it surely is possible without divinity at all, we just do not know how yet.
B. Forcibly gain access to the Apparatus. If they refuse to let us have the power we'll just break in and take it by force. The means by which to do this are lost on me.
C. Destroy the Apparatus completely. This should result in all of divine magic becoming arcane in nature, free for everyone studious enough to learn. If B was an implausible solution however, this is surely close to impossible without triggering a cataclysmic event on par with the Spellplague. A shame, this is my favourite solution as well.
I've attempted to research all three of these solutions yet my time has always been taken up with either finding the means to survive or having to be a fugitive, being chased out of my home time and time again by those zealots. I even prefer the practicioners of the Old Religion, at least with them it's just land disputes as opposed to ideological ones.
With all this, does it not make sense that I am tired? I am tired of the dogma, I am tired of running and hiding and I am so tired of not having made any progress. That's why I'm emigrating to the frontier continent of Kantas. I'm hoping to find, if not a community that's more accepting of my arts, then at least one where organised religion is weaker than here in Faêrun. And if not that, at least a quiet spot for me to continue my research. But I refuse to run or hide for a single second longer.
I am Ruthenia Truelove. Mage. Fugitive. Physician. Necromancer. And I have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. If this is my last stand so be it. I've danced between life and death for so long that neither scares, but if I am to live then my research will continue no matter what. This is who I am and what I must do, and neither fatigue, nor pain, nor death will ever change that.
