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(two posts today, since I missed yesterday)
The failed revolution that lead to the settlement of the Allotment might have been genuinely motivated by idealism - certainly, that's the way the mage-lords teach it to their children. It is more probable, however, that it was a calculated grab for power.
The empire of Septicollum, like the kingdom of Antarion, was a magocracy. Unlike Antarion, however, it had no hereditary noble class in the empire proper. It was, instead, a meritocracy, with those most powerful and subtle in their understanding of magic ruling over the assorted provinces and conquests of the empire.
Though the mage-lords of Antarion are loath to admit it, there are two ways in which one can master magic. One is to be born with a strong magical gift - to let one's will and personality shape that inherent power.
The other is study. Hard study, to be sure - a decade at least for even the simplest of spells, and a lifetime to achieve true mastery. But anyone with sufficient discipline could take up this study. And in Septicollum, this was encouraged - there were great collegia devoted to it, and special grants and dispensation so that even the humblest, poorest peasant might (in forty or fifty years) become a mage-lord.
Many of the empire's early conquests, who held a more feudal system, took a very dark view of this. To escalate a peasant above someone of noble lineage seemed madness, no matter that it rarely happened. And that their gift, their birthright, the very power that made them noble and set them apart could be so democratically distributed seemed demeaning to them.
Two provinces on opposite ends of the kingdom rose in revolt- Tur and Liguria. The mage-lords of Tur had begun their empire at sea, little more than pirate-lords who could command the winds - but their gift for weather-working made them greatly in demand by the Empire, and their service was compelled through coercion and graft, which they greatly resented, as it took them away from the lush, luxurious peninsula upon which they had built their castles. While the Turans had no wish for their subjects to gain enough magic to rule them, the pirate-won opulence of Tur meant that the common folk had been well-rewarded for their service when Tur was independent, and it was not hard to convince them that a revolution would bring back those rich and glorious times.
The Ligurians, on an outlying island far to the north, were in a different position. Isolationists and traditionalists who practiced ancestor-worship, the system of dominance established by their mage-lords was deeply ingrained in the people there, and so far from the Empire's center, the egalitarianism the law insisted on was seldom enforced. The Ligurian people were taught to believe that studied magery was an abomination, a collection of dark and sinister arts. The commonfolk joined their masters believing that this was was righteous, that it would see the mage-blooded elevated to their deserved position at the head of the Empire, and restore the practices and laws that they believed in.
Despite the ugliness of fighting a two-front war, the Empire put the rebellion down brutally. They had no standing army, no conscripted levies, and used little of the loyal provincial militias. What they had was the scholarly, disciplined study of magic that the hereditary mage-lords so scorned. While the Turans and Ligurians had more raw magical power, it was undirected. Their own predilections and gifts dictated their strategies - the Septicollian wizards, on the other hand, could watch, and prepare, and strike back against the weak spots the rebels demonstrated with precise and exacting force.
Only one thing saved the failed revolutionaries from mass executions - the worry that their provinces would never be pacified unless mercy was shown. Both provinces were naval powers; therefore, their ships were stripped of weaponry, provisioned, and some twelve thousand surviving rebels - a full quarter of them aristocrats - were set out upon the Eastern Sea. It was a three thousand mile voyage, they were told, to another continent, devoid of human life- a place that had been seen in the scrying-glasses of the most powerful magi, but nowhere else. They could establish their own kingdom there, and rule it as they liked. If there were others who followed their ideals and wished to join them, colony ships would follow as soon as they were built.
By the time the exiles made landfall, one-third of their ships had been sunk by storms, or lost along the voyage in other ways. Some few had turned back along the way, hoping to find an isolated port in Septicollum where they could slink in to hide - those ships had been destroyed by fire raining from clear skies. Speticollum was still watching.
If any further colony ships were sent after that first wave, they never found their way to the shores of the Allotment.
The failed revolution that lead to the settlement of the Allotment might have been genuinely motivated by idealism - certainly, that's the way the mage-lords teach it to their children. It is more probable, however, that it was a calculated grab for power.
The empire of Septicollum, like the kingdom of Antarion, was a magocracy. Unlike Antarion, however, it had no hereditary noble class in the empire proper. It was, instead, a meritocracy, with those most powerful and subtle in their understanding of magic ruling over the assorted provinces and conquests of the empire.
Though the mage-lords of Antarion are loath to admit it, there are two ways in which one can master magic. One is to be born with a strong magical gift - to let one's will and personality shape that inherent power.
The other is study. Hard study, to be sure - a decade at least for even the simplest of spells, and a lifetime to achieve true mastery. But anyone with sufficient discipline could take up this study. And in Septicollum, this was encouraged - there were great collegia devoted to it, and special grants and dispensation so that even the humblest, poorest peasant might (in forty or fifty years) become a mage-lord.
Many of the empire's early conquests, who held a more feudal system, took a very dark view of this. To escalate a peasant above someone of noble lineage seemed madness, no matter that it rarely happened. And that their gift, their birthright, the very power that made them noble and set them apart could be so democratically distributed seemed demeaning to them.
Two provinces on opposite ends of the kingdom rose in revolt- Tur and Liguria. The mage-lords of Tur had begun their empire at sea, little more than pirate-lords who could command the winds - but their gift for weather-working made them greatly in demand by the Empire, and their service was compelled through coercion and graft, which they greatly resented, as it took them away from the lush, luxurious peninsula upon which they had built their castles. While the Turans had no wish for their subjects to gain enough magic to rule them, the pirate-won opulence of Tur meant that the common folk had been well-rewarded for their service when Tur was independent, and it was not hard to convince them that a revolution would bring back those rich and glorious times.
The Ligurians, on an outlying island far to the north, were in a different position. Isolationists and traditionalists who practiced ancestor-worship, the system of dominance established by their mage-lords was deeply ingrained in the people there, and so far from the Empire's center, the egalitarianism the law insisted on was seldom enforced. The Ligurian people were taught to believe that studied magery was an abomination, a collection of dark and sinister arts. The commonfolk joined their masters believing that this was was righteous, that it would see the mage-blooded elevated to their deserved position at the head of the Empire, and restore the practices and laws that they believed in.
Despite the ugliness of fighting a two-front war, the Empire put the rebellion down brutally. They had no standing army, no conscripted levies, and used little of the loyal provincial militias. What they had was the scholarly, disciplined study of magic that the hereditary mage-lords so scorned. While the Turans and Ligurians had more raw magical power, it was undirected. Their own predilections and gifts dictated their strategies - the Septicollian wizards, on the other hand, could watch, and prepare, and strike back against the weak spots the rebels demonstrated with precise and exacting force.
Only one thing saved the failed revolutionaries from mass executions - the worry that their provinces would never be pacified unless mercy was shown. Both provinces were naval powers; therefore, their ships were stripped of weaponry, provisioned, and some twelve thousand surviving rebels - a full quarter of them aristocrats - were set out upon the Eastern Sea. It was a three thousand mile voyage, they were told, to another continent, devoid of human life- a place that had been seen in the scrying-glasses of the most powerful magi, but nowhere else. They could establish their own kingdom there, and rule it as they liked. If there were others who followed their ideals and wished to join them, colony ships would follow as soon as they were built.
By the time the exiles made landfall, one-third of their ships had been sunk by storms, or lost along the voyage in other ways. Some few had turned back along the way, hoping to find an isolated port in Septicollum where they could slink in to hide - those ships had been destroyed by fire raining from clear skies. Speticollum was still watching.
If any further colony ships were sent after that first wave, they never found their way to the shores of the Allotment.
