The Crusade

The Downfall of Divinity in Tellurica

The Tellurican People's Crusade was an era when iconoclastic mortals rose up and smashed the divine power structure of the day, wresting control of the worlds they lived in from the gods who had lost their faith and replacing them with leaders of their own choosing.⁽¹⁾

Each of the different Empires holds a different accounting of this time, and individual accountings number in the millions. It is beyond the scope of this document to cover all of these; this is a general overview of events. Enough preamble, though... let's get into it!.

The Conflict

Prelude

A New Light For A Dark Age

The eruption of the Hoeden supervolcano in -5000 AI caused vast climate changes, playing havoc with the weather and the seasons and in turn re-shaping the face of the Navia disc into something more closely resembling its modern shape. For centuries, the gods worked to restore the world to its proper shape. When they had finished, they saw what they had done, and it was Good.

For their part, the Gods were believed to be spiritual beings of great power and enlightenment, who embodied a concept, phenomenon, or culture. Their deeds were chronicled and studied by the mortals of the time. Societies and cultures rose around their teachings, and the devotion of these mortals caused the gods to grow powerful as they brought their light to a dark age.

The Decline of the Divine

While the Gods had instructed their disciples well on a myriad of methods for directing the sustaining mana generated by prayer between Heaven and the Material, since primitive times there has been no substitute on the divine palate for the taste of blood. The meaning of 'sacrifice' is 'to make sacred', after all, and as with any other commodity food the variations on mana made by murder soon appealed to the connaisseur. In ritual cases, this energy is piquant and powerful, dedicated directly to the divinity, and wickedly addictive. As might be expected, there is no better way to catch a God's attention.

In cases where nations go to war in the name of their patron God, each god represented gets their share of the patriotic sacrifices for home and holy. It didn't take long for the gods to figure out that by manipulating the hearts of their flocks through various masks, they could keep a steady supply of sacrificial mana flowing their way to empower the working of the Cosmos, with the excess used for whatever purposes a divinity would desire.

Now, the gist of the twist goes a little like this; from a divine perspective, it was easier and safer to cultivate one's own flock/bump one's own power by promoting interneciene struggles via visions given to unwitting prophets who then invented mythologies to go to war over than it was to tangle with any other actual divinities. With exactly the same reward (but doubled in quantity!) and none of the danger of extermination, the gods saw this, and it was Good.

For millennia, this was so. Nations crushed nations, cultures crushed cultures, all in the names of gods who wore different masks and inspired each of them to war with promises of a paradisical afterlife at the side of their chosen Deity. The bare few of the most devoted would earn this treatment, while the bulk of those who erred in the strict critera would be sent back to the Wheel to reincarnate and die for their god all over again. They mentioned none of this to the mortals until after they'd earned their way in, and those were the 'cool ones' anyway. It was a good racket.

Footnotes:

1. Today, these leaders are called the Imperatori.
2. Emphasis is mine, because wow.

‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.⁽²⁾ I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.'

Leviticus 26:27-33

Conflict Type

Military Campaign

Battlefield Type

Planetary

Start Date

-220

Ending Date

-1

Conflict Result

The destruction or subversion of all divinites existent in the Nine Worlds at the time.

Location

Tellurica

Belligerents

the Crusaders

• crusaders2C-the-organizationcrusaders2C-the-organization-archived-1662698478

Led by

• Cathrica Regina Imperatrix

Strength

Casualties

Objectives