Thousand-years treaty

The plume fell on the paper like the last nail on a millennium coffin.

The limits on a mage's power are blurry, if they even exist. They can model reality with a thought, bending what is and even what was to their will. A frightening thought, if they weren't all tied by a treaty of non-intervention in mortal affairs. It wasn't always the case, mind you. A long time ago, mages ran wild and scarred the world permanently, until they went too far.

 

Dating back to year 1387, the thousand-years treaty prohibits any mage to have a direct interference on the world for the millennium following its signature. It is rooted in the heat of the Hundred Years' War, when French and English mages were at each others' throats. Parallel to fights between foot soldiers, the greatest powers of the time clashed in displays of spectacular powers. Dozens of them died before they realized it was not their role to get killed for petty kingdoms. Mages live long lives of several hundred years, dying in the battlefield was nonsense to them.

Tired and battered, those mages held a gathering, calling out every mage in the world and discuss how they were to stop the slaughter. The debate is said to have lasted for weeks before they reached a conclusion. They decided that a single mage has too much of an influence on the mortal world, and a conflict between their kind is too destructive. Thus, the treaty stipulates that for a thousand years, no mage would put even an ounce of power to interfere in mortal affairs. The treaty has been religiously followed so far, especially since an infringement would put the wrongdoer at odds with a hundred equally powerful beings.


Cover image: Roofs of London by Rumengol via MidJourney

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