The Way of the Harmonic Path

The Way of the Harmonic Path developed during the dark days of the Long Thaw. Its beginnings are almost as mysterious as those of the Way of Trinity Moon but it is of relatively recent (though still very old) origin.

Structure

The Grand Harmonizer leads the movement, assisted by the Divine Conductor. They stand at the head of the Harmonic Order, a priesthood of musicians who are responsible for conducting services.

History

The origins of the Way of the Harmonic Path go back to the dark days near the beginning of the Long Thaw. It is said that when Magicians' End was struck by the Sundering, a wandering Fey named Lynodyth, who had been passing through the realm, was injured by the climate bomb and found herself unable to cross the barriers into the wider Discontinuum. At first, she imagined her plight was only temporary but as the years passed, she realised that her affliction was in truth a form of the Fade, that she would never be able to return to The Fey Court or leave Magicians' End and that her people had abandoned her when they abandoned this world. Unwilling to perish alone, she began a strange and wistful form of conversation with the mortals who encountered her in woodlands on Myruthea, Tinturbean and Punjuki, over the course of more than a hundred years.

Magicians' End - Harmonic Path 02 by DMFW with Midjourney

A meeting with Lynodyth was an invitation to enlightement which began with the appearence of a strange magical and musical pathway, always drawing the mortal on with the sweet sounds of sacred melodies which only the pure at heart could follow to their end. Only the fortunate ones, who passed her tests and heard the last notes of these harmonic ways, would find the shy fey willing to speak to them in person. Then she would patiently teach each new acolyte those magical secrets of mathematics, harmony and music that had been her special interests, revelations of such mystic power that the listener felt themselves compelled to pass the knowledge on in their turn.

Magicians' End - Harmonic Path 03 by DMFW with Midjourney

The time came when Lynodyth must pass from life at last. In her final years, the reclusive fey had found and connected many faithful followers, slowly but steadily building a community who all believed in the power of music and magic. When the last chords of her final performance faded on the night air in some distant forest, she too faded with them into the harmonics of the world's music forever. There would be no more secret harmonic paths in the forests, for the days now called the Lost Chords were over. But Lynodyth had left behind a legacy of those who mourned her passing and called themselves the followers of the Way of the Harmonic Pathway. Still, there are those who keep to this faith on Magicians' End, even in our current age, though many long centuries have passed since Lynodyth walked the earth.

The First Chapels

To begin with, the Way of the Harmonic Path was informal and peripatetic, carried by wandering musicians. The structures and roles with which it is now associated grew up only as fixed buildings were constructed to organise regular worship. Some of these early chapels can be found in the south of Myruthea and Tinturbean but one of the grandest, if not quite the oldest, is the Royal Harmonic Chapel in the Royal Palace of Katrapetch which was built between 6791 BPC and 6764 BPC since the Raja at the time was an early convert to the faith.

Katrapetch Royal Palace - Royal Harmonic Chapel by DMFW with Leonardo AI

The Harmonic Resonators

In 2433 BPC, Solomon Ryewhistle, a wealthy grain farmer who owned extensive lands north of Pale and was a prominent supporter of the Way of the Harmonic Path, donated funds for the construction of four harmonic resonators which were then installed in four parks in four different cities around the world. The sites were selected on the basis of their great distance from one another. The first was installed at Honirham, the capital of the Old Pale Empire, in Loffagan Park. In the far east of Myruthea, on the Isle of Klokken, the city of Vrandakan, hosted the second resonator, whilst the third and fourth were located in the town of Yendle on the north west coast of Tinturbean and in Weryth on the southern tip of Punjuki.

Harmonic Resonator - Weryth (Punjuki) by DMFW with Midjourney

Harmonic Resonator - Honirham (Myruthea) by DMFW with Midjourney

Harmonic Resonator - Vrandakan (Myruthea) by DMFW with Midjourney

Magicians' End - Harmonic Resonator - Ralsimoor.png

Harmonic Resonator - Yendle (Tinturbean) by DMFW with Midjourney

The Harmonic Resonators are reputed to have produced music of an almost divine quality based on the flow of arcane geophysical fields, both specific to their location and interacting with the weather and the seasons to produce an ever changing cascade of melody and ambience that never tired the listeners. Their performances were irregular and unpredictable and for long period they were simply silent, so that the rising music of a new harmonic generation was always a cause for local celebration. Most notoriously, disturbing dissonances in the output of the resonators provided the first intimations that there was something deeply wrong in the arcane geometry of the world in the years preceding the Planar Conformation, and at the exact moment of the conformation, all of them shattered simultaneously, so that all we have left now are their ruins, still revered by the contemporary followers of the Harmonic Way. No attempt to create a replacement has ever succeeded.

The Great Centre of the Faith

The Foundation Stone Song House in Jebbin City, constructed between 2167 BPC and 2143 BPC in the glory days of the Old Pale Empire, is one of the greatest buildings ever constructed on Magicians' End for any purpose, and certainly for the Way of the Harmonic Path. It has been at the heart of the organisation ever since it was completed.