Teller of Fate
Intermezzo: The Templars and the Fæ
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For three hundred thousand years, the Templars ruled the Shining Empire: territories so vast their true extent will probably never be known. They penetrated the barriers separating Aions and, at their height, counted fifteen pairs of them among their fiefdoms. These became known as the Pleroma. The ability to move between one Aion and another was only one of the gifts they left behind.
At the end of the Templar War, they were simply gone, leaving artefacts, tomes of knowledge, and skills in the lesser races they had ruled.
One such bit of arcana, the Syrat, the Templars denied making or disseminating despite persistent rumours to the contrary. Accurséd, they called the cards and would have nothing to do with them.
The history of that era is known in its entirety only to the Hermetists of Azhure’en.
The most fortunate in knowledge and skill of all the Templar subject races were the Fæ. The greatest of them, the Æs Sidhe, made the worlds of the Elven Convocation.
Synthetic Aions they were, sealed off from the natural ones of the Multiverse. In them the decay of knowledge that elsewhere plunged the Aions of the former empire into a dark age was stayed.
In the early post-Templar days, the elves shared their knowledge almost freely. It was a choice they came to regret as aggressive new kingdoms began demanding under threat of violence that which they had not earned.
This led to the first of many withdrawals of the Elven Convocation from the affairs of the Thirty Aions. They simply sealed the gates of their worlds and left the other races to their own devices.
There would be many attempts at reconciliation, all of which would thrive for a time and then fail. Each one leaving bitter the taste of misplaced trust in the mouths of all concerned.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
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