| “ | I am but a single thread in the tapestry that is all. All I am is the stuff of the most bright stars, the awe-inspiring blaze, the glow that could shine a thousand others... and yet I am but a single thread in the tapestry that is all. All I am....
- The mindless rambling of a magi just woken up from an intense clairvoyance meditation in which he attempted to find the structure of life, source unknown
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The Magopurist faith seeks to explain the universe in a way that is inherently logical yet accounts for divine power and the ability for things to not go as universal law dictates, via magic or simply sheer divine will. Originally based on The Dragonlord pantheon, the revolution of magic by the first stremagio and Strezici founder Vaelo meant that there was an entire realm of knowledge that was normally beyond human grasp. Before long, scrying and clairvoyance magic was employed to see into the tapestries of life itself, and while almost everyone who attempted to explain the universe in its entirety went mad in the process trying to account for almost all of creation, there were a few who escaped from their divination with some knowledge that proved useful. This formed the basis of a religion based on hard evidence, not just faith as had been previously been the foundation of all beliefs.
The enlightened magi (the only ones capable of such understanding their visions, as innate prophecy magic by the untrained gifted would not be enough to decipher it all) would often be mentally unstable and drained of most of their life force for days or weeks on end. This would often result in falling into a deep sleep from which one would not wake up from for weeks, or even months. Beyond a certain point, it was assumed that anyone who had not stirred had succumbed to a vegetative state, but a few conjectured that what they had seen was so vast and encompassing that they simply could not handle such knowledge on their mind and would die while still in the midst of processing it.
Their efforts were not in vain, however; the magi who were able to relay some of what they saw were able to talk at great length about the opposing but equal forces that govern the universe, reality itself being divine in the effect that life and death and all such processes are just part of an unbroken cycle, and talk of the number 15 holding special significance in every facet of creation -- how this final fact was achieved is unknown, as no one has been able to explain it. Before long, everyone who has attempted to peer into the very stuff of being soon went mad and was forced to be killed due to their newfound nature. Scholars of today have pointed out that the same behavior is reflected in men such as Nobilis Karthmere and Aegor IV Dragomyr.
| “ | Mere minds such as our own simply cannot process everything as these thought-dreamers try to do, and to say otherwise is folly. When you next find yourself growing absent-minded during a conversation or forgetting a task you were assigned, take heart in the blessing that is human frailty; if we paid attention to everything, all life would have destroyed itself out of desperation and incomprehension long ago.
- Talys, discoverer of manipulation magic, 4874 BC
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Through the collective "thought-dreams", as they came to be called in the circles of the stremagi, a foundation of everything was able to be created. For utilitarian purposes, the creators of the philosophy, known as Magopurists due to their magical background and their desire to 'purify' or reduce an explanation of the universe to its basest levels, decided to replace the names of the deities so that they may better hold all existing religions in respect. Miracles from all faiths were observed and duly noted, and this was taken into account in these thought-dreams -- some had reported, for example, that the ubiquitous Five Paragons were actually just five souls that combined to form the great-soul that came to be known as Nveryll, and it is for this reason that Magopurism is also seen as an attempt to unite all existing religions under one unified belief core.
Magopurism is all but extinct in the modern day, with few knowing of it and even fewer acknowledging it. After the Dragon Wars and the War of the Shadow, the world has regressed culturally and belief systems have reverted to simpler times -- even if the only true adherents of Magopurism were the thought-dreamers participating in reality's discovery themselves.
Beliefs
As roughly gathered from the vague, metaphor-ridden tales of the thought-dreamers, reality is composed of:
- A dualistic presence in the universe, dictated by the Creator and The Shadow, equal and opposite forces
- The Creator and the Shadow both have 6 'agents', which act in various ways throughout the universe -- one example for both are Nveryll and Messeneth
- Drakonius is but one of many places in the universe where a battle between the two forces is occurring; in fact, one could say all of reality is just a struggle between the two, present in everything from man to the very earth below his feet
- Along with the 14 primordial spirits (the Creator and the Shadow plus their 6 agents each), the material plane is considered divine in its breadth, as it encompasses all of existence and by extension, all things are innately divine in some regard -- this makes 15, claimed to be a divine number
- Altogether, 15 factors govern everything that has ever happened, will happen, and will continue to happen, with time merely being a medium through which things progress, time itself being created with the universe being born
- All things in some part are composed of the essence of the Creator and the Shadow -- not in equal parts, as all living things are mostly Creator-based, with the essence of the Shadow coming to light when man commits things that would be seen as 'evil' or detrimental to the progression of life
- The 'agents', though primordial forces themselves, are composed of individuals or beings that were predestined to become divine -- one example of this is said to be all Five Paragons, who when conjoined form the great-soul Nveryll, the Drakonite agent of the Creator
- Reality will terminate when one power overwhelms another -- on their own the primordial forces cannot sway the battle between a perfect stalemate, so it depends on mortal life to break the deadlock and either defeat the Shadow (thus resulting in the Creator's victory) or make it so that the Shadow will win, either intentionally or inadvertently
- It is known that the universe is considered separate and unique from the other primordial forces -- it is the plane upon which all other things occur, but is known to act through forces attributed to natural phenomena or innate magic to sway the universal battle in its favor, which means that ultimately, free will exists due to the inability of good and evil to meddle, merely influence; as part of creation, mortals are free to decide which side they partake in, since they are not perfect beings derived from the Creator or the Shadow as the agents are
- The universe, despite being considered divine, has no perception or higher thought, at least as far as mortal minds can perceive -- it merely is, and as such only participates in the Creator-Shadow war due to its existence. It has been described as a catalyst upon which everything else may be done.