>>@SUBUBI | @ALL

[excelsus]

I may be completely alone in this, but is anyone else disturbed by the alarming dearth of rebel archivests?

Fortunately it seems that the number of books outnumber the actual people who wish to burn them which is rather fortunate because some of these things I can actually read. The Malleus Maleficarum is actually quite a facinating read if you're interested in the true barbarism of this world.

Malleus refers to a hammer and Maleficarum is the plural of Maleficar which refers to one who is wicked or depraved. In this sense it seems to loosely translate as Hammer of Witches...I laughed admittedly.

I'm certain it would be Hammer of Mages where I come from, but that is completely apart from the point.

Apparently these people believed that magic was some sort of delusion of the mind precipitated by demonic seduction through visions and dreams. They blamed the most rudimentary of problems on people, captured them, tortured them into fraudulent admissions, and then killed them.

The magic and spells they discuss are not even real magic, not as I know it anyway...unless one considers mathematics, philosophy, and general enlightenment magical.

I suppose I would define magic as the ability to expend mana...or putting it more simply, the ability to burn my accuser's face off by willing primal fire into being.

And here I thought the Southern Circles were bestial. Flaying someone alive for anomalous intelligengence, very dyed-in-the-wool dedication to the extermination of magic...and that there could be a book devoted to the finding and killing these so-called magic users.

It's certainly telling, not completely unfamiliar either. I'm certain the Southern Chantry has their own step-by-step process for teasing out mages and spiriting them away to the Circles.

Comments

[excelsus]

@AEGONNER It seems as though these witch or mage hunters targeted anyone with a modicum of enlightened thought. They called it witchcraft and punished you for it...severely if this book is to be taken seriously.

@AEGONNER Yes, this is becoming a theme, all of these people from different worlds, I'm not adverse to sharing information, but where to begin.

@AEGONNER I suppose I'll start with Thedas. It is a large continent divided into numerous countries, in the South mages, like myself, are rounded up and taken to these Mage Circles when it is discovered that one possesses magic.

Mage Circles are institutes devoted to the training and protection of mages, at least that is what the Chantry will tell you. Ah, the Chantry is the dominate religious organization in Thedas and in the South it espouses rhetoric about the dangers of magic so as you can imagine Southern Circles are not these happy little institutes for learning and protection. Many Circle mages in the South refer to the Southern Circle as a choice between various deaths of body and spirit.

It is different in the North where I am from, Circles are an institute for learning, prestigeous schools where magic is safely practiced. Magic is praised. You're not snatched from your families as a child and chained up, highborn children do not lose their claims, you don't spend the rest of your life in a prison being spied on and abused by templars who are force-fed Chantry rhetoric.

Templars are knights of a sort, by the way.

I am a notif-loser :( so sorry!

[northerndragon]

@EXCELSUS Magic isn't so common where I come from, though I've met a Red Priestess from Volantis, far across the Narrow Sea, who had gifts I didn't understand.

@EXCELSUS In the South, those who wish to become Maesters may study at the Citadel. But not many forge their Valyrian steel link, and even so, Maesters are learned men more than men who can perform any sort of magic. They aren't rounded up.

@EXCELSUS Lately, there are dragons, but not many. There hadn't been any for so long that we thought they had passed into legend.

@EXCELSUS Is there anyone in your country who can work to put an end to the great injustice you speak of?