The Holy Triance Draft 1 - again

[Atl Myrsa]

OOC: all of this is Charles Smiths stuff. I claim none of the it as of this time. I am just reposting this in a chorent form. We need to get the church stuff done and this really is were we need to start.

Shei’ry
The Histories of the Beginning-as told to Princess Rhea of Aelyria by King Ioannes.

In the beginning, all was silence and darkness. There was no life, no substance, and nothing that could resemble order. This darkness was the remains of the existence that had come before, where the forces of Light and Darkness had clashed to cataclysmic effect. At the end of that universe, all that existed was Ioannes the Eternal, leader of the forces of Light. The embodiment of Law, Order, and Justice, Ioannes was the only survivor of the previous existence to come into this one. Seeing the waste that had come of reality, Ioannes resolved that things would be different this time.

Using His Divine wisdom and Celestial Light, the Lord of All created Aetheria, a realm of light, air, and shimmering crystal, to be His home. From there, Ioannes stretched forth His Hand and began to craft a perfect universe. This universe was a place where all worked in harmonious Order, according to Laws both perfect and precise. The worlds set within this universe all were places that resonated with the Order of the greater reality about them, all were cradles for the creations that were yet to come.

Ioannes saw the creation that was, and was pleased. Yet He felt that more could be done. The new universe was a place of Law and Order, yet it was sterile. Save for Himself, nothing moved or breathed in all the new existence. This could not be. Ioannes rested His Great Head upon His Mighty Fist, and pondered. And from the Creator’s furrowed brow, there sprang a Being of radiant blue light and perfect patterning, fully-formed in the moment of His creation. Ioannes regarded the new creature for a long moment, and then He smiled, and named the being Orod, meaning “thought” in the language of the existence from whence Ioannes came.

Ioannes laid before Orod His dilemma. Aetheria and the mortal universe had been made, but were empty. New creations were needed to fill the empty places. Orod nodded and promised His Father that He would see to it. Orod went a little way distant from the Presence of the Great King and thought for many a year. His contemplations lasted for a thousand years, and when He had organized all to His satisfaction, He returned to His Father with His proposals. Orod asked for the Power of Creation, to form that which He had proposed, and Ioannes agreed to this. Ioannes gave to His Son dominion over Logic and the power to make what He would. The new God of Logic departed His Father and set to His task.

Orod first created the Holy Principles of Reason and Rationale, to guide the creations He would make. He created Time, to govern the spans of the life He would make, and created His Hourglass to regulate the flow and passage of Time. Then He set about creating life itself. First of all things, Orod created the Aetherians, a race of spirit beings less than Himself and His Father, but more than the life that was to come. The Aetherians were created to be helpers in the great Creation Project, and Orod set the first of that race, Jorel, as Arch-Archon, the leader of the Aetherians who answered only to Ioannes and Orod. That done, the Aetherians were set to the task of aiding Orod in the creation of the first race of the mortals: the Aelyrians.

The Aelyrians were intended to be Orod’s master race, the first and penultimate example of the truth of Law, Order, and Justice. They would exemplify Logic, Reason, and Rationale, and prove to be the best of all species, mentally and physically. The first argument in the new existence occurred on the day when the Aelyrian species was created. Jorel, the Arch-Archon, argued mightily that the Aelyrians should be balanced by the ability to think in ways not influenced by purest logic. He argued that the perfection of the Aelyrians was in fact, their weakness. The God of Logic, whose Wisdom is greater than that of any being save Ioannes Himself, disagreed. He knew the hearts of His creations and went ahead with His plans. From a drop of the blood of Ioannes, from Perfection Incarnate, Orod created the Aelyrians. When the winged people stood before the God of Logic, He beheld the magnificence of His work and smiled upon them, granting them His gifts of Reason and Rationale. Seeing that His creations were perfect in all ways, He gave to them Telath, the fairest jewel in the Heavens, as their charge and dominion, and sent them forth. All the Aetherial Host cheered, all save one.

[Atl Myrsa]

The Golden Age
As told to Princess Rhea by Ioannes, King of the Gods

After the rise of life on Telath, and the creation of the Aelyrians, a Golden Age of peace and prosperity was born in the universe. The Aelyrians, as the first race, were given dominance and began to build a society based on the precepts of Law, Order, and Justice, guided by the principles of Reason and Rationale and the Perfect Will of Ioannes.

As society developed, Ioannes saw that, temperate and mild though Telath was, the world’s climates and seasons were still unregulated. To that end, Ioannes gathered to Himself the essence of the world’s nature: the heat of summer and the cold of winter, the flowering of spring and the wild that lies at the core of all beasts. To this He added the wisdom of the Divine, the diligence of the insects, and the free spirit of the birds of the air. This essence was shaped by the Perfect One’s Hand, and given life by the breath of the Great King. Infused by the breath of the Divine, the essence took life and form, becoming a new Divinity in its own right. Ioannes smiled warmly and blessed His child, naming her Carmelya, which means Hope. To her was given protection over Nature, Hope, Fertility, and Joy. Carmelya joined her powers to the wisdom of her older brother Orod, to guide the tempering of the world and further develop the growth of the Aelyrians.

As time passed, the Aelyrians developed the democracy that gave their culture such strength and unity. Jorel was a strong advocate for impassioned debate and the development of codes of conduct and honorable battle, to channel the emotions raised in debate and daily life. He proposed to Carmelya the notion of a spiritual bond that could join two lives at the most basic level, and to Orod a protective instinct for the young. After much reasoned debate in the Heavens, Jorel’s ideas were implemented, though not in the manner he desired. Emotion was channeled along the lines of logic, reason, and rationale. Rules were made for the expression of what limited feelings were allowed and ingrained into the culture.

At the same time, the Aetherians were organizing. Below the Archons were placed the Seraphim and the Angels beneath them, as helpers. The Archons were branching out, specializing in various areas of interest. All was guided by the Perfect Logic of Orod, and blessed by the Perfect Will of the One Above All. All save the unruly heart of the Arch-Archon, whose resentment of the proper application of his abilities and ideas festered secretly within his heart. And so the Age of Perfect Peace passed.

[Atl Myrsa]

The Fall of Jorel
As Propounded to Princess Rhea by Orod, God of Logic

When the Aelyrian society was in full blossom, with Reason and Rationale firmly at the helm of a society of purest logic, a terrible tragedy occurred. Jorel, the jealous and petty spirit, decided that his dark designs for the Age of Perfect Peace could no longer be denied.

Cloaking himself in the shadows and bitter resentment that would forever be his curse, Jorel stole amongst the Aelyrians in a mortal form. He began to spread his poison of emotion, daring to cloak his foulness in the terms of Reason and Rationale to make them more appealing. As his illogical deceptions began to gain some ground with the young and vulnerable Aelyrians, his dark will was at work in the Heavens as well. With lies and promises did he seduce so many bright Archons, a full third of those that then lived.

His actions did not go unnoticed. Carmelya noticed the darkening of the heart of Jorel and went to him, to counsel and to soothe. I as well went to Jorel, thinking that the application of logic could quell his disquiet. He spake us fair, with sweet terms and promises, and our spirits were indeed quelled. It was not logical to think that rebellion could occur in Aetheria, where all is pure and right.

Thus, the disaster came. In the fullness of time, when hearts and minds were turned to other matters, Jorel and his deluded followers struck at the heart of Aetheria. The enemies attacked the Celestial Palace of King Ioannes, hoping to take the Sun Throne for their own. Then might Chaos have been unleashed, and all lost.

It was in that dark hour that Maj, pure of heart and strong of arm, rose to be the Champion of Light. Rallying the confused, disorganized Archons and their Angel and Seraph assistants to him, the shining being charged into the fray. Using the principles of order and logic, he organized his forces and set them against the Dark Ones. And yea, was the slaughter great.

In the Plaza of Tranquility before the Celestial Palace did the forces clash. Archon against Archon, in the most fatal of combat. And in the center of the plaza there stood Maj against the insane, frothing madness and bitter hatred of Jorel, who assumed the form of the two-headed Dragon of Darkness to fight his brilliant adversary. The battle raged long and hard, even when Carmelya and I joined the fray against the Dark One.

In the end, Maj seized the muzzle of one head of the Dragon in his brawny arms, and threw behind him his weight. The Dragon did flip and fall upon his back. Whereupon Maj leaped atop him and dealt him a deep wound with his shining white broadsword. The Dragon was cleaved from the top of the chest to the crotch, and Maj dealt a slash to the eye that seared it closed. And yea to this day does Jorel feel the pain of his injuries, and bear a scar across his chest and a burning, painful scar across his eye, whatever the form he takes. Maj did see and seize his chance. He called to him the Archon Cetheron, doughty warrior, whose joy was in building and in making, and ordered him to bring him the strongest chain from his Forge. When the chain was brought, Jorel was bound from head to taloned feet.

When they saw their leader fallen, the Dark Forces did quail. Some cast aside their weapons and fell to their knees with a great gnashing of teeth and much lamentation, begging for forgiveness. Others fought and were destroyed, and still others ran. But to no avail. Those who fought were killed, and those who surrendered or fled were together bound, and brought to face the judgment of the One they had rebelled against.

In the Trial which followed, I served as Prosecutor of the Heavens, while Carmelya stood opposite me as Advocate for the Accused. The Trial was conducted before the Sun Throne in a perfectly logical and rational matter. But in the end, the Trial was brief. The direct evidence against Jorel and his minions was too great, and the testimony of the surviving Archons, including Maj, too compelling. King Ioannes pondered, and then Judged.

Jorel and his minions were forever banished from the bright land they had tried to conquer. They were no longer worthy of its beauty. Ioannes took from the twisted heart of Jorel the evil emotions that had fueled his rebellion, and made them manifest in a fire-ice dimension set as the polar opposite to the Perfect Realm of Aetheria. This place would forever be known by the cursed name of Aeternia, for it was to be an eternal prison for the Darkness. Maj, elevated to Arch-Archon, Keeper of Force and Steward of Power, was assigned to conduct their prisoners to their new home. Once the Dark Ones had been thrown into the Pit and the gate sealed after them, we of Aetheria settled in to consider the changes wrought by the power-madness of Jore

[Atl Myrsa]

The Rise of Darkness
As told to Princess Rhea by Carmelya, Goddess of Nature, Hope, and Fertility

When Jorel was defeated we had much to consider. In that early time I had hope that perhaps Jorel could still be redeemed, but the others would not listen. There was much anger in Aetheria then. People were still nursing the wounds from the Rebellion and there were calls for an all-out assault to destroy Jorel and his followers once and for all. King Ioannes would not allow it though. Justice demanded that since a fair sentence had been handed down, additional punishment could not be added on after the fact. For that I was glad.

But there was still the problems of the world. Jorel had done much damage in his misguided campaign, and now we had to find a way to fix it. The physical damage was easy enough to fix, but our society was forced to change. Those of us who were eager to continue to fight formed into the Divine Army, joining Maj in his duty at the borders of Aeternia. Others devoted themselves to the creation of new things. The Archons Cetheron and Phedos set themselves to the task of creating the Dwarves and the Elves, respectively, while other Archons worked on creating or improving upon existing life.

I took to nurturing the world, teaching respect for life and nature to the races. I found that the mortal races were...changed. Different. The Darkness that had tainted Aetheria had tainted the mortals. Now some mortals raised their hands against each other, something unthinkable in the Age of Perfect Peace. Mortals despoiled the wild with little thought for their fellow spirits, the birds and beasts and fish. Some set themselves above others,
proclaiming themselves as "Chiefs" and "Lords", and killing those who would not follow them. They became suspicious of those who were not like them. I did what I could, along with Orod and others of the Aetherians, but the taint of Jorel was powerful and insidious.

The saving grace of the world was the Aelyrians. Crafted perfectly, with the essence of Reason and Rationale imbued into them, they were aloof from the struggles of the lesser mortals. The Aelyrians maintained themelves separate, shielding themselves from the cruelties of the outside world. Their skill with any type of craft, their ingenuity with construction and the wisdom and power which they were embued with ensured that they were not assailed by outside forces. For a time, this was enough.

But sadly, even the brightest of lights can fall prey to shadow.

[Atl Myrsa]

Creeping Evil
as delivered to the world by Ioannes, King of the Gods

As has been told, in the brightenings after the Fall of Jorel, there was peace in the world. Law, Order, and Justice reigned, as exemplified by the Chosen Ones, the Aelyrians. The world was in an age of peace for a time, before the Taint of Jorel brought chaos and darkness. For long and long again we watched in Aetheria, and contemplated what to do. Some of our more rash Archons called for a purge, a great flood or fire to burn the wicked away. That was not the path of Justice and they were rejected. Others argued that we should directly manifest amongst the mortals, to impress upon them the Sacred Three in person. The debate was rational, reasoned, but intense. But while My child Orod propounded the points for and against, evil was stirring.

In Aeternia, Jorel was at work, twisting and perverting the things of Light into his evil creations. He had long taken the form of a Dragon, and had moved amongst them in the days of his glory. Some of them had chosen to follow him in his fall from grace. From these fallen serpents did Jorel begin his work. Some he kept as they were, to provide him with power and intimidation. Others he begin to change. From these warped dragons and their seed did Jorel create the race of Dracons; scaled berserkers whose claws would rend and tear the flesh of the innocent. Not satisfied with the dragons of darkness, Jorel sought out more flesh to twist.

Although the dracons and his fallen spirits gave him power, Jorel wanted an army large enough to dwarf any foe. The dracons could not breed fast enough for that purpose so Jorel turned to Carmelya's Nature instead. In time, he found what he needed. It was the rodents. Small, quick, clever, and capable of fast reproduction, these tiny creatures would be the next to feel the Fallen Archon's touch. It was not long as the world counts time before the vermin warriors stood ready before their dark master. Now Jorel had his fallen Archon minions, the Dragons and Dracons, and the Rodenti, but it was not enough he knew. Even the twisting of elf and dwarf to form the first of the Orcish legions was not enough. Nothing the Dark One had could challenge the might of the Aelyrians.

Long Jorel pondered. The Aelyrians were perfect in every way. To confront them he would need one with their power. Yet nothing he could make could match the Perfect Ones in power. He decided that he needed one to study, yet he could not leave his prison due to the never-ending vigilance of My General Maj. He resolved to use outside means. He sent his foul whispers through the veil between worlds, enticing those weak-minded and greedy enough to believe the promises of Darkness. In time he built a coalition of those weak of soul and promised them great rewards should they bring an Aelyrian to him.

The fiends found it a difficult task. The Aelyrians had isolated themselves from the affairs of the world and only emerged every so often to resolve disputes. Many a fool died in their attempts to take Aelyrians by force. It was finally trickery that succeeded. One man, one of the small ones of Cetheron's creations by the name of Rusk, devised a scheme. With fair face and honeyed words did he approach one of My children, and beg him for help. He claimed that his home had been attacked by others of the Dwarven kind, those who sought conquest and dominion. He claimed that he had refused to join these agitators and had been attacked, forced to flee for his life. Now he requested the aid of My child to peaceably resolve the matter. My child, being an innocent as all the Aelyrians were, agreed to aid Rusk, and did follow him to the place the Dwarf claimed as his home. Once they arrived in that cursed valley, My child was set upon by other worshippers of Jorel, distracting him long enough to be taken by the hand of a corrupted Archon emerging from a small break they had opened in the veil. His screams alerted Me, but too late.

Turning My attention to the scene, I did see Rusk and his compatriots celebrating their foul victory. Then did My Anger burn great indeed, but I channeled My Righteous Fury into Justice. I Judged Rusk and his associates, and for bringing lies and fear to one of My own sentence was passed. Rusk and the other villains were condemned to live lives of paranoia and fear. Chained by an invisible bond of My forging, this group was made to wander the lands, capable of communicating only with each other. They could only speak in lies and lived in paranoid fear each of the other, yet never could they escape. Thus was Justice meted out.

But in Aeternia new things were stirring. Dark things. For from the blood and essence of My murdered child did Jorel create the first of the foul creatures that would plague the world in times to come. The brutal menace that would lay waste civilization.

The Cyraxian.

[Atl Myrsa]

This is everything that charles Smith originally wrote. I don't how much editing Charles did from before on peoples comments. Also not sure how done it is. Please comments and we will try and get this up and running as quikly as possible

[Darian]

The viewpoint still needs to be changed, according to documents already in the Compendium, the Triance was handed down to Princess Rhea by Gabriel and Michael, not Ioannes nor any of the other Gods. So either that needs to change, or this does.

[Banodin Lionheart]

*points out* This is just a copy and paste from the old thread, it will be revised when ideas get a little more fleshed out.

[Heartbreaker]

And that's exactly what Darian said. =-)

Well, the content is okay. I'll let people more knowledgeable about religion speak to that. I'm not sure about the name, however. "Triance" isn't a word as far as I know so it’s hard to infer what this document actually is. Is it the Allerian version of the Bible? Is it just some random scatterings of nonsense? See my point? I mean, if I'm looking at it, I know in my head that 'tri' usually means three...and 'ance' tends to lean more towards a fact or act. Put that together and you've got "The facts of Three" or "The acts of Three" something to that effect.

Now, before someone says something to the effect of "Look in the histories and it will explain"....(Not saying that it does but sounds like something that could happen)...I'll comment here that I'm speaking from the perspective of a pc looking at this wondering what the heck it is. A lot of documents tend to have no 'newbie' explanations on them for people that aren't familiar with them. I mean, politician pcs know about documents that effect them, such as the Annarian Code of Law and the Articles of Imperium, so this should have some sort of forward that introduces the reader to what it is.

That's all I got. =-)

[Banodin Lionheart]

Actually, you sort of hit the nail on the head right there with breaking it down, "The Facts of Three" meaning the definition of the Sacred Three of the Gods. So it's a book about the Gods pretty much. So from what I understand, this is the equivalent of the Bible.

A forward introduction could probably be easily added for the youngins, but this book would be, ICly, common knowledge for everyone. Regardless if one is religious or not.

[Heartbreaker]

Okay, but I'm not what we would consider a 'newbie' and I've never heard of it.

That's my point. I think some sort of forward or explaination would be a good idea.

And I wasn't aware that Ioannes, Carmelya and Orod were the Sacred Three of anything so clarification would be nice. =-)

[Atl Myrsa]

I can most certianly write a ooc forward for this. Get to it over the next couple days. Worked the weekend so posting was done inbetween sleep and school/work

This is supposted to be common IC knowledge, and the name isn't actually my choise its been established for a while and is already in the compodium

That being said I wonder if a list of common IC knowledge might be a good idea. hmm

Also the Sacred Three are Diana, Ioannes, and Aslan, which again points to a potential need a basic information page.

hmm.

Thanks Darian. I will work on that.

Actually in reality the change would make it clear that the ancient allerians are speaking it, BUT they are speaking as if the gods were speaking though them. Since this is supposed to be holy word so they should be speaking the words of the gods.