"...from the void they arose....the first beings of will who gave form to the tumult of chaos...from nothing the all was formed...a construct of thought...a cradle of creation where the makers sealed themselves...for the Will both begets and binds..."
- Fragments of Prim's Lost Opus, rescued from the library of Mons Aeternae before its destruction.
Outside the highest echelons of the Church little is known for certain about the exact nature of the Trinity and even then it is likely the priests know only what the Trinity desired them to. The Sorcerers of old may have had some inkling as to the nature of the Gods but with their destruction what learning they may have acquired has been eradicated.
Legend speaks of the Trinity though, in those time when they walked among the common folk, as beings of terrible beauty whose very presence could bring Emperors to their knees and in whose gaze burned the raw power of creation itself. Their influence over the world was immense and every man, woman and child was bound by the threads of fate woven by them; every kingdom that rose or hero that fell did so according to the whim of the Trinity and legend seems to suggest they were as capricious as they were powerful, as malicious as they were benevolent.
From time immemorial they resided at Mons Aeternae a vast temple-palace that stood in the heart of the continent of Oletheia atop the highest mountain in the world, a feat of engineering unmatched by any mortal art. Only the very highest ranking members of the Church were allowed to audiences with the Trinity, though very occasionally great heroes or powerful emperors were permitted to seek their blessing in person.
"You must understand my son, once, perhaps, the Church was a great thing. I remember my father before me dressing us all in our best clothes and heading up to the Baron's Chapel. Even though it was only a small building, it was a wonderous place, full of grace and majesty. But now it is a pitiful thing, empty and purposeless. The Three are dead, and the Church is left only with empty ritual and meaningless prayer. Remember this. Now, unbar the door, and let the Misriecorde enter. Tell them nothing of this and they will spare you."
- The last words of Matron-Abbess Eleanor Fars Goan, Cleric ofthe Last Days, to her son, before the miseriecorde took her to her trial and execution
Once, even the most outlandish beliefs of the Church would have been known throughout the world, from the highest King to the lowest shepherd. Whilst this is no longer the case, the core tenets remain fairly widely recognised.
Most importantly, the Church exists to serve the Three. The Church ensures that the laws, demands and fiats of of the Three are respected; that those whose fates are set by the Trinity fulfil them as is set out in the manifold prophecies, portents and foretellings. Finally, the Church is responsible for the Shriving of the dead, such that they may enter the Afterworld set deep within Mons Aeternae.
Since the end of the Will-War, the Gods have issued no new laws, demands or fiats. The destinies of farmboys, with strange swords given them by mysterious old women in the middle of storms, are left unfulfilled. And, perhaps worst of all, with the destruction of Mons Aeternae, there has been no Afterworld for the dead to go to for Thirty years.
"Flash and Flame the Wizards Came
Fire and Light the Land was Blight
This shall not be, thus spake the Three
Get thee to a Nunnery!"
- Ancient children's nursery rhyme from the Kingdom of Eallos
Sorcery is old as history itself; some of first written myths and legends of mankind speaking of the magic of the Will. If there was a time when Sorcery first arose it is lost to all records, even those in the oldest libraries of the Church.
For millennia the Sorcerers served the Church as its heralds, prophets and ambassadors. They were living Saints, upraised servants of the Trinity who did the work of the Gods in the world. From birth every Sorcerer who was identified by the Church was taken into the care of the priests of the Trinity and there raised in the ways of scripture and self-sacrifice, their great power tempered with compassion; or at least that was the mantra of the Church.
The Church's Sorcerers made up the Magisterium, the Holy Curia responsible for showing the masses the wonders of magic; a gift from the Gods. The Magisterium comprised almost all the Sorcerers in existence and any rogue Will-workers were hunted down and eliminated by the combined might of the Magisterium.
The Church’s control over the Sorcerers of the world and the patronage of the Trinity made them unassailable; every King, Emperor or Warlord who arose did do with the blessing of the Church and every rebel, traitor and heretic died without its support.
"In every action and deed the Church is served by the Sorcerers, the High-Saints, whose power is handed down by the Trinity for the good of all mankind... [...] Still I cannot help but wonder about the length of this arrangement for in the old places of the world there are ruins and scars upon the land that bare all the hallmarks of magic, great wars fought with the fury of the Will... [...] Could it have been that once the Sorcerers did not serve the Church?..."
- Diaries of Davrid the Historian, as read at his trial, and burnt during his execution on the central pillar of the Ealic Agora
For millennia the Magisterium endured and the power of the Church was unmatched in the world. Then there came the Arch-Heretic; the Sorcerer who turned the Magisterium against the Church and the Trinity an event that marked the beginning of the war between the Gods and the Sorcerers. This struggle between the Gods and the Sorcerers is named the Will War and marked the end of the world that was and the beginning of the time of Discord.
The events surrounding the start of the Will War are a secret closely guarded by the Church, official doctrine being that the Arch-Heretic corrupted the Magisterium and declared war upon the Trinity in an attempt to claim their Godhood for himself.
Whether this is true or not; what is generally known is that the Sorcerers and the Three went to war and that it was devastating. Nations were laid to waste as the Gods and the Sorcerers battled in the heavens. Entire oceans and mountain ranges vanished and then reappeared over the course of days as they were unmade and made anew, fissures in the earth swallowed cities and the sun was hidden behind penumbras of shadow and flame for days at a time.
Millions died in the war and the common folk could do little more than cower as the skies burned with the fury of a war few of them knew the reasons for. Even the Church was powerless to intervene for without the power of the Magisterium at its command it had been entirely neutered.
For nearly a year the war raged and then in a moment it was ended with the breaking of the world and the formation of the Disjunction; the Trinity cast down and every Magisterium Sorcerer assumed dead.
"Shade, you're an assassin, a very good one at that, but you charge too much. For a hundredth of what it costs me to have you plant a knife in my enemies' ribs, I can get street urchins to claim they've seen them work Sorcery. See, the thing is, the City Watch will investigate assassinations, but have a sorcerer killed, and they'll gladly join the lynching mob."
-Scarro, self-professed “Problem Solver”
After the corruption of the Magisterium and the sundering of the world Sorcerers, at least those who had awoken to their power, were unheard of for nearly a decade. In their absence the broken world turned against them. The Church declared its saints heretics and betrayers, traitors to the will of the Three and made its primary purpose the eradication of any Sorcerer that might be born in the future. Even Sorcerers who pledged their undying faith and allegiance to the Trinity were butchered for the Church would tolerate no Will Workers, faithful or not.
The Church was not alone in its hatred for the Willworkers. Rightly or wrongly Sorcerers were blamed for the breaking of reality and the people of the World turned against them: children suspected of being fledgling Sorcerers were burned alive by terrified villagers and cities and nations set about routing out any trace of magic, banishing it from their borders.
The hatred of all things magical went far beyond just the Sorcerers. During the Will War huge swathes of the World were twisted and distorted by the Sorceries that rained from the skies. Many people, even those cowering in what shelter they could muster, were left changed by this fallout; their nature altered and their flesh marked by the terrible energies unleashed during the conflict. Even these innocents are now widely hated and even hunted for they are a reminder of how Sorcery forever changed the world.
"The old Gods are dead! In their place shall arise a new Pantheon to watch over the end. Who shall prove themselves worthy of ascension? Who will take up the mantle of godhood?!"
- Prophecies of Cheln the Mad, Oracle of Aen
The Gods are dead. Everyone saw or felt their death in some way as their burning remains fell in tempests of fire and fury to the earth. It is only those of the Church who refuse to acknowledge this fact and outside of the Cathedrals and monasteries there is little faith left in the Trinity for the world they made is being consumed and people can find little hope in beings whose death cries echoed across creation. In place of the Trinity new religions have arisen, the majority of them originating in the Watcher encampments at the edge of all things.
It took nearly a decade for the first rumours to begin, tales that the might of the Trinity had endured in some way and in some form. As the whispered stories and vague legends grew the people who still possessed some measure of power, or who yearned for it, began to quest for whatever and wherever these fragments of Trinity's power might be. As of yet none of them have been successful but as the Disjunction has encroached further and further upon existence so the great and the good, the cruel and the vicious and the simply insane have sought out these sources of divine power: the Godsherds.