11.4.6 Irathael, the Magician

"Magic is not a collection of scrolls and mysterious words. No, it is life and all it needs and yearns for - it is necessity, and it craves to birth invention and discovery." - Faror, an acolyte of the Silver Torches of Alengarth.

Standing as the lone warden of the Thousandfold Realms is Irathael, the Magician, Mad King of Sorcery, Lord of Ingenuity, and eternal Fly in Creation's Ointment.

To name every school of magic in Azhoa would be to consign your breath forevermore to its endless procession of dawns, dusks, and discoveries. One and all, these arcane fields draw from the lands ensconced within the God of Magic's body, their prosperity and decline tied to His own through the unbreakable bonds forged by His essence. Unwilling to guard His gifts jealously or dangle them above mortals' heads, Irathael earned the ire of the rest of the Crown Pantheon when He spent His first breath upon the beginnings of a clever scheme. Magic, the Arcane's priests insist, is the great equaliser - insurance against the endlessly domineering nature of mortals, civilisation, religion, and the threats that lurk therein. Though His followers concede that His gifts just as easily fit in the gauntlet of a tyrant, many are swift to insist that those seeking liberation possess equal chance to indulge in sojourns and gifts of the Chiliad Empire.

Helecrucian archivists speak of innumerable moments throughout the ages where the Magician stood betwixt mortalkind and the schemes of the gods, His timely intervention upsetting plans and reaffirming a balance that only the Crown's Creator could upturn. Despite this stunning empathy, cults across Azhoa insist that He is not inclined towards common morality, favouring instead those that would ceaselessly quest in the name of progress and discovery. Priesthoods and cults of the Magician often undertake projects of discovery and mad ambition, hoping that this act staves off the madness ever encroaching upon their Lord's blessed psyche.

The Helecrucians insist that He gave fire to the first mortals, an act that upended the Smith's plans.

The scholars of Erja claim that He wept for Islirie's people, His tears forming the first aquamancer's scrying pool.

The great tribes of the Greenwood swear that it was He who lifted secrecy's veil and inspired them to haruspicy when He came to them as the Wildmane.

Kyshi sorcerers curse His name with every incantation, claiming that He drove their people to dealings with Darkness and Chaos when He barred their way through His realms of magic forevermore.

All these nations and more agree that He littered Azhoa's landscape with curious contraptions and ancient, incomprehensible edifices at the varying heights of His madness - an act that served to eternally perplex erudites, philosophers, and artificers throughout the ages.