The Gift

The Gift is the original name of "the black book", a highly controversial book that was writen by the equaly infamous and hated figure by the name of Sokral Nehen. He, and this book, lead to the creation and rapid spread of a destructive cult, known today as Sokralism in the later years of the Second Age.

Authors

While most scholars agree that sokral is highly likely to be the actual author of the book, the cult followers instead believe that the book was "given" to him by Saol, hence it being called "The gift". The reason for this is because before being assassinated, Sokral told a crowd of his followers a peculiar story. If the heretic is to be believed, one morning, after having dreams and visions of a dark future, woke up to find a mysterious book near his bed, inside of which were instructions on how to "save the world".

Publication status

The book is hightly controversial, especialy amongst mage circles, but also in the general population of Solian countries. Everyone caught with the book is immediatly arrested and thrown in jail. A famous case in the Kingdom of Darnia, a region that was historicaly very affected by the cult, involved a local priest that was found to keep many copies of the book in his house. He was arrested, thrown in jail and then sentenced to death. He was burned at the stake along with the copies of the black book he held. Only about a dozen or so copies exist to this day, which are mostly located at various archives and libraries of universities in Arros and Enaskia. They are not accessible to the public, for fear of spreading the cult again.

Purpose

The purpose of the book was to spread the teachings of sokral, who himself claimed to have recieved those from dreams and visions from Saol. The book argues that mages, both Elemental and Soulbound Mages as well as magic in general, is the work of Uxal and that they seek to destroy humanity. it furthers argues that anything that has to do with Uxal must be purged from the world, by any means nessesary.

Legacy

The book has a profoundly bad legacy as it created a movement that targeted mages all over the world, causing the death of tens of thousands of people.

Aternative names
The black Book
The heretic's book
The book of sacrilege

Type

Manuscript, Religious

Medium

Paper

Signatories (Organizations)

• Sokralism