The Water God's Gifts
Welcome to Divine Tyranny! In a world where all-powerful gods live among mortals and play with their life for their own entertainment, Archivist Cécile is doing her best to go unnoticed. Unfortunately, the warring water and forging gods are now interested in the archives... Come read about Cécile and the world in which she lives!
Introduction to the story | Cécile | The Archivists | Novel upcoming
Introduction to the story | Cécile | The Archivists | Novel upcoming
Our Lord the water god Lydien, ruler over all waters, likes to be seen as a benevolent and generous god. As such, he gifts his most loyal followers with magical artefacts He creates Himself. This is a great way for our Lord to both show off His power and skills as well as for Him to entice the most talented and ambitious—and greedy—individuals in his service and increase their gratitude towards Him.
After their owner's death, those items are either taken back by our Lord, or, if He allows it, they are kept by the heirs. If the family ever runs out of heirs or if any of the heirs turns criminal, the king always finds an excuse to seize those divine artefacts. Thus, if you will never be able to see one of those artefacts unless you can get close to the royal family or the high priests of the water Church.
Thankfully, after a lot of begging, us, archivists, have convinced the kings to donate damaged or outdated artefacts to the royal archives. While they are not as magnificent as fully working one, they still carry our Lord's power, and it is impossible to be in their presence without being awed—or horrified—by it.
I have found all the old artefacts we currently have in the archives and carefully studied them. They all look like small crystals that appear to be filled with clear water and that have some objects covered in runes floating inside of them. According to my examination, most of the power actually comes from the water itself, with the runes serving as a control mechanism, the stone as an amplification, and the crystal itself as a targeting mechanism. I have never seen any other artefacts created by our Lord, but those that have been described all look pretty similar, or at least also appear to have the same water component somewhere.
The functions of the artefacts are very broad ranging, depending on what our Lord judged more appropriate for His followers. Most are objects allowing for some measure of control over the big irrigation systems of the country. A few use water-based magic to create shields and other protections; this is especially useful with the numerous conflict between our Lord's priests and those of the forging god. Finally, there are numerous rumours about another kind of artefacts that would grant their owner vast powers on par with that of minor gods! This sounds outrageous, of course, and unsurprisingly, none of those have had their existence publicly confirmed. At least, not yet.
Gifts from our Lord the Water God by AmélieIS
Hey AmelielS! I included this article in my reading challenge. This article combines divinity with so many more aspects of your world. The way these gifts can still range in terms of function is also something that is inspirational to me as a magic item creator. It also made me (re)consider and think about how much influence the divines have had, have and will have in my own world. Thanks for inspiring me!
Thanks for your comment and including me in your reading challenge :D I'm glad I was able to inspire you! I was trying to come up with use of those artefacts that are linked to their creator the water god and make them more unique and precious in that setting vs any artefacts that mortals can make themselves.