Mages and Scientists. Scientists and Mages. The battle between science and magic is one that has been waged since the beginning of time. One believes in the sacred, mysterious aspects of magic, while the other longs for answers, to have control over what they see around them through scientific means.
Nearly two hundred years ago, these two elements collided in the largest series of wars the world had ever seen.
The Sages—the eldest, wisest, and most powerful of their kind—of the Scientist struck first. Having grown tired of those of their study being shunned, imprisoned, and, in the worst case scenarios, killed for their attempts at placing the future of humankind in their own hands, the Scientist’s Sages, accompanied by their strongest fighters, attacked cities with the greatest population of Mages.
The Sages of the Mages quickly retaliated. For nearly five years, the two groups fought relentlessly, millions of commoners getting caught in the crossfire. Their wars ravaged the land, spreading fear and panic.
At last, as the fifth year came to a close, a battle ensued that ended with no small amount of causalities. While many creatures of magic had joined the cause, aiding the Mages, it was with the help from werewolves—man-beasts who have been questioned whether they were created by science or magic since the discovery of their race—that the mages were capable of defeating the Scientists, forcing them to either hide or die. From then on, the Scientists’ ideals were banned, and any caught practicing were to be sentenced to death.
Over time, these wars became known as the Sage Wars, a title that wound transcend through the ages.
A clean-up followed the Sage Wars. The werewolves went back to taking care of their own. The people were terrified of both Scientists and Mages alike; while the Scientists had wreaked the most havoc, the Mages had played their own part. So, the Mages did everything in their power to regain the peoples’ trust. A group of Mages found a land unclaimed by any ruler where the Scientists’ machines and deadly concoctions had not hindered plant growth, and built a city alongside many of those who remained loyal to them.
The city prospered. Word of its success spread quickly, and people flocked there. The population quickly expanded, and trust and reliance slowly returned to the Mages. The city quickly expanded into a vast kingdom, which the Mages named Altreiah, a word from the ancient Magi language that roughly translates into “Prosperous peace.”
Recognizing that the city and kingdom would need a ruler, someone that even those still wary of Mages would follow, they entrusted the matter to one of their most trusted human families, who had a diluted Mage bloodline: the Althane family.
As the Mages had hoped, the Althanes gained the trust of the people, and the land continued to flourish. The Mages regained their high standing among all the world’s kingdoms. Scientists became little more than the occasional nuisance, if even that. With a painful slowness, everything returned to normal. At least, for nearly two hundred years.
Magic. Enchantments. The world, known to its inhabitants as Salvus, has relied on the Mages and their magic for many centuries. Through the Mages’ various talents, the world has thrived, gaining many things those of us on modern Earth take for granted. Only, they have used magic instead of science.
Mages, often born into large families of their own, are often superstitious people who cling to their customs like a lifeline. While there are those who grow to become Mages without any evidence of being a descendant of one, such cases are rare in the grand scheme of things. Either they are born with magic, or they are not, most often to a family of Mages. The magic a Mage uses often varies from one to the other. There are Mages who work in weather or predictions, who are skilled in defensive magic, while others are more offensive. It is rare for even the smallest of villages to not have at least one Mage in their midst, making sure that things run smoothly.
Because of how much they contribute to the society, Mages are held with high regard, often having more sway with people than the kings and queens themselves. In many cases, most royals have a Mage or two as an adviser or else somewhere else within their council.
After the Sage Wars, Mages doubled their efforts to keep the world safe from Scientists, though they doubted they would resurface anytime soon. Alas, their efforts have since grown a bit lax in this, with sightings of Scientists few and far between, but still they remain on the lookout.
Facts. Experiments. Two things Scientists thrive on. On Earth, we know them as innovators, as the people who have made all our modern commodities possible. But to Salvus, a world run by magic, Scientists and their methods have been forbidden for centuries. To their world, Scientists are unorthodox, unholy people who threaten to upset the balance of the world.
Consisting of those with an innate curiosity and ability to find the logical reason behind things, to figure out how something works and manipulate it with their own abilities instead of through magic—something that only those it chooses can manipulate—Scientists are always hunting for ways to improve what the Mages started. In many cases, they want to bring what Mages have to the rest of the world, to all those without powers. They wish to eliminate the need for the Mages, to make everyone reliant on themselves instead of solely on magic. But only in some cases. While there are also those who wish to live in harmony with Mages, living side-by-side in their methods, many of the current Scientist's Sages and their followers simply seek the power Mages have over Salvus. They have grown greedy and enraged in the depths of their indignation, wanting revenge for what has been done to their people, and the compensation for it they believe they deserve.
The Scientists were exiled nearly two-hundred years past, and the order to kill any on sight still stands. Since then, with a few Mages on their side, they have created a few small cities, each hidden in plain sight through both science and magic. Despite the presence of magic in some concealment methods, inside their bounds, scientific and mechanical devices rule, and any Mages not known to be supporters of their cause are captured and often killed.
Unlike Mages, Scientists are both born and made. Anyone with the right mindset and IQ can become a Scientist if they study hard enough, but only the most elite gain the privilege of being considered a true Scientist, while the others are either rejected and ousted from their community, or forced to remain within their city bounds.
After the Sage Wars, the few remaining Scientists began work to prove to the world that magic and science could live together in harmony, toiling to combine methods of both into a single creation to prove their theory. At first, their attempts were innocent enough, experiments done on animals for the purpose of being capable of coming out of hiding. But as the years went on, and the reigns passed from one Scientist Sage to the next, over the next two centuries, the innocent attempts took a turn to the power hungry.
When the noble mission fell prey to corrupt leaders, Scientists—with the aid of a few handfuls of Mages in agreement with their cause—began work on a device that could bring about the destruction of magic and Mages who opposed them. Once activated, it would give the Scientists the power to rule even magic, ushering in their reign.
Alas, only upon completion of the device—an object created through an equal mix of magic and science—did they realize that it would take someone likewise with equal parts magic and science.
Not wanting to wait the eons it would take to create even a prototype of something matching that criteria from scratch, a small group of the Sages took the experiments of their predecessors to a new, unspeakable level; they began their experiments to combine the two elements on humans, who were believed to be creations of neither, yet both science and magic. But all their tests failed, their subjects’ bodies incapable of handling the mix, and their attempts all ended in an agonizing death and failure.
That is, until they kidnapped the princess of Altreiah.
Even with her escape and a werewolf—a race rumored to be capable of being the deciding factor in the Scientist's plot, if only they could find documentation on how they aided in driving the Scientists out—who has suffered at the hands of Scientists working against them, should the Scientists and rogue Mages get their way, there would be no hope for not only Altreiah, but the rest of the world.
Unless Mages, Scientists, and the denizens of Salvus can realize that they can live together, that magic and science are not two separate entities, but one whole creating two different sides of the world, then the downfall of Salvus has been centuries in the making. And if two young royals cannot come together and overcome their own fears and weaknesses to bring down and destroy the device the Scientists have created, then magic and the people will fall to the Scientist’s cruel mercy.
