The Divine¶
Contested
This page is named in the open question The Divine: god or goddess, and the Empress. The newest sources call the Divine "she" and the page follows them; the 2023 Post-Sancturi Lore says "he".
"Shield us from corruption! Guard us from sin! Grant us sustenance!" — the prayers of the three aspects
The Divine, called Sharuvas and by her enemies Shuruvas, is the god who rules the Fifth Age after the fall of the Sancturi. She is not an Einar of Terrun. She came from the planet of the Uk'Zarai, took most of the dead Kalar's shards, killed Arya, displaced Arcantus, remade the City of the Gods, and tore the Mithis plane out of the world. Her Divine Authority is the only faith tolerated in the Divine Nations, every other god is her forsworn enemy, and in the hidden city of Proturas her faithful share a council table with the Kalari priests they would otherwise burn.
Also called¶
Sharuvas is her own name and the name of her star and her world. The Uk'Zarai outcasts of Proturas, whom she hunts, call her Shuruvas, "the great enemy of his people". Her faithful call her simply the Divine, and in her three aspects the Lifewarder, the Redeemer and the Earthgiver.
Origin¶
The Divine is an outsider in the strict sense. "Sharuvas/The Divine, who traveled to Terrun from the planet of the Uk'zarai (Sharuvas) appears to have her own distinct Einar-like soul", unlike the Einar of Terrun, who are held to be faces of a single immortal soul. Scholars ask where her counterbalance is, and have no answer. Her demons, whatever name they bear, "are imprisoned back on Sharuvas (the planet)". The Uk'Zarai who serve her are "known as Angels … most live in the 'sacred city' and are the winged harbingers of the Divine"; those cast out or in rebellion are the Dark Angels, "the primary users and purveyors of Fel Magic", and the Divine "has been very careful with Fel-magic so far and hunted down non-Uk'Zarai Fel users. Fel magic is strictly forbidden in domains of the Divine." Fel magic itself, "imported from the world of Sharuvas by the Uk'zarai", is Fel Magic.
The Ascendance of the Divine¶
The Divine arrived in the ruin of the Sancturi Empire. Historians end the Sancturi Age in 904 SM of the Fifth Age, when Sanctorum fell to the Araxians; the Ascendance of the Divine is dated to 906 SM, and the period that follows is the Divine Period. Among the major changes of those years: "The appearance of the Divine Star (Sharuvas). A very bright blue star in the sky (City of the Gods). The God, known simply as the Divine has remade much of the City of the Gods. No one is sure how, but (heretical) religious scholars surmise the Divine was able to take over most of Kalar's old shards which held back doors into many of the other shards. It is also clear that the Divine displaced Arcantus and killed Arya." Arya "shattered her shard rather than lose it to the Divine, leaving traces on the material (The Blood of Arya)". After the Divine's coming, "most of the Younger Gods are dead or sleeping".
The Redemption¶
Her second great act was the Redemption, "an act of the Divine that destroyed all Hollows and removed Mithis from the world. The Mithis Plane has been fully extracted from the material, making it its own physical place known in common parlance simply as the Rift (an often unstable and shifting place). Scholars call this the Mithis Fracture. Divine Priests call it Perdition." Mithis metals still exist but must be transplanted from the Mithis Plane and energised there; mages, wizards and Hollowlocks "have lost their power source"; and the Mithis Plane remains "a bridge between Material and Abyss (but much more distant)" where Asmodeus "still has a lot of control". Warlocks who deal with demons for magic are much more common now (see Rift).
The Redemption had consequences the Divine Authority prefers to explain otherwise. "The planet has warmed substantially since the Redemption, changing the climate rapidly over the past 200 years." Monsters and aberrations "seem to simply spawn around Rift anomalies"; dissected, they prove to contain Mithis, because "the Rift leaks Corrupted Mithis in small bursts which is attracted to weakened souls due to demonic influences". Commoners "are encouraged by the Divine Authority to blame Warlocks/Witches, Infidels and their own unworthiness (roughly in that order)".
Nature and aspects¶
"The Divine's motivation is control and power." The Divine "wants to fully reassemble the City of the Gods at any cost", and is "fanatically Orthodox -- all other Gods are forsworn enemies and their followers are heretics and infidels. Significant effort is made to stamp out any reminder of old gods (temples razed, artifacts seized and destroyed, etc)." The Divine "must be pleased constantly with offerings and sacrifices. If he is displeased his protection will be withheld." Infidels, heretics and criminals are the preferred sacrifice; when none is to hand "a random (usually an infidel slave) is chosen", and "Kings and Nobles have been sacrificed when they have been convicted of Heresy".
The Divine is worshipped in three aspects:
| Aspect | Depiction | Prayer |
|---|---|---|
| The Lifewarder | a woman holding a shield | Shield us from corruption! |
| The Redeemer | a robed, bearded man with outstretched arms | Guard us from sin! |
| The Earthgiver | an old man with a farmer's hat and hoe | Grant us sustenance! |
The Divine has "Ascendants … yes, several … and they live among the mortals. Each is a dragon of various colors." Her Incarnates, "similar to ascendants", are the first of her sources of magic, above her priests, paladins and clergy (see Ascendants). The Divine is the foremost source of magic in the Fifth Age, with the Awakened Elder God Seth'Arax and the Primal Red Dragon Glaurmelnis, whose Red Priests of Glaur "have an unsteady truce with the Divine", behind her. Rune magic "is forbidden by the Divine", its casters "relics of old forgotten (and powerless) gods".
A secret known to few: "Everyone thinks Pravustiratel was betrayed and killed by the Dark Gods … when in fact he made a secret pact with Sharuvas and is now the Chosen of the Divine."
Worship¶
The Divine's clergy, the Divine Authority, and its hold over the Divine Nations of humans, wood elves, hill dwarves, halflings and Oesterkull are described under Divine Authority. "Even kings (in the core realms) bow before the clergy", and the priests "abuse this to take the best for themselves and kidnap and enslave whomever they want".
In the north the Divine is served by the kingdoms of the Divine Alliance, "a group of nations devoted to the worship of the Divine and the eradication of evil in all its forms (most notably the Riven and Sancturi Gods, Magic-Users, Dragons, Demons, Fae and Rift-folk)". Their coins carry "the symbol of the Divine" on one face: silver temples, gold wings with an angel. In Lorsythe, "Kalari and Spellcasters were declared pagans and Uk'Zerai as heretics", blasphemy "is a cardinal sin punishable by death", and the exiles fled to Proturas, where the Divine Alliance was later admitted to the council over the furious objection of the Kalari Children of the Light, who "despise one another". The Alliance's founders fled the fall of Sanctorum carrying the Sancturi holy text; their Principate "revealed that the Divine had left the earth and that the Empress would only return after the races were worthy of her again and the earth had been purified of abominations", and they have been ruled since by a Prophet or Prophetess "who communicates the will of the Divine". Their zeal is said in Proturas to owe "much of it ... to Fel-touched influence".
The Ascendant Inwe, in her last years, held a temple at Mt Talangar that was "under siege by forces allied to Sharuvas".
Earlier accounts¶
The 2016 account of the Uk'Zarai homeworld names it Sukmaran and its goddess Sukmaril, the raised-up wife and murderer of the world's creator Mafaesial, "a harsh goddess" who "requires the perfection of all of her subjects" and whose people whisper "that the Goddess is insane". The 2022 and 2023 documents name the world Sharuvas after its god. Whether Sukmaril and Sharuvas are one being is not stated; Sukmaril and Mafaesial are treated under Demigods.
Gap
No source describes the Divine's own form, her shard or domain, how she crossed the Void, or what she did between her arrival and the Ascendance of 906 SM. Her dragon Ascendants are not named. The Divine Alliance's three kingdoms are named only as Lorsythe and two blanks.