April Content Update: Creeds and Cults Pt 1

One does not go a day without feeling the influence of the Divine Court in our lives. True, it is the Watchers and Judges who act and observe and record and render judgements in its name, but their influence goes far beyond that. Peasants, knights, and nobles alike swear their oaths by them to seal their agreements. Crafters invoke them to guide their hands, and when things go very poorly or very well, it is the Divine Court which receives thanks, or condemnation.

Yet what are the Divine Court, exactly?

Ask some, and they will tell you that the Divine Court is a panel of magistrates,sitting up above as our own rulers do below. They see them as richly appointed patricians, old bearded wise men, majestic women, sitting before a bench with badges of office. That is how they recreate them, in carvings, in paintings, in icons of stone and wood and canvas, in an attempt to ape the divine with the implements of the mundane. To such people, the Divine Court are themselves little more than human - larger than life, perhaps, but still very much within the reference of human understanding, of human comprehension, of human scale.

But that is the simpleton's answer.

Ask others, and they will say that the Divine Court is a fiction, intended by those with power to keep those without content in the way they live. They argue that as a result of the Divine Court's presence in the lives and thoughts of the peasant and the labourer, the noble and the knight are safe in their positions. That if the high born are asked by the low why some must sleep on straw and others on feathers, they may simply declare that the Divine Court willed it, and thus it must be so. For those who think only in the laws of mortals, and have no wonder or curiosity in their hearts, such an explanation must seem convenient, sound, perhaps even unassailable.

Yet that is the cynic's answer.

As for the true answer, that is both something simple to explain, yet difficult to grasp.

Take a piece of wood, and put it in a barrel full of water. Then, take a piece of coal and do the same. The wood floats, and the coal sinks. Why? They are both hard materials which are capable of being split by iron, they both grow from the ground, they both catch fire when lit. Yet despite all these similarities, when they are placed in a body of water, they behave entirely differently. When confronted with such an observation, the curious cannot help but wonder. Why? Why does coal sink and wood float? Why does iron bend and glass shatter? Why does grass grow only in sun? Why does the sound of thunder come a moment after the flash of lightning? And who decides such things? There, you will find the influence of the Divine Court - for the laws they determine are not of kingdoms and duchies, but those of the very universe itself.

And make no mistake, these laws are tested, these judgements are deliberated upon and ruled through. Every time a crafter hammers an iron nail into a wooden beam, he relies upon the Divine Court's ruling that iron is harder than wood. Every time a hunter drives an arrow into the neck of a deer, she relies on the Divine Court's ruling that a creature cannot breathe without a throat. Every time a child is born with the same hair colour as their parents, it is because of the Divine Court's ruling that such must be so. All things in our world are determined by such rulings, and our own understanding of his world, of the rocks and trees, of the rivers and deserts, are merely the imperfect observations we have made on the rulings which the Court has passed down. All our knowledge is merely the shadow of that which the Divine Court passes down.

Yet that does not mean that the Court's rulings are pitiless, or even final. The Divine Court is not just the power of nature, but that of will and thought. It is ultimately a thing of reason, as our mortal world is ultimately a thing of reason. Although our understanding of its rulings are imperfect, we still retain the right to examine, question, even argue against the laws with the Divine Court has passed down. Such is the true nature of the arts of magic, for those who work the magical disciplines are ultimately more lawyer than crafter. Through years of study, they seek to understand the laws and rulings of the Divine Court, and through these understandings, deliver their arguments before the most powerful and august of judges. That the Court deigns to listen is perhaps a sign of their patience and benevolence, that the Court often accepts the arguments delivered and makes exceptions in the laws which they decree can only prove that they are no mere figments of metaphor or abstract principle, but very real in their power, their intelligence, and their infinite capacity for reason.

Of course, this does not mean that they are our servants, any more than we are theirs. It may be possible to argue a case before the Divine Court, but that does not mean it is easy to convince them. Through the centuries, every mage has found that it is a simple thing to ask for a trivially favourable interpretation of the the Divine Court's laws, but another thing entirely to request a more substantial change. To argue such a case successfully might take the whole of even an experienced mage's power, and even then there is no guarantee that the ruling passed down will be wholly to their satisfaction. Here again is proof of that the laws of the universe bear the imprint of the Divine Court's seal - for if such laws were not theirs, why would they scrutinise and resist those attempts to alter them so readily and sternly?

Yet let it not be forgotten that such alterations are always exceptions, never the rule. A law of existence may be defied, even changed for a time, but never on a universal scale, and never permanently. Were the foundations of existence otherwise, then the acts of mages would have long since undone the strings which hold existence together. No, the will of a mage may change the single case of a law of the Divine Court for a moment, or an hour, or perhaps even for centuries, but the change of such a case does not serve as precedent for others, and although the patience and strength of a powerful mage may last long, the universe itself will surely outlast it. We need only look towards the ruins of the Iron Marches to see that even the most powerful magic eventually fades and collapses. It may take days, months, or even ages, but the laws of the Divine Court always reassert themselves, and enjoin us to live by its precepts.

And now at last we come to our own role, that of those who watch the world around us, seeking insights into the rulings of the Divine Court, and those who do all we may to ensure that such laws are followed not only amongst the forces of nature, but of those of people as well. 

This, ultimately, is our charge and our mandate: to examine the interplay of the natural world to better intuit the details of the Divine Court's rulings, and then to use that knowledge to apply such laws as best we can to the communities which we observe, supervise, and serve. When we observe the natural world and see that creatures of the forest live longer and more happily when they are uninjured, we apply the same ruling to those around us. It is for that reason that we heal ailments and injuries within our Sanctuaries. Likewise, we see that those beasts who move and live in groups will assist each other. When one lacks food, the others will feed it. When one lacks shelter, others will make room for it. Thus we attempt to follow such rulings for our own groups, providing charity when it keeps the poor from starvation, and labour to raise roofs over those who have none. 

Thus it could be said that we are instruments of the Divine Court, enforcing their rulings in the world of mortals as they do in the world of nature. Yet it ought to be remembered that we are imperfect instruments at best - and that although we may benefit from generations of accumulated knowledge based on our observations of the Divine Court's rulings, such knowledge remains the work of imperfect human eyes, recorded by imperfect human hands, and recalled by imperfect human lips.

But this too, is our charge and our mandate. To keep our eyes open, to continue observing the rulings of the Divine Court, and to correct ourselves should we find their laws more complex and more nuanced than we have once assumed.