Saint Eloi's Account on Magic

'''THE HOLY GOSPEL OF THE LORD, TRANSCRIBED IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS WILL BY THE HOLY AND VENERATED SAINT ELOI. TRANSLATED INTO COMMON PARLANCE BY THE CLERGY OF SOLANTIS.'''

Magic is the purest essence of truly malevolent evil. More evil than elves, than werewolves, than all those things that lurk in the night and snatch babes from mother’s arms, for it is a deeper and a more insidious thing entirely. Think what happens when an Elf is disposed of in the traditional way: lashed to a stout piece of wood and burned until their wickedness is screamed to the heavens. Werewolves, heretics, blood-suckers. When they die, their ideas die with them. When they rot in the ground, their ideas, their thoughts, their misgivings, It all dies with them. When you deliver unto them what the LORD demands, what their insidious black arts have delivered unto innocents, their magic does not perish with them, screaming as it is dragged into the bleakest recesses of the hells, rightfully reserved for those who would willingly convene with the dark arts; their beloved magic travels not with them. When the red lifeblood of a mage’s body is sundered, the essence is not lost to the LORD’s kingdom. Sometimes, the essence is fractured and escapes into the world like a flock of plague-laden ravens bursting forth from the lifeless mage, though this so rarely is the reality, and in many ways is an ideal outcome. Far more often, the mage’s unholy energies rush in and sully the souls of those around at its time of death. The LORD’s chosen are no exception to this most accursed of fates, and many of them bear the weight of dozens of magi worth of magical taint. These martyred few, when their mortal pilgrimage is won, and their debt to the LORD’s world paid in full, will often find themselves interred to the most high and honorable resting grounds: the sacred catacombs beneath the Chapel of the Venerated, where their bodies may release all of the vile essence of sorcery that had plagued their soul for eternity and they may be liberated to join the LORD in paradise for their carrying of the burdens of mankind’s greatest folly.

Interestingly, the curse of the magic is, largely, determined at birth. Many justices of the LORD’s providences, cities, and towns have executed dozens, if not hundreds of magi over their long and glorious careers as HIS solemn enforcer, and countless inquisitors and crusaders have sundered cabals to never once express the aptitude for any of their sorrowfully acquired magical essence. Church scholars have referenced this as “The IGNICULUS”, one of the most sorrowful and difficult to weather of the LORD’s trials by almost any objective metric. The only way that has been found to test for the IGNICULUS is an exposure to the putrid essence of magic in and of itself, and the reaction is often a violent one.