Ch 3: Kayne, the Reformation, and the Heinburn Legacy

A Miracle of Science

According to popular legend at the turn of the 8th Age, technology relied mainly on the more “mystical” properties of our world. Mages, wizards, and conjurers created ever-more ingenious applications of the magical energies they harnessed. However, for all its uses, magic followed the unwavering, if inconvenient, “Principal Law” – stating that only organic life could manipulate the omnipresent energies. Mechanists, those who created inorganic technology, were infinitely overshadowed by their magical brethren. With the introduction of the Erevno Field, a magical barrier that blocked all interaction with exo-spiritual realms, things quickly changed.

Probably the most important of the changes did not come from the Machinists, but from a mage named Phylin Kayne. As a professor at the Republic University, he dedicated his life to study of magical fields. In his 31A8 masterpiece Treatise on the Persistence of Magical Energies in the New Epoch, Kayne laid out his Universal Element Theory. It stated that elemental, alchemical, and many other forms of magic were all expressions of a single unified energy source. Denounced as a heretic under the Spiritual Inquisition, he went into exile along with his supporters to the then independent Kingdom of Filos. With the official protection of the Filonian king, he started what would soon be called the Kayne Reformation. In response, Agathos invaded Filos and ended the Filonian royal line. Kayne repatriated to his homeland and led a popular uprising against the Senate. After nearly a decade of unrest, revolutionary forces captured Agalos and the Senate surrendered. In 40A8 the Reformed Constitution was enacted, creating the office of the Presidency and making many other changes that are still used in today’s modern government.

Kayne is known for many other magical discoveries, and was one of the first to theorize the ability to break the Principal Law. He would never see this happen, as the first confirmed “Kayne” machine was created in 57A8, 11 years after his death. It did nothing more than glow in response to magical energy, but eventually it would begin a new age in technology, one dominated by metal and fire. Most of these machines would not rely on the seemingly unreliably shifting magic energies – choosing instead to work with more constant physical forces such as pressure or combustion. Many machinists felt that although the Principal Law had been “broken,” making machines capable of using magic as adeptly as humans was impossible. The primary reason that became apparent was that humans were able to draw magical energies from the surrounding (and even remote) locations; machines were as yet incapable of using magical energy beyond the confines of the physical shell.

Over time, machinists slowly came to the realization that competing with intelligent manipulation of magical energies was not necessary to properly create useful

Answer the following review questions:

1. Who Discovered the Universal Element? What significance did this have at the time?
2. How was the office of the Presidency formed? Why did the revolution include it? (Hint: Kayne was still head scientist in the revolutionary government)
3. What was the primary technology at the end of the 7th Age?
4. In what year did Kayne die?