Soul War

The "Soul War" is a term often used to describe the conflict between the gods of Dadauar and the onirarchs. The more control the onirarchs have over the hearts of their people, the better for them, so the leaders of most onirarchies have actively worked to induce the people of their nations to forget the gods, the better to focus on their works for the state. Within most onirarchies, the gods are forgotten--or substituted with imaginary gods given to the people to worship to pacify them, but incapable of actually responding to their requests.

It's difficult to say exactly when the Soul War began; the onirarchs have been strengthening their hold over their dominions since the founding of the first modern onirarchy. But if there were one day to be chosen in which the Soul War began in its present state, it might be 2200 years ago, when the god Urudai intervened and destroyed the president of Mamlaas. In retaliation, a number of other onirarchs combined forces to destroy Urudai. Until that point, mortals destroying a god was a matter practically unheard of, but apparently that interchange convinced both the gods and the onirarchs that the other side was powerful enough to make direct confrontations risky. The Soul War continued, but was mostly one of persuasion and influence. There were some more direct strikes—the capture of Maior, the Enslaved God, two thousand years ago, and the Blessings of Yelay—but for the most part, the war has been fought not with physical weapons, but with words and magic, not over land or money, but over the minds of the people.

The Soul War is so called after the idea that the gods and the onirarchs are, in a sense, battling over the souls of the citizens of the onirarchies. The gods want the peoples' worship, of course, whereas the onirarchs want them completely dedicated to the onirarchies. It should be mentioned, however, the the "Soul War" is not a term that will be known to the typical person of Dadauar. Certainly most citizens of the onirarchies aren't even aware the Soul War is going on; it would be counterproductive for the onirarchs to make it publicly known that they were trying to draw people away from the gods. The term was coined by rebels against the onirarchs, but was later adopted by the onirarchs themselves, and is even used by some scholars both within and outside the onirarchies.

There may be some reason to fear that while the Soul War is not currently a physical war, it may be in danger of becoming one. As it is, it seems that the influence of the gods in the onirarchies is ever decreasing—the onirarchs are winning. It may be a matter of time before the gods get desperate and revert to more direct tactics. If this does happen, it will mean a battle between two incredibly powerful forces—the gods, and the onirarchs who have proven themselves perhaps the gods' equals—and it's likely to result in devastation unparalleled in Dadauar since the Great Plague. Whether or not humanity can even survive such a conflict remains to be seen.

If a full-scale war does break out, though, the gods and the onirarchs may not be the only forces to reckon with. The Bathybius, too, is a being of immense power, and while it may not be the equal of the gods, it keeps its motives and abilities secret enough that it's impossible to judge. In a physical Soul War, the Bathybius could be a major wild card, and it's anybody's guess which side, if either, it would throw its own power behind.

Even if the Soul War does turn physical and humanity somehow survives, the world, if it remains livable, will be a vastly different place. Depending on which side won, either the onirarchs would rule the world unchallenged by the gods, and perhaps take the places of the gods themselves, or the onirarchies will be thrown down and the people either freed or brought under theocracies to replace them. Or, conceivably, the Bathybius, having bided its time during the conflict until both sides are weakened, will have rushed in to take control itself, and brought all of Dadauar under its own control.

Of course, at this point all this is completely hypothetical. It could be that this never happens—that the Soul War never becomes physical, but just continues indefinitely in its current state, or that one side will manage to defeat the other without resorting to anything so crass as a direct frontal attack. It could conceivably even be that the gods and the onirarchs will come to some sort of mutually agreeable compromise, though under the present circumstances this seems exceedingly unlikely. Still, even in its current state, the Soul War provides an important undercurrent that has a subtle but significant effect on the lives of all Dadauar's people... whether they realize it or not.