Sample Milieux

The Eldritch Flowering of Prydain

Period:

Fifth to Tenth Century

Locale:

Britain and surrounding lands

Points of Difference:

• King Arthur is real.
• His successor, Bedivere, establishes British hegemony in the Old North and what are now Mercia, Wales, Wessex, Cornwall, Devon, and Brittany.
• The West Germanic invaders (Angles, Saxons, etc.) remain limited to Bernicia, Deira, Essex, and Kent.
• The Goths successfully retain Rome, establishing an Arian Holy Roman Empire and disseminating knowledge of antimagic to its clergy.
• The Byzantines embrace the teachings of the Hypatian School, an hermetic order which, though it upholds Trinitarian Orthodoxy, does not oppose the use of ancient magical knowledge and practices.  A new kind of clergy emerges which practices Theurgy, or Divine Magic.
• Clovis establishes a new Trinitarian papacy in Trier, relocating Roman Trinitarians to his domain.
• The Saxons of Northumbria embrace the Roman Gothic Church, gaining knowledge of antimagic from its clergy.
• The Celtic Church, both Trinitarian and Hermetic, in close alliance with the Byzantine Church, establishes its own Patriarchy at Iona.  Its clergy combine Byzantine Theurgy with native Druidic magic to form a new kind of Theurgist called a Culdee.
• Kent, remaining Trinitarian in alliance with the Franks, gains knowledge of Gothic Antimagic and uses it to oppose the Culdees and push westwards into British territory.