'MYSTIC' Long ago, the Seven prime evils (Sheundan, Vlad, Xanthak, et al) were released upon Serin by the malevolent dark lord, a servant of the Emperor of the Material Abyss. The Immortals had no power in this adjacent realm, while killing them in Serin only led them to be respawn in the Abyss. So the god Denadlyr founded the mortal Mystics to banish them back into their originating plane. The interference of LEGION assured that the task would become too great a feat, and undeads and vampires eventually overwhelmed them. The Mystics retreated to their Ivory tower to make their final stand. The event known as "The Purge" then happened. With life hanging by a thread, the leader of KNIGHTS, Coven, won a decisive battle over the Legion. Meanwhile, Denadlyr managed to merge the Material Abyss into Serin, disguising the path with a giant everlasting winter storm. This made the demons capturable at last. In the wake of the greatest cataclysm Serin has ever known, the Mystics grew fearful of losing their knowledge (and their lives) from a repeat of such a disaster. Though most continued to hold true to Denadlyr's teachings, the mage Malenfaler taught that power was the key to ensuring the safety of the Mystics' accrued knowledge. To that end, he flung open the gates of the Tower to many guilds that were less dedicated to magic, such as paladins and bards. This diluted the Mystics' fraternity and purity of purpose, and also begun to fracture the Tower's very foundations. The chaos soon spilled outside the Tower's gates, and Malenfaler lead the Mystics outward instead of inward, aggressively attacking innocents and hoarding wealths of weapons and armors in their path toward contesting the Legion for dominance of Serin. Finally, Malenfaler made a pact with the mysterious lich Zaikkra for even greater power to assure the Mystics of victory. With the help of the Mystics, Zaikkra opened a direct portal to the Material Abyss, and thus was begun the war called 'THE INVASION'. In the end, Zaikkra betrayed the Mystics, shattering the Tower and stealing its sacred Globe. Malenfaler was slain and the Mystics were utterly destroyed. Their names were cursed in Serin for many generations. It was not until much later, after a determined group of mortals assembled all the scattered summoning stones to summon Zaikkra again and wrested the Globe out of the confines of Winter, that the Mystics came to be once again. Stung by history, the new Mystics pledged to preserve knowledge by dedicating themselves to passing it on to future generations, especially to the newest of Serin who would be most receptive to their teachings. In this way, they honor the original teachings of Denadlyr while striving to redeem themselves in Serin's eyes by serving those in greatest need of guidance and assistance. See also: CONSORTIUM, COTERIE
17.2. SUMMARY > COTERIE > MYSTIC