эти Цюрехские Гномы - кто они такие, кстати
In the days of myth and legend, the gods were all-powerful,
and then Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to
mortals. The first mortals touched by the fire of the gods became
mystics and wizards, shamans and priests, channeling the
source of creation toward their own selfish ends. Eventually the
stolen fire ebbed to mere cinders, and the greedy fire-touched
mortals sought to ascend to the heavens to supplant the gods
and warm themselves by the divine fire for all eternity.
As in most stories of unbridled hubris, this story ended
badly. The God-Machine destroyed their civilization, and over
time the remaining fire-touched retreated to the corners of the
world, bickering with each other and licking their wounds.
The survivors began to plot anew, scheming to discover a new
means of achieving power. They denied the God-Machine and
struck all memory of it from the minds of men, shrouding
it in sorcery. It was their foolish belief that a thing forgotten
would lose all power. In time, they even began to believe the
lie themselves and banished the God-Machine from their
thoughts. They created new myths to explain the fall of the
ziggurat, passing down the story to their apprentices.
With no hope of reaching the divine fire, the fire-touched
settled on amassing earthly power and dominion over mankind.
They formed cabals and alliances, and battled each
other in the hidden recesses of the world. At some point one
of their number, a man named Zür, recognized the growing
influence commerce held over mortals. He realized power
over his rivals could be had for as little as a handful of gold.
Amassing wealth was a simple task for one that had challenged
gods and, within a century, Zür controlled an empire
from his home under the mountains.
Zür gathered apprentices to him, to act as proxies in his
battles with the other fire-touched, forming a large cabal to
serve his needs. Legions of mortals flocked to Zür’s banner,
some knowingly, most with no idea who their true master was.
Others of the fire-touched, those who had survived his attacks
and potential rivals, learned from his example and began to
build their own financial empires to oppose him. Now wars
were fought as often on paper as on the battlefield, with
casualties including the economic welfare of entire nations.
The battles continue to this day. People fight petty wars,
rig elections, and assassinate influential pawns, all of it fueled
by increasingly-large amounts of capital. The closest mortals
have come to seeing the truth was when a British politician
made a joke about Swiss bankers, calling them the “Gnomes
of Zürich.” The only things that have kept Zür from owning
the world are his ongoing rivalries with the remaining
fire-touched.
Автор
Тема: Волчатник Алекса Мэрсера (Прочитано 46940 раз)