It is said that ages are marked in the passing of great mortals, in the actions of the Gods, and in Cataclysm. The Seminal war certainly possessed all three in abundance, and so was deemed by common ascent (though without formal announcement) to mark the beginning of a new age. This is marked in how the current calendar is annotated: Post Seminal War. But, as one who has lived before, though, and after the Seminal War, I would add one more thing that list of Age-turning marks: Ideas.

Before the seminal war, the Gods were close to the mortal plane. Thus any town or city all but required a theocratic ruler if it was to grow in size and strength. As towns and cities united into nations and empires, they did so around racial lines and through worship of the same God. Humans, as always, were the grout betwixt the tiles: they could be found worshiping any god, and in every role in every realm. The commanding Idea of the day was that of the Divine Ruler: Clerics, Paladins, even Divine Warlocks. One could not rule without a Divine Mandate, and with the Gods so close to the Mortal Plane, that mandate was expressed in quite physical ways.

Just before the Seminal War, that began to be questioned in the quiet corners by the disgruntled. This was especially prevalent in the Silithid empire, and combined with the most insidious sort of corruption. At least one failed coup is known to have occurred, and several more assassinations of important figures are recorded. Much of the details of exactly what happened were either covered over by the 'victors' or burned along with Alexandria. It was clear to me, at least, that what was occurring was a quiet doctrinal struggle. The ruling Cult-Cabal that won out, The Branded, began to push their own aggressive militant policies. And the rest, as they say, is history.

By the end of the war, even before the Gods had taken their step back from the Mortal Plane, The Idea of the Divine Ruler was dead. In some places, the 'corpse' was still twitching perhaps, but it was not breathing anymore. Empires broke and nations splintered as revolts and revolutions ripped through depleted governments like a wildfire across dry grass. Some places shed the trappings of authoritarianism in order to keep divine power near the top but not in the ruling position, such as is seen with the orks and the Glaceirheart Republic. Other places dropped the 'divine' part of divine ruler and hewed to a monarchical structure with temples and gods firmly divorced from active governance. This 'secularization' was indeed universal: the mere concept of a divine mandate for a ruler is now bitter ashes in the mouths of all.

It should also be noted that a new age is coming to the fore, though it is a creeping on quietly: The Age of Steam. It comes marked not with War or in the footsteps of a God, but in the great steel hulls of ships trailing white banners of steam as they charge across the waves. With them comes economic revolution; the rules of commerce, production, and the generation of wealth changing on such a fundamental level that in the fullness of time, all will nod and mark the coming of the ninth century PSW as the date that the world was changed forever.

--Lady Ilelahne SiDioabolo, in an excerpt from her work Commentaries on the Mortal Planes