The Thaumaturgical Revolution was a series of changes that swept the continent of Derlavai in the centuries prior to the Six Years' War. The Revolution saw the discovery of ley lines and great advances in the realm of theoretical sorcery, with much of the sorcery used during the Derlavaian War developed during this time. Due to the Revolution, there was less of a need for mass industry. There were plants producing pottery, for example, in large amounts, but behemoths and dragons were bred on farms and clothing were made by tailors instead of in factories.
It meant that sorcerers and artisans could make products more easily in factories. Technology began to depend on magic. On the civilian scene, the effects were much less important, being limited to applications such as rest boxes, lighting and ley line ships, while in the military magic is involved in the production and use of almost all their weapons and supplies.
The Revolution also paved the way for a weapon that destroyed Gyorvar, the Gyongyosian capital, by the Kuusamans during theDerlavaian War. The Revolution enabled Kuusamans to rapidly build a new port in the newly-conquered island of Obuda by magic, which was evident from all buildings being the same (indicating that the spells made extensive use of the law of similarity). Only a country with many skilled mages could have spared the resources for such construction. Printing is usually done by mechanical means, but the Valmieran resistance movement utilized magic for reproducing a propaganda sheet in order to avoid detection by the occupying authorities. The result of this magical duplication was readable, but the ink smudged easily as it was produced without the aid of a power point or an experienced mage.
Literary Comment[]
The Thaumaturgical Revolution parallels aspects our world's Industrial Revolution in so far as magic made many evolutionary leaps in a brief period of time, much as science did in our world. Curiously, the social and political changes which accompanied the real-life Industrial Revolution do not seem to have occurred in the Darkness Series, as virtually all governments are some form of monarchy, with no mention of parliaments, even with limited power, or of constitutions, making the world of Derlavai noticeably autocratic.
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