Editing Magipunk:Setting (section)

=== Religion for Sale ===

What changed the world was an Elvish drug called <i>Ellekintlin</i>, or, roughly translated, "The Passion of the Saints." In Elves, the drug induces mild euphoria, and facilitates a trance-state that religious types believed brought them closer to their gods. It was in infrequent but broad use among Elves for hundreds of years before a human tried it. 

Most Elvish drugs do little or nothing when ingested by a human, but <i>Ellekintlin</i> is an exception. Its effects are greatly intensified when a human takes it, leading not to mild facilitation of the religious experience, but instant and total religious fervor, a state of mind in which the user immediately accepts totally the divine experience, and helplessly worships. Though this state of mind is chemically induced, it is absolutely real: Though the user might later recant his experience, at the time when he's under the effect of the drug, he devoutly and sincerely believes. 

And the Gods respond to that belief. Quickly, Passion (as it came to be called by most humans) came into broad use among the human clergy, who found that their doubts fell away when they used it, and that their Gods, in response, would grant them more mana, giving them more ability to spread their faith in the world. 

It didn't take long for Passion to go beyond the clergy. Its effects are strong enough that even peasants unfamiliar with the form or dogma of a religion can none-the-less be guided through the prayers which generate mana. Indeed, this was more efficient for the sorcerer-Priests, who could use laypeople to generate their mana, and then cast their spells clear-headed and immediately (use of Passion makes a human rather useless for anything besides worship). Magical power in quantities unheard of any time in the history of the world were now commonplace, and the system which eventually became known as the Church-Mills was founded.