Editing Magipunk:Setting (section)

=== The Magical Revolution ===

Commonplace magic didn't stay within the churches for long. Many of the higher-ranking priests were Nobles who had perhaps not taken their vows to set aside the secular world as seriously as they might have. Others were scholars who had close relationships with secular sorcerers, both eager to improve their shared art. And everyone had dealings with the trade guilds who kept the infrastructure of the world going. 

The Churches were magic-rich but cash-poor. The process of selling mana came naturally to them, and as cheap, plentiful mana became available to all, the sorcerous arts proliferated. With ten, and then a hundred, times as many sorcerers as there had been, ancient and inefficient traditions of secrecy and ritual fell away, and the state of the art in magic advanced in leaps and bounds. 

Many of the new sorcerers were commoners and tradesmen, and magic was turned to producing first the luxury goods that nobles craved, and then the common goods that everyone needed. Assembly-lines of specially-trained sorcerers produced goods of incredible quality in a tenth the time and half the cost that old mechanical methods had, but put a huge drain on the available mana supply. In response, the Churches, getting more secular by the moment, drew on the peasant supply from the farmlands, drawing more and more youths into the Church-Mills, to produce more mana. Meanwhile, the Elves were being showered in money to keep producing more and more Passion to satisfy the ever-increasing demand from the Church-Mills. 

The guilds wanted political power, the Nobles wanted more goods faster, and slowly, the distinction between the two faded: Guilds and Nobles Houses were replaced by [[Magipunk:Alliances|Alliances]], gigantic organizations that have a stranglehold on the human trade and political power. The manpower needs of the Church-Mills and the [[Magipunk:Alliances|Alliances]] are enormous, and have fueled an incredible urbanization as they draw more and more peasants to the cities in order to work in terrible conditions to keep the machinery of modern-day life in motion.