“The Nine Pillars” Explained

Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Todd Newton in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts, Todd Newton

Today, I’d like to pull back the curtain for you on an important part of The Ninth Avatar’s world.

“Fantasy” as a genre grew out of traditions of mythology and, as such, each world comes with its own gods, goddesses, and cultural roles borne from those concepts. I agree with John Marco’s recent post that “a fantasy story needs to have some element of magic” and “the magical element (or elements) need to be organically threaded into the world.” In The Ninth Avatar, those elements stem from The Nine Pillars of Magic.

Rather than just a “magic system,” though, the Nine Pillars concept functions as more of a religion — just a very misunderstood one, particularly by those of the Mystian faith. While a Wizard’s invocations are offered to each of the Nine, they don’t “worship” or “pray to” each Pillar in the traditional sense. An offering of force (magical force or life force, whichever is available) is made, but it is much like “praying for rain” rather than “praying to the Rain God.”

To invoke some kind of alteration, a Wizard would appeal to Valesh, the Pillar of Change and Transformation. The party responsible for answering that call is not a “being” in the traditional sense, but an abstraction of a natural force. It is this distinction that separates the practices of Wizards from those who worship Myst or Serené.

Each of the Pillars (labeled loosely as Change, Speech, Life, Doom, Body, Fate, Justice, Secrets, and Darkness) represents an aspect of existence. Beings live and then die, all the while encased in bodies that grow or wear away based on their fortunes. They may choose to communicate openly or value their privacy, require restitution for what is taken from them, and wrestle with the unknown.

With human intervention, however, comes the inevitable issue of balance. Some will always have more while others have less, but on a global scale this can produce disastrous effects. What if all living things died at once, or never died? What if no beings could communicate with each other? What if no beings could see well enough to hunt for food?

This is why the Avatars are necessary. As an immortal embodiment of magic, an Avatar speaks for the power it represents. Rather than some sort of Godhead for each Pillar, though, the Avatars merely influence global circumstance to secure a balance of power. They rarely take direct action in human affairs, and even more seldom interact directly with humans, but it is only the Avatars who can bend the rules of the natural order. Each Avatar must remain impartial, for if one were to achieve dominance it would disrupt the very source of their power and endanger all of existence.

During the course of human history, only eight Avatars have ascended to their place of power. How and when the Ninth Avatar will join them, and who it might be, is the mystery of the modern age.