Era IV – The Blackpowder Compromise

Year 981 – 1320 Gunpowder and Secular Power

Power moves to merchant republics (run by merchant lords and chartered guild-states). Technology revolutionized cannons and firearms, industrial milling, advanced shipbuilding, banking, and early factories, all of which helped drive the Industrial Revolution. Faith vs. administration debates are frequent. Key developments include the Treaty of Sanctums, in which temples agree to share control of magic pressure points and to forbid experimentation near them. The great banking houses become international; wars are funded, not just fought; healing becomes infrastructure; Seraphis’ orders professionalize medicine; hospitals become political assets.