Dageians arrived on the continent several centuries ago and rapidly colonized the lands above the central mountain ranges. Now, the Empire of Dageis spans over the upper half of the continent (which, along with the Kag, Gaspar, and Jin-Sayeng, is collectively called Vir).
Their speed and viciousness of their invasion can only be attested to one thing: mastery of the agan, the life-force of every living thing. While other countries’ studies on the agan remained rudimentary, at best (or in the case of Jin-Sayeng, outlawed completely), Dageis was able to utilize the agan in order to advance technologically. Every aspect of their lives is entrenched in the agan: from the healing arts to transportation. Even heating, cooking, and sanitation utilizes the agan in some way. Life in Dageis is comfortable, clean, organized, and prosperous.
The result of all of this is a society where mages are highly-prized and elevated among everyone else in society. Mages require intensive training, with the best ones being sent to Eheldeth, a school on the Dageian Plateau just north of the Dageian-Gasparian border. Someone born with a link to the agan and trained as a mage can enjoy all the privileges of Dageian society. For those with the misfortune to be born without the agan, well, strong family ties could still net you a respectable position in the government, in trade, or even the military.
In Dageis, so they say, the world is your oyster…as long as you’re not born a foreigner, a slave, or have no family connections whatsoever.
The easiest way to tap into the agan is to use another living being. Mages can access it themselves, but to use it for the purposes of something like, say, speeding up a ship, would exhaust a mage pretty fast. Because of this, slaves and mage-thralls are often used as resources. Slaves would get tattoos that enhances a mage’s ability to tap into their life stream.
Mage-thralls can offer this assistance themselves. Thralls are lower-class citizens with a connection to the agan–children of slaves or slaves themselves, or people whose families have been dispossessed by law.
Because living resources are depleted pretty fast–requiring months, even years of recovery if the mage isn’t smart–Dageis is constantly seeking natural, environmental connections to the agan, such as agan wells, which they drain, like water. These are imbued into specially-prepared stone devices, which can later be tapped by a well-trained mage. Dageis’ aggressive search for the agan has caused the destruction of many countries, including the lands of the Shi-uin and Gorenten.
Dageis is the primary “antagonist”–if a country could even be an antagonist–in The Agartes Epilogues. There is nothing evil about its intentions. From the point of view of a Dageian, the measures it has to take in order to preserve its every day life are necessary, if unfortunate. Yes, it would be nice to give the Gorenten their home back–the chunk of land in the Gorenten Peninsula, after all, is almost useless for farming or any other purpose but agan-harvesting–but if it means giving up hot water or the ability to chat with anyone across the continent…
“The power of Dageis lies with their mages,” Yn Garr had told him on that first day.
“Without them, it is an empty land of fools and monkeys. Ah, look at this.” He held out a leather-bound book and rubbed his hand over the charcoal etchings on the grain. “Your people did this by hand, with nothing better than a knife to make the markings with. In Dageis, they would have needed an apprentice mage at least, tapping into the agan like a child fascinated with a new toy.”
-Aina’s Breath
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See how many Dageian mages it takes to change a lightbulb in The Agartes Epilogues…
