The dreamer shall wake, and the waking shall dream, and in the confusion between the two shall the ending begin, for the law which was set now is broken.
Paper 7 — The Apocalypse Papers of Arameas
Yu Dico, the Power of Zodo, is the raw force of change, manipulation and destruction: the very source of magic on Nor'Ova. Its name means "the Dominion" in xodian. The Awakened, who returned from the long sleep of the Dark Paralysis, knew him by another name: Taal Zodo. Of all Zodo's aspects, he is the only one known to be held captive by another god, and the only one whose release nearly every faith agrees would mean the end of the world as it is known.
Characteristics
Power is neither good nor evil in its essence. It is simply power: the capacity to change what is into something else. Yet power is almost always corrupted, whether by the desires of whoever bears it or by the Soul of Zodo itself, and Yu Dico has never been an exception. He is short-tempered, proud and impatient. Where the Will waits centuries for a single move to bear fruit, the Power demands immediate respect and servitude, and he has little tolerance for anything that stands in his way.
Those who have drawn deeply on his power describe it as intoxicating. It gives far more than it asks at first, and asks far more than it gave in the end.
Personification
Yu Dico has no form of his own. For long ages, Zodo's power was said to reside within the Orb of Power, through which Zodo communed with his followers and extended his influence across the world. According to one First Era account, the Orb cracked during the experiments of Emperor Killian Xerxes, and much of its power found its way into an unborn child who was left for dead. That child was Taal Mercleis.1
If the account is true, the Power of Zodo was never taken from Taal. It was born with him.
The Dream Prison
Finding himself surrounded in a battlefield with many dead and many more wounded, Taal fell to his knees and wept and as he wept the sky wept, "Why is it that I must suffer an eternity of pain, of watching brother against brother, of feeling death after death? Is not the eternities of suffering Dico within the Subconscious not enough?"
Declarations of Devotion
At the end of the Great Magic War, Taal did what no other being is known to have done: he imprisoned an aspect of Zodo within a dream. Most theologians believe the prisoner is Yu Dico, though some still debate which aspect Taal truly holds. Taal's own words suggest the prison is not a place at all, but his own subconscious, and that he suffers the Power within himself, endlessly.
Many scholars believe the prison did not close without cost. As Taal fell at the war's end, countless others fell with him into a deep and unbreakable slumber: the epidemic of Dark Paralysis that would last for centuries. The theory, put forward by Holy Pontiff Nikolai de'Carte and championed by the chronicler Nathaniel Gourimondi, holds that the sleepers were drawn into the forced sleep of a god. When many of them finally woke, they spoke of a world where Zodo was the only god, and where Taal and Zodo were not two beings, but one.
What the Awakened meant by "Taal Zodo" is fiercely debated. Zodoist scholars take it as proof that Taal was always Zodo's chosen vessel. Taalists insist it is only a confusion of the dreaming mind, which cannot tell the jailor from the jailed. A quieter few ask whether, after so long, there is still a difference.
Powers
The Power of Zodo is the power behind all magic. Every spell ever cast on Nor'Ova draws, knowingly or not, on what bled from Zodo into the world he helped forge. Yu Dico's own power is that of change, manipulation and destruction on a scale no mortal can grasp. Like Zodo himself, however, he lacks the power of true creation. He can transform, corrupt and unmake, but he cannot bring something into being from nothing.
It is said that whoever held the Power unbound would hold dominion over magic itself. That is why Taal's prison is watched so closely by those who fear it failing, and sought so eagerly by those who hope it will.
Followers
Few worship Yu Dico by name. Those who do tend to be mages and would-be conquerors who covet what he represents more than they revere him. Yet anyone who worships magic as a divine force may, in a sense, be worshiping the Power of Zodo without knowing it. Many who awaken from the Dark Paralysis go on worshiping Yu Dico by the name they know him as, Taal Zodo, at least for some time afterwards. It was the only god they ever knew.
Relics
Fragments of the Orb of Power
For long ages, the Orb of Power served as Zodo's vessel on Nor'Ova, the artifact through which he communed with his followers and extended his influence across the world. It was first cracked during the experiments of Emperor Killian Xerxes, and later broken entirely by Lector Clairstory in the First Era. What became of the pieces was never recorded.
It is widely believed, though never proven, that each fragment still carries some trace of the Power that once filled it. Those who claim to have handled one describe a warmth that should not be there, and a pull toward something they cannot name. Mages whisper that a true fragment can serve as a rune stone of terrible strength, drawing power from Zodo himself, or, some fear, from Xodod. What such power costs its user is less often discussed. Those who have tried it rarely speak of it, and those who knew them before say they were never quite the same afterward. Forgeries are common, and most "fragments" sold in back rooms are nothing more than colored glass. No one agrees how many true fragments exist, or where any of them lie today.
The Church of the Holy Body regards the fragments as among the holiest of relics, pieces of the vessel that held Zodo himself. Recovering them is said to be among the quiet duties of the Holy Ministry of Rube Knights. The Church of Sol Anon would see every fragment destroyed, if such a thing can be done at all.2
- 1. See Tale of Two Worlds. The account is unverified, its author unknown.
- 2. Whether the fragments are connected to the Eye of Zodo, known in older texts as the Pearl of Great Power, is occasionally debated. Most scholars dismiss the idea: the Eye appears in accounts far older than the Orb's breaking.
