What's it about?

Imagine a world where psychic powers are as common as artistic talent or a knack for learning languages. Minds can share information and knowledge, including memories of video-recorder accuracy, without recourse to oral or written communication; telepathy can be used to converse across any distance; infants use telekinesis before they learn to crawl or walk; some traditions embrace prophetic dreaming and communication with the spirits of plants and animals.

The four nations of the Alliance (the Kingdom of Vaaseli, the Xanthian Empire, the Ravellan League, and the nation of Albrahar) make use of telepaths in civil government and commerce, but the most important function of telepathy is its role in diplomacy, keeping the Peace of Alidor that makes the Alliance possible.

Four centuries before the first story in the Alliance Chronicles, Of Two Minds, the prophet Alidor of Albrahar received visions and locutions from the Creator, and spent his life spreading the knowledge gleaned from these revelations as far as he could, first in Albrahar, and then in Ravella, where they were readily embraced as a foundation for personal and public morality. His Ravellan followers collected his teachings in the Wisdom of Alidor, and the spread of Alidorism began, to Vaaseli and Xanthia.

Advocating the use of mind-powers to increase tolerance and understanding, gathering all ethical and spiritual teachings held in common by the world's various cultures into one moral code, Alidorism soon became a world religion, supplanting local animist beliefs and absorbing principles of atheistic philosophy.

Alidorans gradually rose to positions of civic power in all four nations, with the earliest and strongest center of Alidoran influence in the Ravellan League. In Ravella formal principles of mind-work were developed by powerful telepaths known as mages (neuter plural – magus, masc. sing., maga, fem. sing.) who established the first service school for diplomats, and laid the groundwork for the structure of the Alliance. Meanwhile Albraharan mages devoted themselves to the spiritual and philosophical aspects of Alidor's teaching, though they were quick to adopt the Ravellan model of diplomatic service and shared an interest in political cooperation between nations. In Xanthia high officials in the empire's bureaucracy saw advantage for domestic politics in the teachings of Alidor, and pragmatically embraced Alidorism, while making little attempt to impose Alidoran beliefs as a religion on their highly diverse population. Segments of Xanthian bureaucracy developed into a diplomatic service that often recruited members from the more formally organized of the empire's numerous religious sects.

The feudal society of Vaaseli was slower to embrace Alidorism. Its powerful barons saw no advantage to themselves in the principles of cooperation and tolerance advocated by Alidor. But the new religious and political philosophy gradually gained favor with the more numerous lesser noble houses, and at last the Kingdom of Vaaseli entered the Alliance, ratified the Peace of Alidor, established a diplomatic service, and began to reform itself along Alidoran principles.

For two hundred years the Peace of Alidor remained unbroken, with Councils meeting periodically to establish Alliance policy, and diplomatic missions forging agreements and treaties as necessary. In this time of peace international trade flourished, with the Ravellan League in the fore, expanding beyond regular trade with Albrahar, its neighbor across the Central Sea, to new ventures in the Xanthian Empire, across the Great Sea. Vaaseli remained somewhat isolated, separated from Ravella by a huge mountain range (the Mynath) and from Xanthia by the frigid and often turbulent Northern Sea. Vaaselians excelled in mining and mechanical invention, however, and gradually adapted southern shipbuilding and navigation principles to open trade with Xanthia for the empire's luxury goods. The only organized bloodshed to occur in this period was the occasional predations of pirates along the international trade routes, and of bandits on the caravan routes in Albrahar.

At the opening of Of Two Minds Vaaselian reform has been speedily advancing – but the wealthiest noble houses still hope to halt its progress and reestablish older traditions. As they see their hopes to this end evaporating, they begin to consider regaining their power by any means necessary.