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Varuna is the absolute supreme Templar deity of magic: a cosmic, birdlike entity said to drift through deep space, seeding worlds with a radiating energy that later expresses itself as Templar power and the broader phenomenon that other cultures simply call “magic.”
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In the Templar worldview, Varuna is not a metaphor for nature or a poetic name for a star - Varuna is treated as an active, living source. The legends describe an entity so vast that scale stops being intuitive: Varuna is said to be cosmic-sized, with wings that can wrap around suns, and a presence that leaves lasting consequences in the environments it passes.
Varuna’s significance is twofold. First, Varuna is the sacred center of the Templar religion: the thing worshipped. Second, Varuna is the implied mechanism behind every extraordinary Templar feat: the reservoir from which their abilities ultimately originate.
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The core myth claims that eons ago wherever Varuna traveled across the cosmos, the energy radiating from that passage sank into reality - into atmospheres, stone, living bodies, and the subtle structures that shape a world’s future. On some worlds this manifests as folklore, rare anomalies, or isolated miracle-cases. On others it becomes institutionalized: tribes and lineages learn to recognize the pattern, train it, and convert it into a coherent discipline of “cosmic energy”.
From this framing, “Templar magic” is not an invention and not a technology. It is an inherited relationship with an existing cosmic force.
The most important physical anchor of Varuna’s myth is the Red Sun - the star that Magnum orbits.
Legend holds that in a confrontation billions of years ago, Varuna was wounded. To recover, Varuna wrapped her wings around a star, transforming it into the Red Sun, and entered a prolonged healing state. The Red Sun becomes, in Templar language, not merely “near Varuna” but functionally Varuna made visible: a sacred object, a shrine in stellar form, and an engine of continuous power output.
Varuna’s myth—especially the Red Sun as “Varuna made visible”—echoes in later cultural symbols across multiple factions:
Nightfall Templar - Magnum with the Red Sun overhead.
Neverborn Templar - Varuna under a star.
Sun Jin Empire - emblem includes a black bird, the Red Sun behind it.
Templar tradition describes the Red Sun as continuously emitting excessive quantities of Templar energy, often spoken of like a magical radiation that saturates anything within its reach. This is used to explain several setting-level consequences:
Magnum, being the closest known world to the Red Sun, becomes an extreme environment for Templar practice. The few Templar who endure on Magnum are described as unusually strong, their abilities amplified by proximity and constant exposure. That same saturation is also said to shape the planet itself: altering terrain, ecology, and the “feel” of the world in ways outsiders interpret as hostile or cursed.
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A key downstream consequence of Red Sun saturation is material. The myth claims that the Red Sun’s radiation seeps into Magnum’s ore, enriching it over time. When refined and forged, that enriched ore becomes Varunium Steel: the luminous metal used for Templar blades and relic-grade weapons.
In text description, Varunium is often recognized by an internal glow, sometimes orange, sometimes the softer dark-purple “fuzzy” glow described in other drafts, suggesting that Varunium can carry different signatures while still belonging to the same sacred category.
Earlier drafts sometimes spell the material as “Varuniun Steel.” The standardized spelling as of rev3.1 is Varunium Steel.