Solomon (WOD)

Solomon (also spelled Suleiman in Arabic) was a mage of tremendous power, who is well remembered for being king of Israel as well as a pioneer in the binding of spirits, djinn and similar otherworldly entities.

Overview

Mage: The Ascension

Solomon is held up as a progenitor of the teachings of the Order of Hermes, the Celestial Chorus and the Taftâni. Documents in the possession of the Order of Hermes imply that Solomon was initiated into the secrets of the Cupbearers of Aset and the Reed of Djehuty and achieved Archmastery. His surviving texts, the Greater and Lesser Key of Solomon, are still standard literature for students of the Order that want to summon spirits. The Chorus maintains that while Solomon, in their eyes a member of the Chosen of Abraham, a Jewish proto-Chorister sect within the Sacred Congregation, indeed sought power and used unorthodox methods, it was wisdom that guided him and reverence for the One that ultimately allowed him to gain Enlightenment. The Taftâni, while acknowledging that Solomon’s style of magic was more like that of a Hermetic or Chorister, have preserved large parts of the original Solomonic Code and use it for their dealing with djinn. Even infernalists and Nephandi look up to him: the Codex Licentia describes his journey, his trials, and his eventual ascent as a rival to God himself.

Apparently, Solomon fought during the 10,000 Djinni Plague (remembered as the War of Enslavement among the Djinn) that had been unleashed by a great evil (commonly believed to have been Shaitan, Baal or Set. Solomon founded the city of Palmyra as his base and bound several greater djinn, among them Al-Dimiryat, the Caliph of the City of Brass. He paid bounties for trapped spirits and djinn to traveling mages, who captured large numbers and trapped them in flasks, lamps, rings and similar objects. From the captured spirits, Solomon compiled the first great almanac of the nature of spirits, their place in creation, their laws and their strengths and weaknesses. Eventually, he freed al-Dimiryat and commanded him to serve as his lieutenant. While the great djinn at first was reluctant, he later came to admire Solomon’s wisdom and began to serve willingly.

Solomon’s main achievements are not only his numerous discoveries and feats of binding and summoning, but the very establishment of specific laws that last to this day. Called the Laws of Solomon, these force a djinn to conduct appropriately when they are in the physical world, with no possible exception. Rumors are that Solomon worked on similar laws for demons before his death. For this reason, Solomon is one of the most hated humans in the history of djinnkind.

Demon: The Fallen

Among demons, Solomon is known as a trickster and deceiver. When he was king of Israel, he tried to establish diplomatic ties to neighbouring nations to learn from them. The other kings rejected him, pointing to the multitude of gods they served and to the feeble and silent one the Hebrews paid reverence to. To gain their trust, Solomon accepted service to their gods. He established several pacts with various Earthbound that posed as divine beings to gain knowledge. Legend says that he sold his soul to 72 different demons and pitted them against each other. Then, when he felt that he had learned enough, he conducted a ritual that drew out his would-be masters from their reliquaries and imprisoned them in a miniature version of the Abyss, contained in a bronze urn. Solomon threw the urn into the Red Sea, where it still remains. Some believed that the source of the ritual had been Lucifer, and that he had written down his knowledge in a corpus known as the Heptameron. Solomon was eventually killed by Belial and much of his knowledge ended up in the hands of the Great Beast.