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.”
Overview
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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Varuna’s “seeding” of worlds
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 Red Sun: Varuna’s wound and recovery
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.
Iconography and emblems (Red Sun motif)
Varuna’s myth—especially the Red Sun as “Varuna made visible”—echoes in later cultural symbols across multiple factions:
- Nightfall Templar: iconography commonly emphasizes the Red Sun itself (Varuna as she is now) looming over jagged rock / a brutal landscape.
- Neverborn Templar: iconography more often depicts Varuna as a bird poised above a normal sun or star (not the Red Sun), emphasizing her command of the cosmos rather than the Magnum-bound wound-recovery symbol.
- Sun Jin Empire: frequently uses the combined black bird + red sun visual motif, implying legitimacy, destiny, or alignment with Varuna’s power without being a Templar tribe itself.
Red Sun radiation and why Magnum matters
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:
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Varunium Steel: sacred energy made material
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.
Varunium weapons in the modern era
In the modern era, Varunium is most often encountered not as raw metal but as heirloom blades, weapons with reputations, lineages, and owners worth recording.
The most revered “set” is a paired configuration: one katana and one straight sword, a pairing associated with elite sword-dancing warriors and ritual status. Because Varunium swords have been recovered from fallen Nightfall Templar Knights, true pairs are rare; a small number have circulated beyond Magnum over the years (
Amos, a 
Neverborn Templar is known to possess a pair as well). The combat art style of this set is called Sōyō-Ryū.
Not all Varunium forms are delicate. Some Nightfall brutes are strong enough to swing oversized Varunium greatswords, but the paired blades remain the iconic prestige loadout.
Tanuki’s masterwork: Red Matter Varunium
In the deep-history framing, 
Tanuki, after being free of 
Jethro’s control, takes the richest Varunium-bearing ore (associated with the Red Sun’s influence) and combines it with fragments/essence of 
Red Matter to forge two myth-tier blades:
- Rainru
- Delrain
This positions the weapons not as ordinary “Templar steel,” but as deliberate artifacts built from a convergence of the setting’s highest-density materials: Varuna’s radiation made metal, elevated again by Red Matter infusion.
This page captures the mythic model (Varuna → Red Sun → radiation → Magnum ore → Varunium Steel → artifacts). As canon solidifies, it can be expanded with: what is literal vs metaphor, how different tribes interpret Varuna, and how Varuna’s energy interacts with Jethro and containment artifacts.
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