Centralized authority is, for the most part, uncommon in the communities in Aifrah's Current Age. The Age of Cinders is still far too fresh—the many ruins of the kingdoms that preceded The First Deicide still loom far too tall—for anyone to forget how the monarchs and dictators of the era lent their power to the Blasphemer so that she might speak the perfect word. The avarice that drove them to covet the flame of godhood served as the kindling for the fires that burned the world. Many things were lost or forgotten in the long centuries of the Age of Cinders, but the truth of that betrayal burned so hot in the hearts of those that survived that it could not be erased or forgotten.
Early in Age of Cinders, the first of the Paragons set themselves in opposition to hierarchy, unseating petty despots and toppling would-be warlords by their own divine authority. For generations, the hypocrisy of the Paragons earned them broad hatred, particularly their egalitarian pretentions while simultaneously naming . Yet, again and again, a Paragons continued to arise, and, again and again, they spoke the words of the very gods that had abandoned the humanity at its most dire instant. The Paragons spoke, for those gods were terrified. Davatimata's death horrified those that had presumed themselves constant, beyond the reach of time and mortality, by forcing their own transience upon them. The divine very much feared the coalescing of power, for Davatimata had been a mighty god, now lays beneath the petrified gaze of their killer.
As the Paragon's tact grew less and less successful, the divine changed tact towards utopian ideals. The Saints were born into the world, the Paragons' zeal became principles, beliefs, and systems of thought in the hope that they could guide long arc of history away from forces of centralized power. They were, broadly speaking, successful in their time. Their Saints remained equal to and part of humanity, the gift of magic spread through the mundane world, and the majority of governing bodies developing at the time concerned themselves with communal aid, public works, and infrastructure. The Paragons' teachings describe punitive justice and armed conflict as crude and vengeful forms of resolution, encouraging an idealistically decentralized arrangement of communities around shared concerns, such as taking care of buildings, neighborhoods, and distributing goods throughout their communities.
While the Paragons remained as a divine hammer, the Saints served to disseminate the gifts of magic against the pressure of scarcity, and the divine forces at work began to dissolve the arms of their power within the world. Paragons became less and less frequent, and the Saints evangelistic mission began to wane. There were certainly governments left in the world that did not follow the designs of the gods, yet the pressure of the fellbeasts demanded that even the mightiest monarch cooperate with the divine conception of a cooperative utopia.
Nearly a century since the death of the final Paragon, Saints are simply ordinary people, and humanity now charts its own course into the future.