The Divine Aegis

As part of The Bargain With The Nine, the people of Whitelake asked for protection from "the fickle gods" - and The Nine complied, creating a great magical working known as the Divine Aegis.

While the specifics of the Aegis are not easily studiable, some facts about it are known. Other than the Nine, any being with a Mantle - the thing that makes one a God - cannot interact with any mortal under the Aegis's protection unbidden. Umberlee cannot sink a ship full of sailors who have never called her name, Talos cannot flatten a crop of a farmer who has not reached out to him, Auril cannot freeze the blood in the veins of unrelated travellers.

However, paramount in the design and creation of the Aegis was respect for mortal will and individuality; as such, if a mortal ever chooses to pray, scry, divine, or similarly reach out to a deity from inside the Aegis's protections, they are forsaking the divine shield towards that deity from then on.

While the Aegis was intended to only hamper the divine, as a result of its design, those who are Chosen by a divinity also find themselves impaired; it is unclear if this is a result that satisfies the Nine or not, but it is a topic of intense scholarly debate amongst the theologians of Whitelake.