According to popular legend, in his early 20s, the man known as Morlon of Toffia became divinely inspired by Aster and gained superhuman abilities, with which he was destined to guide mankind into a new age. While this is believed to be a myth, the physical and mental prowess of Morlon cannot be denied. It is known that he was a soldier-slave and had participated in military campaigns across the Great Dividing Range, its harsh climate and the battlefield perhaps transforming his psyche. His first public appearance was in the summer of 1521, when him and a band of his religious followers showed up to the City of Trinra (then a minor feudal city-state), challenging its lord to a duel for the sovereignty of this fairly insignificant realm. His request was denied, being met instead with 200 of the lord's personal guards. Though about a dozen, Morlon's men came out victorious and slaughtered the lord, installing their messiah as the ruler of this fiefdom.
From 1521 to 1552, the creed known as Morlonic Asterism spread throughout the Murray-Darling Basin like wildfire; sometimes by conversion, sometimes by conquest. 23 wars were waged by Morlon and his followers against the neighbouring kingdoms, republics and tribes, uniting eastern Oceanyka under his divine rule. Even the island of Tasmania was invaded and reclaimed for its holy status. There are many reasons for Morlon's success in these military conquests; he was an extremely talented strategist, surrounded by zealous and competent officers, led an army of fanatical soldiers, created an effective logistics system which gave him reliable supply routes, pursued constant training and perhaps most importantly, eagerly adopted new technologies. The most critical of these was inarguably gunpowder; Morlon's army at its highest point contained 12 bombards, 45 field cannons and 800 Portuguese-style arquebuses, the latter organised as the "Divine Thunder Regiment" (regularly under his direct command).
The greatest yet most puzzling of his military campaigns was unarguably the Bosphorus Crusade of 1550, when an army of 220,000 men was dispatched intent on crossing towards western Oceanyka. After successfully capturing the city of Bosphorus, something inexplicable happened; instead of invading the Aboriginal states to the west, him and about 20,000 of his more elite troops were ordered to turn north towards the Outback, then into the elusive Jupiter Forest. Historical accounts deviate sharply from this point forward. According to historians and anthropologists, a great battle took place here between his forces and those of the Aboriginal King Culhun, whose small yet influential realm covered this region. Though victorious, the Son of Aster was grievously wounded and called off the Crusade. Many eyewitnesses and religious leaders affirm that the Battle of Jupiter Forest was not a minor part of the Bosphorus Crusade, but rather the whole point of it; that it was an attempt by Morlon to slaughter Culhun, who had manifested itself in Earth as a cruel wizard-king. According to them, the Battle of Lake Jupiter was an attempt to stop King Culhun before a dark ritual was completed, its potential consequences to remain a mystery forevermore.
Returning home, the messianic figure (evidently in bad health) wrote down a large number of tomes and treatises in a short amount of time, sacrificing sleep and eating little. He was aided in this task by Oceanyka's greatest intellectuals and a small army of scribes. These were compiled into two works; the 232-page long "Holy Reflections", which is still considered Asterism's holy book to this date, and the 985-page long "Wordly Reflections". Most knowledge of the time was compiled into this latter magnum opus; medicine, architecture, engineering, botany, military science, metalworking, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, navigation, biology, etc. Multiple copies were produced manually in a new, standardised, written language named Riverine Ferozen, which would become the lingua franca of Ferozen society. These were distributed amongst Morlon of Toffia's realm, and though they do not delve deeply into religion, they were considered almost equally divine to "Holy Reflections" thanks to the impact they had on Ferozen civilisation, helping it progress leaps and bounds. Though military campaigns were waged in the name of Asterism, they were not led by Morlon himself, but rather by his trusted generals. In 1552 he died with no heir, fragmenting the realm into hundreds of petty kingdoms and even some republics. However, they now shared an unparalleled religious unity and held an enormous scientific inheritance.