Ascendants of the Spire sometimes argue that sacrifice isn't the price of magic, but its purpose.
When Earth entered its third millennium, the Spire appeared: shining silver, infinitely reaching, a pillar of paranatural light as if a star had streaked into the earth and its luminescent trail became frozen in time. Countless of its refractions can be found all over the planet, scattered in hundreds or perhaps thousands, copies of this foundational magical phenomenon.
Within each of those pillars is a single Gate; each Gate usually has its own request.
These requests are varied; deliver a fresh human heart, find and deliver the most beautiful flower to ever exist, bring a piece of the sun itself. A number of them are metaphorical, others are not. Certain Gates unbar to all souls without a single mutter of request, while others silently refuse to budge or share their wishes. Often, the requests are downright alien or inhuman, seeming to not fully understand the world's workings. Had history gone otherwise, perhaps there would've been a dedicated field of study meant to determine the most efficient way to address these demands.
Whoever completes a request, is thereafter allowed to use that Gate as they please. Within the Spire are more Spires, with even more Gates, and strange realms between them. There, one can find monsters and relics of bygone worlds; scraps of magic and spiritual Boons that no mortal man had ever wielded before the Spire's appearance. Those who seek to pierce further and higher, to climb upwards dimensionally through the Gates, whom the Spire itself has blessed with its shining light, we call Ascendants.
Like a lathe, the dowel of the soul is ever-refined by the Gates.
When Earth entered its third millennium, the Spire appeared: shining silver, infinitely reaching, a pillar of paranatural light as if a star had streaked into the earth and its luminescent trail became frozen in time. Countless of its refractions can be found all over the planet, scattered in hundreds or perhaps thousands, copies of this foundational magical phenomenon.
Within each of those pillars is a single Gate; each Gate usually has its own request.
These requests are varied; deliver a fresh human heart, find and deliver the most beautiful flower to ever exist, bring a piece of the sun itself. A number of them are metaphorical, others are not. Certain Gates unbar to all souls without a single mutter of request, while others silently refuse to budge or share their wishes. Often, the requests are downright alien or inhuman, seeming to not fully understand the world's workings. Had history gone otherwise, perhaps there would've been a dedicated field of study meant to determine the most efficient way to address these demands.
Whoever completes a request, is thereafter allowed to use that Gate as they please. Within the Spire are more Spires, with even more Gates, and strange realms between them. There, one can find monsters and relics of bygone worlds; scraps of magic and spiritual Boons that no mortal man had ever wielded before the Spire's appearance. Those who seek to pierce further and higher, to climb upwards dimensionally through the Gates, whom the Spire itself has blessed with its shining light, we call Ascendants.
Like a lathe, the dowel of the soul is ever-refined by the Gates.
