Heaven

Heaven is a broken house. Much like the world, it was torn apart in the Shattering, either from the violence of the Made Gods and their struggles or the damage done to its celestial engines. Now fragments of it drift through Uncreated Night; a hall here, an avenue there, or a vast and shining parkland floating further still. These shards are often connected by hidden Night Roads, some concealed so well that only those with the most exacting secret knowledge could ever hope to find the entrance. Other shards float free, and only powerful theurgy from within a connected terrestrial realm can bring outsiders into it. The halls of Heaven come in many aspects, usually grand and dra- matic. Towering walls of cloud-pale stone, arches of burning glass, parks of perfect trees arranged in patterns of mystic significance that hum with music when the sweet wind rustles their leaves… all things of magnificence have a home in Heaven. Yet these wonders are usually cracked, stained, and despoiled with the violence that once raged through the halls. Many works of impossible beauty have been shat- tered by the fury of the Made Gods and the angels, and much of what remains has been lessened or perverted into something dangerous. Some shards maintain an ecosystem, usually through a magical source of food and water, or a celestial engine that sustains life with- in the zone. Some of these refuges still have inhabitants, whether maddened angels, trapped priests of a Made God who once dwelled here, or hapless theurgists and their retinues. A thousand years have passed in the realms since Heaven was broken, but when the engines of time are damaged too a strange agelessness can fall on a place. Other refugees are simply the heirs of the original intruders, gone strange with the passage of isolated centuries. Heaven also has its intrinsic dangers. Some shards are trapped, snares left by some Made God in a former age to kill intruders or protect something precious. Other “traps” are simply the unfortunate consequences of the shard’s own decay, with places becoming perilous and magic curdling into sour dangers. The celestial engines themselves are particularly dangerous, with their exotic appearance and strange powers luring the careless into sudden obliteration by forces beyond their comprehension. Every piece of Heaven was originally connected to part of a realm. This connection is spiritual and causal rather than a physical bridge, for it is the celestial engines of this shard that maintain the realm’s existence and the continuance of its natural laws. Were these engines to stop or be dismantled, the part of the realm it’s connected to would boil away into the Uncreated Night. Many shards of Heaven have already lost their associated realms to other catastrophes, and so make rich pickings for looters who prefer not to inflict cosmic catastrophes on some unsuspecting land. Of course, lacking a connected realm, these shards are also among the hardest to reach. Many powers have scavenged the engines of heaven since the world was created. Made Gods looted them to use their priceless compo- nents to enhance their own power. Theurges stole shards to imbue their magic with new force. Saboteurs broke them to inflict catastro- phes on the lands they were meant to regulate, and the angels them- selves have sought to smash them purely out of a desire to destroy a world that so bitterly betrayed them. Were it not for their tremendous durability, the engines would doubtless have all crumbled by now. Only the greatest heroes dare seek the fallen halls of Heaven. Find- ing a Night Road to a shard, clearing the path, and exploring the decaying halls of paradise is a feat reserved for the most awe-inspiring of mortal heroes… or for a determined young Godbound.

Type

Dimensional plane