The Great Truth

The Celestial Partion, the day the gods left. It is known that this is the day the gods decided that humanity was no longer worth their time. The sealed themselves off from human-kind and took with them their magic. But this isn't exactly how it happened.
The Great Truth is the real story of what happened to the gods. At the point our story begins, there are only two people who know the truth, the wielder of the Waymaker, and the antagonist. (There are possibly others who have been told by Atlas when he is sent back in time) The antagonist likely found this out by studying ancient texts that had been long forgotten. He was not told by the wielder of the Waymaker, and the way he found out about this truth, is likely why he has the desire to bring the gods back. There are fringe theorists who have speculated that the gods did not leave of their own accord, but these people/groups have been cast out from society by "The Merchant Kingdom" as fools. As such, The Great Truth has never been revealed.
In actuality, the Zodiac decided 800 years ago that they needed to banish the gods. Now typically one would think this for evil or because the Zodiac had the desire to be gods themselves, but this couldn't be further from the truth. In actuality, the intensity of the Arcane Incursions that had been happening for the past 50-100 years was going to destroy the world eventually, unless the Zodiac acted. While there are some scholars in the remains of the Northern Kingdom that have indentified a link between these Arcane Incursion and the Celestial Partition, this is almost entirely a theory and even if it is accepted by some, it is not taken as a fact by most.
The Zodiac knew ahead of time that magic was going to fade from the world, as such, they thought ahead. They created the 12 major artifacts that the Zodiac in today's time still wield. While the process of creating artifacts wasn't new, it was often seen as a strange thing to do. Afterall, when you have the ability to call forth magic at any time, why would anyone waste their effort creating artifacts? Before the partition, artifacts were often used as ways to allow less experience sorcerers to weild magic beyond their own mastery. Sometimes they were used to teach trainees specific skills. Some of the more powerful ones would be used to practice arts not mastered by a wielder. For example, a powerful pyromancer might imbue an artifact with his fire magic in exchange for a water sorceress' power in the form of an artifact. Either way, the Zodiac created these in preparation.
When the Zodiac banished the gods, causing the Celestial Partition, they knew this information was too dangerous to be possessed by them. If it got out that they were responsible for this percieved great calamity, they would never know peace again in their lifetime. As such, the wielder of The Mindshaper used his artifact to wipe the minds of the Zodiac, causing them to forget that any of this happened. As he did this, the wielder of The Waymaker would warp each member back to their home, so that they wouldn't even remember being there at all. The last two remaining to have their minds errased were the wielder of the Waymaker and the Mindshaper. As these two were left, they discussed that there might someday be a need for this infomation to become known again. As such, they fashioned a modification to the Waymaker, and made it so anyone soulbound to it would kow the nature of The Great Truth. (For more details, see the article about the Waymaker)