The Foundations of Reality
A Treatise by the Arcane Citadel
Foreword: A Statement from the Arcane Citadel
The Weave was once the perfect order of existence, shaping magic, fate, and reality itself, while the Leylines sustained the natural flow of creation. Together, they ensured balance, preventing unchecked power and preserving the multiverse’s delicate structure. But the Forsakening shattered this harmony, unraveling the Weave and leaving the Leylines wild and untamed. Magic became unstable, fate uncertain, and beings once bound by cosmic law roamed unchecked.
This treatise chronicles the foundations of reality—what was lost, what remains, and what may yet be. It explores the Weave’s origins, the war that followed its fall, and the Netherese attempt to create the Spiral, a new and limitless order. Now, as reality stands on the precipice of change, the question remains: will the Weave be restored, the Spiral completed, or will the multiverse descend into chaos? The answer belongs to those who remain.
Final Reflection: The Last Threads of Fate
The Weave is shattered—its once-unifying threads now splintered and torn, leaving the very fabric of existence in a state of fragile disarray. The Leylines, though still coursing through the world, pulse with a chaotic rhythm, untethered and uncontained. The past is a tapestry of scars, a long history of battles fought, kingdoms lost, and promises broken. The remnants of the Spiral and the Netherese legacy lie buried beneath the ruins of their cities, their ambitions unfinished, their truths lost in time.
Yet despite all that has been broken, the future remains unwritten. The decision of what comes next hangs in the air like the faintest whisper of possibility, waiting to be seized. The world is not bound to the past, nor is it tied to the failures that have come before. What happens next, what reality becomes, is in the hands of those who remain—those who still dare to shape the future.
The gods, those once-reigning entities of power, are not the ones to decide this fate. They have their own vested interests, their own plans, their own fears. They fear the Spiral and the Leylines because these forces might render them obsolete. They fear the end of their dominion, the loss of control over mortal and divine alike. But they are not the final arbiters of what will come to pass.
The ancients—the Netherese, the dragons, the phoenixes—have long passed into the annals of history. Their ambitions, their legacies, and their mistakes have left an indelible mark upon the world, but they, too, have faded from the realm of active influence. Their vision for a new reality is but a ghost, a warning, a memory of a path never fully taken. The remnants of their magic, the Spiral, still echo in the heart of the world, waiting for a new purpose, waiting for a new hand to guide it.
No, the choice does not belong to the gods or the ancients. It belongs to those who remain—to the mortals, the creatures, the beings who still walk the world, whose hearts beat with the pulse of the Leylines, whose choices will ripple through the cosmos. It is their will, their actions, their decisions that will write the next chapter of existence.
Will they restore the Weave, piecing together the broken threads of the past to return to a time of order and structure? Will they reinvent reality itself, creating something new, something more powerful, something without limits, drawing from the untamed Leylines? Or will they abandon the old systems entirely, accepting the unraveling, and allowing the chaotic flow of the Leylines to dictate the fate of reality?
Perhaps the world will simply continue to deteriorate, falling into a spiral of entropy and decay, while the Unbound grow ever closer to freedom, waiting for the seals to break, for the ancient horrors to return.
The weight of destiny presses upon those who remain. They are the ones who will determine if the past is a lesson learned, a mistake to be avoided, or a cycle to be repeated. The final threads of fate hang in the balance, and only those who dare to act can tip the scale.
For in the end, reality is not a thing to be inherited—it is a thing to be made.
