The Protean Array

The Protean Array was created by the Proteans after the events of the Protean Cradle. It was an array of energy that they created tying a network of planets together across the whole of The Divine Architecture linking them invisibly. This network worked as a massive web of conduits for a multitude of energies that all work in concert to perpetuate the events of the Protean Cradle.
Many of the secrets of the Array were slow coming over the course of the Highmortals experimentation. The Proteans did not leave much information on the Array with the Highmortals prior to the Protean Exile. Most of the information that we do have on the Array comes from two time periods, the time of the Proteans, and the Age of Progression period of the Drassnian Empire.

A Conduit of Souls

The understanding of one major aspect of the Array that came from the Proteans directly was that it was the container for all life on its journey from the vessel of one mortal to the next. While some aspects of that were explained further in that when a mortal life is ended, it is not so much that something is pulled out of the vessel, as if the vessel were some prison for the essence of life. Instead, the vessel has a connection to the array when alive, and when the connection is broken, the vessel is no longer alive. All of mortals are connected to the array when alive, but being severed from this connection can be a quick or slow process. Some things like certain diseases don't cut this connection, but instead strangle it. Others feed of it till there is none left for the host.
During the Age of Progression, this was further expanded upon. Mending this connection before it is severed, as well as reconnection of a strand soon after death was something that could be achieved from the original teachings of The Proteans when they passed on knowledge of the array. This passing of knowledge came to be known as the Protean Enlightenment. In this single event, they advanced the Highmortals hundreds of years.
By studying this alongside advances made in both magic and Simutry , the Age of Progression was able to push reconnection to reincarnation. Also, alongside alchemy, many great achievements were made in medicine. There were many great advances. The only major failure tied to this time was attempts to prolong the conduits life.
Many attempts at immortality resulted in death, or un-death, a malformed form of the connection to the array. While reincarnation allowed for you to theoretically live forever, it was chaotic and no one was able to gain enough control to reincarnate oneself into the same form.

The Order of Life and Death

The Protean Array was built as a beacon of life. From it the Proteans built the energy source for mortality, and it shown like a beacon through out The Divine Architecture and beyond into the other planes beyond the material. The array itself does in fact weave between a immense network of star and planets, of which have a hire chance for life to eventually begin in time in proximity to the array.
The array's main web contains many points that Drassnian scholars found to be theoretical hotspots of energy, points among the cosmos that amplified the force of the array around it and could be drawn upon. Then center piece for these points, and the most powerful is the stars at the center of The Rokanos System, though it is not know whether Kreigh was chosen as the site of the Protean Cradle due an unknown attribute of the stars we have yet to discover, or if it is merely the point that was in proximity to Kreigh.
Built in to the array, and by extension the connection between the array and all of mortal life, are a degrading factor in these connections, much like the way the vessel decomposes once disconnected from the array. This is what determines life span. Health directly effects the connection to the array, and also plays a factor.

The Source of Power

The secondary purpose that was explained about the Protean Array during the Protean Enlightenment was that it was the source the devised for all magic. Within the array they instilled raw energies of creation that, when pulled forth, can be utilized to created modern magic. This connection is part of the conduit between all living things and the array, but it must be trained and grown to be expanded to allow for the use of more powerful magics.
At the time soon after the creation of the array, the use of magic was free and unlimited, but as one of the final acts of The Beginning, God of Gods and Creation during the Protean Exile after the Rise of Free Will, was to terminate the force that allowed for the Highmortals to force The Proteans into exile.
He held the most power of any of The Protean Pantheon, nothing compared to the might of the Proteans themselves. His attempt to sever magic from the array only did so much as to limit the use of magic, causing the Highmortals to have to train tirelessly to achieve great heights, and even then magic was tiring and because of this extremely limited in comparison to the free flow of magic before.

Rarity as a Virtue

When The Proteans designed the array, the understood that something that gave great value and respect to something was exclusivity and rarity. Because of this, all of magic that lives within the array, and returns to it when used, does not connect to the life force that is lives with. The only points in which these two powers intercept are at choice points, mostly planets but some moons and other places, that are connected to magic. These cross points allow for the conduit to magic power to be included when new life is created on that planet. If a planet does not have this connection, it does not have magic. Earth was one of the unconnected planets, until the opening of the Veritas-Earth gateway.
When a living mortal that was born on a planet that has magic dies on a different planet the does not have magic, their connection's decomposition into the planet plants a seed. This seed grows slowly at first, only effecting those nearby where the person died, and even there in rare numbers. Over the course of time, this seed grows to affect the whole of the world it was nested in.
This occurred shortly after the opening of the gateway on Earth to the settlement of Veritas due to attempt to save some of the sick that had gone without medical supplies for so long. While the medicines of Earth were substantial, and in many ways superior to that of the Drassnians due to their reliance on magic for healing, not all lives could be saved. Many seeds were planted near the gateway establishing Earth and a magical world.