Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
Lore: Hidden Watchtowers
“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.” -The Man in Black
The following is a consolidation of lore, myth, essays, and legends shared among the Awakened regarding other Watchtowers besides the five Watchtowers of the five known Supernal Realms and their five reflections in the Abyss. It is not known if any of these watchtowers are talking about the same 6th Watchtower or several more...
In-Character Note: If you actually read this all the way through it provides me with starting justification for your character to actually have heard of some of these documents and sources...
The Lone Watchtower
Source: Rumors among the Diamond Orders
Some mages in later years claimed a secret teaching. They spoke to those they deemed worthy of another Watchtower — the first, they said — erected in a realm long forgotten and unreachable from this side of the Abyss. Only a very rare few can find their way there by strange astral paths and carve their name into that mysterious tower’s foundation. What powers this Watchtower sends to its mages are unknown, for any whose name is written there do not reveal its secrets.The modern magical orders have many legends and theories about the Lone Watchtower, but no evidence of its existence has ever appeared for public scrutiny.
The Lone Watchtower is a myth among myths. Mages speak of the first Watchtower raised in the Supernal World, in a place that can only be reached from the far side of the Abyss. Speculation about what sort of powers it might confer on the mage who manages to reach it and write his name within runs rampant late at night when the wine flows: theories range from it granting Archmastery to it transforming one into an Oracle. As of yet, no one has believably claimed to have reached it, so its existence and powers are still pure fancy.
The Watchtower of the Void
Source: Baalim (Scelesti Masters) fragmented records.
Abyssal lore suggests that the Lone Watchtower is not a fallen reflection of a Watchtower in the Abyss, but may reside in the Abyss as the first Abyssal Watchtower created by a Exarch or Oracle or Abyssal God. Baalim refer to it as the Watchtower of the Void. Other myths say its the Watchtower of the Soul, a secret ultimate secret in the furthest part of the Supernal Realms from the Fallen World. It is holding reality up, the anchor or foundation of the Supernal Realms themselves...
The Old Man - appears to be referring to the Old Man who camps on the Ocean Oroboros at the edge of the Anima Mundi. He is also referred to as the 11th Exarch and The Gate. It is believed that Baalim are initiated to mastery by making a deal with the Old Man by the sea. Those that speak to him enter his hovel. Those that do, never return.
The Unknown Tower & rumors of a Sixth Watchtower
Source: Athenaeum, accessible only to senior Mysterium membership
Observation: It was said that once Five guardians, powerful mages from time immemorial used their souls and powerful temples to bind Succoth-Bennoth, the Father of all Acacmoth to an Abyssal Watchtower, called "The Sixth Watchtower" by some. The tower was bound by mystical chains that are anchored by the Guardians. The tower chains countless soulless to the surface of this tower.
Hypothesis: The Lone Tower stands firm in the center of the Abyss, bridging the gap between the Supernal and Fallen worlds. It is the keystone that binds the Awakened souls to the Supernal World. Originally a part of the Celestial Ladder, when it shattered, it took down a sixth King of Atlantis, who erected the Watchtower in a final heroic act. Surrounded by the entities of the Abyss, it drew the gulmoth to erect false towers, guarding the link. After all, if magic no longer exists, how can they feast on the Fallen?Hypothesis: The Lone Tower is the lynchpin that holds the Fallen world from sundering, and falling into the Abyssal energies of entropy and chaos. Only a select few from all the supernatural entities know of its existence, and with good reason. For the Lone Tower is dark. Once, eons ago, there was a nation of people who guarded the Tower. They were erased by agents of chaos so that an assault on all existence could take place.
Hypothesis: Within the Lone Tower, resides the body of the last dragon of Atlantis, and it is dying. Magic is fading from the world, and mages are using it up in their hubris. The first to notice are, ironically, going to be the Tremere. Their necromantic magic is failing them, and they are dying much faster than they should be.
The Watchtower of the Soul
Source: Only members of Tremere Houses have access to this information
Lords of the Seventh Dragon, Tremere (aka Tremere Liches) believe that Final Watchtower reconciles the fragmented Arcana into a supreme Art of the soul: the secret of the “seventh dragon,” imprisoned by the founders of Atlantis. It is the Father of magic. The sixth dragon—the Blood—is vampirism personified: a messiah that prepared them for the final secrets of the universe.
The five dragons of Atlantis are deceivers. They betrayed Creation by driving souls from one subtle Arcanum to the next. They imprisoned the Final Watchtower as one of the Bound and designed the Tellurian to reject it. The Father and his final Art cannot exist in a world ruled by their sorcery, so it stands in the Abyss, awaiting its Tremere prophets.It steals names instead of waiting for the worthy to write them. It confers mastery of the soul, but only reveals its secrets to the soulless. It contains the secrets of the Tellurian but resides in the Abyss: the un-place that contains its paradoxes.
The five dragons made the universe to keep it out, but the Tremere will bring it back. They are the only beings in the universe to have proven worthy of its Mysteries—but they do not truly comprehend the Father. They must devise a final theory of the soul.
Once they prevail, their Watchtower will conquer Death, Fate, Mind, Prime and Spirit. They will crush the old dragons beneath their heels. Until then, they must reclaim every shard of lost knowledge. Until the day of Imperium, every soul, and every secret of the soul, belongs to the Tremere.
Part of the initiation of a Tremere Lich is supposedly being baptized in the Ocean Oroboros, an act that should utterly destroy anything the water touches. They claim this spiritual paradox causes "the Hollowing," that establishes a connection to the so-called Final Watchtower. The Tremere becomes a living extension of the Watchtower and by devouring souls they are feeding the dragon in the tower.
Although they claim to serve an unknown Watchtower, the Tremere still believe the Supernal is the true reality. They despise magical practices that sever the soul’s connection to the Supernal. Liches catalog, study, and destroy the soul manipulation methods used by hedge occultists, spirits and other creatures. Tremere especially despise vampire occultists, but despite the strong rhetoric, don’t hunt vampires unless they think they can win easily and conceal Legacy involvement. Scelesti want the Abyss to swallow Creation, and the Tremere dream of summoning a sinister Final Watchtower.
The Final Watchtower
Source: Only members of Tremere Houses have access to this manuscript known as the Suspire.
The Suspire tells two stories, side by side. In one, Breath-Eaters devoured the Masters. They used the sorcerers’ souls to release the Bound. In the other, the Masters destroyed the intruders but as the Breath-Eaters collapsed to ash, they infected the victors with their strange undeath.
The fortress shuddered; the Bound roared into the Astral Realm. The five chased it to the edge of the Abyss. They saw a thorny tree twist out of the chaos, and knew they had fulfilled the Tremere quest.
They beheld the Final Watchtower of the Soul. The five survivors—the first true liches—did not carve their names upon it. The Watchtower sang their names, claiming them. A paradoxical Awakening ripened within them. It gave them magic without souls. The Suspire ends in prophetic verse: the song of the Final Watchtower:
You mastered My Flesh, stolen by five dragons, my treacherous children.
You drank of My Blood, sixth dragon, my forgotten Son.
I am the seventh dragon and the first, the Lone and Final Watchtower.
In your hollowness, you made Me whole.
From My wholeness, your hollowness will devour the universe.
Speculation on other Watchtowers:
Essay by Theodoric, 1977
Source: Theodric was a mysterious mage who has appeared throughout modern history spanning several hundred years.
We know that there are at least five Watchtowers, each associated with a Path, a Gross Arcana and a Subtle Arcana, and whose Realm is an abode to a Supernal creature. It is through these Watchtowers that Mages Awaken and experience the Supernal. One theory of for the Imperial Mysteries (those Mysteries associated with obtaining Archmastery), is that the five Watchtowers are sub-soul artifacts of unknown beings we mages believe to be the Oracles, however no matter how hard we search, we find no trace of the Oracles save the Watchtowers themselves. Some believe that every mage is a part of an Oracle since Awakening is the inscription of Name onto the Watchtower, in other words the imbuing of a soul onto these artifacts. But if that is the case, who was the first to imbue their Soul on each Watchtower, who was the first mage that created the the tower?
This question has drastic implications. It implies that Archmastery was possible in the Time Before. While this may seem obvious at first, consider what Archmastery is, it is the ability to connect directly to the Supernal without the aid of a Watchtower. From the lore available to us, we can guess that the Archmasters who raised the Five Watchtowers were the Five Kings of Atlantis. But this answer spawns new questions.
How did the Five Kings achieve their Archmastery? Did they achieve it after climbing the Celestial Ladder? Were they Archmasters the moment they Awakened (did they have to seek some sort of Threshold)? And importantly, did anyone else achieve Archmastery other than the Five Kings? Normally, the answer is: of course the Exarchs, however even if we include the Exarchs, it's still a very small number of individuals if we consider the colossal damage that was caused, notably the Abyss.
Broken Watchtowers
So were there others? Others who climbed the Ladder with the Oracles and Exarchs? There are texts from the Time Before that provide evidence of exactly that. However the wording of the evidence yet again raises more questions. Broken ruins of watchtowers have been discovered during sojourners into Supernal Verges and Emanation realms.
Who raised these broken Watchtowers? What destroyed them? Why do the Ruins remain in the in places close to the Supernal Realms? Do they still have Paths, even if they may be "off the beaten track"? These all exist as part of the greater Supernal World.
Most importantly, do these broken Watchtowers reside in the same Realms as the other five? That last question is significant as either answer would impact the lore greatly. If these ruins are in the same realms as the five, the questions then are: Why are these Watchtowers destroyed while the others stand? And in the scenario that a Ruin was not destroyed, what would it symbolically mean for one Supernal Realm to have two or more Watchtowers? If the Ruins are not in the same Realms as the five, the questions then are: Why are these Watchtowers destroyed while the others stand? And what are these Other Supernal Realms?Do these Other Supernal Realms have Fallen counterparts? It could be theorized that these Other Supernal Realms do not have Fallen counterparts because they never Fell. Or that they Fell so much that their Watchtowers failed to anchor them in the Phenomenal World and shattered, rendering the Fallen counterparts lost, perhaps consumed by the Abyss. Perhaps they are further away, on the side of the Supernal World that "faces away" from our world.
Is there a "sixth Path," at the center of the supernal pentacle, that Atlantians awoke to?
If you believe what the Guardians of the Veils say, then in the Time Before the Abyss magic was greater than it is in the world the Awakened now live in - part of the Guardians mission is slowing the degradation of what magic remains. The Silver Ladder teach something similar through their precept of Thunder. In a perfected world, there would be no sleeping curse and no abyss - anyone could meditate all the way to the supernal if they wanted and there was no need for a watchtower.
The awakened of this time were vastly more mighty than those of the fallen world. They built cities of Adamas, a substance which can no longer be replicated, they created a civilization so mighty that even the Exarchs have never been able to erase all of the evidence of its existence. They erected the Omphalos at the edge of the Anima Mundi and when all else was achieved they constructed the Star Ladder and stormed the heavens.
When the Star Ladder came down and the abyss rose, these five retained their connection to the supernal, the only roads across the newly formed abyss. While the traitors who had usurped the Star Ladder set about conquering the heavens and remaking the world in their image these great mages sought the Imperium Rites that would allow them to become one with the supernal before the light of creation left the world completely. The Exarchs were so busy consolidating their rule and securing their newly won thrones from the Old Gods that by the time they discovered the Oracles, it was too late - their ascensions were complete.
The Oracles forged the Watchtowers in the image of the Ocean Spire when they lived and now they stand forever in the Supernal, guiding those that would follow them to the light of truth.
The Original Dragon Watchtowers:
The Lone Watchtower of the Soul and the Broken Watchtower of Blood
Source: Apocryphal documents found in a sanctum of a Nameless Order. It speaks of an alternate history to the nominally accepted history of the First City among the Diamond Orders.
Before the Fall
Blood: The Blood Tower reflected the Gross Arcana (the physical magics of Forces, Matter, Life, Space and Time) and represents the Path of Descent and Embodiment. Blood Mages would draw from this Watchtower for their Blood-magic.
Soul: The Soul Tower reflects the Subtle Arcana (the abstract magics of Prime, Mind, Spirit, Death and Fate) and represents the Path of Ascension and Conception. Soul Priests would draw from this Watchtower for their Soul-arts.
Neither Watchtower exists in the Supernal World or the Phenomenal World, but instead stand on the Threshold between the two worlds, guiding Travelers along their respective Paths on the Astral Paths.
Blood: The Blood Tower guides Souls from the Supernal World to the Phenomenal World, giving them Vessels of clay (Flesh and Blood) in exchange for their memories. Descension.
Soul: The Soul Tower guides Souls from the Phenomenal World to the Supernal World, discarding their bodies of clay to merge their experience with the Supernal. Ascension. This leads to a cycle of Reincarnation.
The Fall
The Awakened Nation, in their Hubris, grew attached to their bodies of clay. They did not want to discard them to enter the Supernal, and neither did they want their memories stripped of them. What purpose then would their lives have been? And they have the power to change reality by their will, why not use that power to change their Destiny of Reincarnation? To remove themselves from Life's cycle. But how to Ascend without walking the Path of Ascension?
The Atlanteans reached the Supernal Realms and did not stop there.They now knew only to overwhelm, overpower and overthrow. Casting down Gods from their Heavenly Thrones, the Atlanteans erected new Watchtowers as proof that the Cycle of Life had been conquered. New Paths were forged between the Supernal and Phenomenal Worlds. The Atlanteans henceforth shall not be bound by the Destiny of Reincarnation.
This bastardized Ascension of Imperfect Clay corrupted the purity of Supernal Perfection. The Balance was broken. The Watchtower of Blood shattered.
After the Fall:
From the broken Blood Tower spilled an endless black ocean that sought to cleanse the Worlds of this toxic Heresy. It began to fill the Threshold and enveloped the Watchtower of Soul, severing the Phenomenal World from the Supernal World. The Celestial Ladder collapsed from the torrent, and Atlantis became flooded by a bottonless Abyss, consuming it, erasing it.
And still the barrier widened, the Phenomenal World was Falling further and further away from the Supernal World as the Ocean Oroboros grew.
The Ascended Oracles made a decision. They infused their new Watchtowers with their own Souls, and bridged their Paths over the Abyss, anchoring the Fallen World in place. The Ocean Oroboros stopped its growth.
The Watchtower of Blood was Broken.
Its contents now a bottomless Abyss, an Ocean Oroboros whose shores gather Astral Sand, Sand that came from the fragments of the Watchtower of Soul. Though the Soul Tower is now but dust, it is still not broken. But its Path is unclear. Where is the Threshold? Where is the Supernal World? Where is the Watchtower of Blood?
The Watchtower of Soul was Alone.
The Yin was without a Yang. The Soul Tower wept. It could not conceive existence without its opposite. Its tears mixed with the Abyssal Blood, and the Lie was born.
Further Speculation on the Watchtowers:
Essay by Theodoric, 2015
Source: Theodric was a mysterious mage who has appeared throughout modern history spanning several hundred years.
A thought occurred to me. Can a broken watchtower even exist in the Supernal? Technically everything in the Supernal is a symbol of truth, including the Watchtowers. You could argue that irrevocably damaging one of these symbols makes it untrue (as in conflicting with other symbols) and shunts it off into the Abyss. The Abyss could contain loads of broken Watchtowers, and probably does, even if those Watchtowers don't have an external origin to begin with and were just untrue from the beginning.
We know that the Old Gods who were cast from their throne but may still be in the Supernal, but in a reduced form. So it could be possible that as long as the existence of a broken Watchtower doesn't undermine any other Supernal Truths, it could still exist. It would not be a Watchtower though, per se, but a reflection of what was once there. It is akin to an ancient ruin of a Roman Bathouse: it is no longer a Bath house, as it no longer serves that purpose, but it is a representation of what once was its purpose and it's form.
That said, a Watchtower that can no longer exist due to it contradicting the Supernal would likely end up in the Abyss, as would any other possibilities that no longer could exist. That, or it would just be destroyed completely, removing any trace of it from reality, absorbed into the truth.
The only definite thing we know of is that there were some major acts of Imperium that significantly altered reality. For all we know, the reasons we see ruins of the Time Before is because Archmages attempting to recreate the myths brought them into existence only to see them wiped out again by either the Exarchs or other great powers. As to the five Watchtowers themselves, technically they always existed (being supernal symbols) in this iteration of reality.
My former peers have many different opinions. One, who will remain nameless, has a personal theory that the Abyss came from the numerous Supernal Symbols being cast out of the Supernal by the Exarchs, who narrowed down reality to better control it. Their attempt to prevent awakenings was the final straw, as doing so would mean they retroactively invalidated their existence. The resulting paradox was what brought about the Sleeping Curse. The Watchtowers were not just an attempt to maintain Awakenings, but stabilize the Supernal (basically preventing the constant loop of "humanity can't awaken" and "humanity is ruled by those humans who awakened" from breaking the Supernal Truth). Thus, as symbols they became the new source of all awakenings, and thus don't have an identifiable creator: they always had been created. We cannot go back to a time where they weren't present. He also posits that the five Watchtowers cannot be destroyed based on their nature as the source of Awakenings and tether to the Supernal for the majority of the Awakened, without drastic paradox (hence the Exarchs seeking to control but not destroy them). They are somehow necessary to the fundamental nature of Fallen reality.
I cannot help but reflect that all of these discussions assume that the Diamond Order version of things is correct. The Exarchs might never have been Mages and the Oracles might not ever have existed either. The Watchtowers definitely do exist, and I think it is fair to say the Exarchs do as well, but the reasoning as to how and why is up for grabs. There's no more proof that the Exarchs ever were Atlantean Mages than there is proof that they were anything else, after all.
Perhaps Atlantis did exist, or rather, that there was a time before, before the Abyss and the Sleeping Curse. When the first Imperial Spell was cast by the first Archmage, however, things changed. Before that point, all of the Supernal truths that existed were the ones that had always existed, or if they changed, they changed naturally. Imperial Magic changed them forcefully, and the new truths cast the old truths into a state of non-being (creating The Abyss, that is, all the realities that cannot exist because this one does). One other point I would make is that the Abyss reflects realities that cannot be. This means things that are not True are found here.
Perhaps Atlantis was/is true... now. Essentially, there was some major change early on due to some aspect of Imperial Mysteries, which created the Abyss. The cause of this changed over time though, as mages trying to solve and fix this cataclysm did so by attempting to recreate what was (which mind you, didn't exist in reality any longer due to that original Imperium). They couldn't reverse it this way, but what it did was tweak the narrative of the events.
So the Exarchs could have been something else originally, as could have the Oracles. The cataclysm could have been something else such as gods waging war and the losing gods/symbols being cast into the abyss, someone trying to tap a new source of magic and accidentally unleashing the Abyss, etc. Maybe the Abyss always existed, and was the source of creation as certain elements divided between "truth" and "not truth" (which would both fit the Scelesti legends, and also ancient Greek myths of how there was first chaos, which then gave birth to the universe).
But due to the mages continued alterations of the Supernal, this warped things to the current narrative: the Diamond and Seer's posited a lost city based on what they heard, archmages tried to find it or bring it back, their magic shaping the world to make it that way. The Exarchs were morphed from what they were to what they are now as the symbolism of their rise changed: gods became ascended mages, for example. This cycle fed on itself so now, for all intents and purposes, "Atlantis" in some form is what happened, as the edits to the Supernal made it so.
And More Towers: There has been plenty of speculation among the Awakened regarding where and how the original Ocean Spire was created. The Spire Perilous, in the Anthropic Redoubts (a layer of the Astral Realms) is thought among scholars to be an Astral representation of the original Axis Mundi. It, and its dark twin, the Swath, may have represented the path of the Silver Ladder before it was sundered, splitting into a double helix ascent and rotting monuments of mankind's hubris. Perhaps the actual two towers exist or existed (such as the theory of the original Dragon Watchtowers mentioned above) and were the top and bottom portions of one tower, the true Axis Mundi or the anchor points of the mage-made supernal bridge. There is also the theory of broken towers where mages have attempted to recreate the First City and how that may have created post-Time Before Ruins that appear to have Atlantean features.
The Watchtower of Brass and Flame
Awakened to a Sixth Watchtower in a Supernal Realm unfamiliar to the Atlantean cosmology, mages who claimed to be of a new Path started appearing with the rise and decline of the New Age movement, starting with the first rumblings in the early 1900s to the peak of the movement in the 1960s. These Willworkers claim to be part of an, as of yet unknown, Path. The new ager mages pointed to a global event after the Tunguska Blast of 1908 in which Hallows erupt with Mana across the world in an expanding ring centered on the deserts of Afghanistan and clusters of new awakenings centered on that area that followed.
Since then, these new mages claim to not be limited to the five known Supernal Realms and that the number of Awakenings of other Paths isn’t diminishing, leading to theories that the new Path is Awakening people that wouldn’t have been called by the other Watchtowers.
The Diamond Orders started searching for the cause of this phenomenon, but never met with definitive success. Mages interview both sides in the fighting in the region with means both mundane and magical. Did whatever happen cause the Abyss to breach, allowing the sixth Watchtower’s light to cross into the Fallen World? Or was the event an aftershock, a rallying cry to the Awakened from the Oracles? If anyone managed to defraud these mages by use of magical analysis the results were never released to the collective. Common knowledge around the Pentacle Orders of today is that these mages, and others who claim to have Awakened to a Watchtower different from the known five, are frauds.Neither the Realm nor the Path that springs from it have agreed-upon names used by all of the wise. The Realm is one of raging elemental forces, but not in the sense of the raw power of the Aether — the Sixth Realm is made of flame, lightning, freezing cold, and crashing sound, but they move with purpose, filled with alien intelligence that can be contacted and — for those that learn the Path well — coerced into doing the new mage’s bidding. The inhabitants are beings made out of the same purposeful energy, creatures of smokeless flame that the mages of this moment call Djinn.
Claimants of The Sixth Path have stated that their Awakening granted the Ruling Arcana of Spirit and Forces, and the Inferior Arcanum of Prime. Through experimentation these mages discovered that Yantras and Tools of brass, bronze, or copper have Supernal weight with this tower, and some have had success with knives as weapon or tools. Though Middle Eastern symbolism is obviously the orders’ starting point for experimentation, mages seek other elements of Sleeper culture and occult practice that might have power.
The claims of these mages created quite a splash that settled down in the early 1970s. The Free Council, Guardians of the Veil, and Seers of the Throne led the charge to investigate the phenomena — the Libertines were seeking proof that humanity was influenced by this Realm spontaneously, without inheriting their symbols from the Time Before, and the Guardians and Seers because many of their cults and societies were being courted by New Age ideas.
Interestingly enough, the Horsemen Cabal consisting of Nergal, Kairos, Casstiel and the late Loudon and Prodigy all claimed to have Awakened on the same night to Watchtowers similar to the traditional five but with radically different configurations of Path Arcana.
The Dark Tower
Source: Apocryphal documents found in a sanctum of a know Nephandi.
The Tower is the center of all creation. It is said to be Gan's body (creator of the multiverse), and is held up by six spokes of great size and length, visible only by their effects on the lands along their lines - such as patterns in the clouds. At each end of the Beams, there is a door, for a total of twelve. Each door is protected by a Guardian. The Tower can only be entered in one of the infinite number of worlds, called Mid-World. It is necessary to present a sigul of Arthur Eld, the bearer of the White in order to enter the Tower.
The Tower is a six hundred floor spire made of black stone, and the only entrance is a door of ghostwood, with the words "Unfound" written upon it. The tower has a central oriel window which is striated with thirteen different colors (each the color of the Guardian). In other worlds, the Tower can take a number of forms. Lesser floors in the tower are less than atoms to greater floors. The brick of which The Dark Tower is made up of is a sooty dark gray color.In the earliest of history, the Tower was wholly magical, as were its supports, and was intended to stand forever. But the Old Ones, confident in their "technology," replaced the magical beams with ones that could be broken, as they were derived from "machines." The Tower was also used to link its own world to others, some of which the Old Ones themselves visited for their own purposes.
The Old Ones eventually attempted to topple the Tower as well and replace it with a technological replica under the guidance of Maerlyn (Merlin?) by releasing the Prim from large cracks, which then formed in the ground and filled with monstrosities.
After the failed assault on the Tower, the Old Ones tried to make amends by creating the Twelve Guardians. These Guardian were engineered by the Old Ones to mend the magic of the Beams that was previously assaulted, thus mixing magic and gross matter.
The Rose, however, is not simply a manifestation of the Tower, but a completely separate entity. The Tower is surrounded by a huge field of roses called Can'-Ka No Rey. Each rose blooms with the light of a thousand suns and each has a beautiful core. Pure representations of creation.The great Beams are mystical forces that hold up the Tower. Like the Tower, they are infinitely old, created at the beginning of the universe and are themselves living entities, having arisen from the Prim. The Beams are represented by 12 Guardians. In all there are 6 beams and 2 guardians on a beam. At the end of each beam where a guardian resides, there is also a door to another world. The Old Ones sought to replace the beams with their own versions.
Though there are 6 beams, in effect there are 12 spokes - the Tower is at the center point of each beam, and an Guardian at each end.All things serve the Beam. The power of a Beam can be demonstrated using a compass, by seeing birds turn to follow the beam as they pass through it. Trees grow in the direction of a beam, even their shadows follow the direction of the beams.
The Beams are weakening, the worlds are running down. Entropy.
Since the Old One's failed assault to conquer the Tower, it has been from then on been assaulted by the Crimson King using its Breakers to wear down the worlds and the beams supporting the Tower. This caused the world to move on, which is why magic broke down and failed, leading to time itself moving completely out of sync. If the Beams fall, the Tower falls. If the Tower falls, the world is consumed by darkness.
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| ALL HAIL THE CRIMSON KING |
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