Favourite Attendant

A holy source book of world facts, half-whispered and half-remembered by the faithful to Heaven.

 The Crimson Outbreak:

The First Shatter, no one knows when it began. We don't know what tore the veil. They claim it was some divine retribution. Others, a celestial accident. However, when the Crimson Outbreak began bleeding into the world, it did not tap, it consumed. But it didn't happen with fire or flood; it came as a slow rot. It curled the air, poisoned the land, and rewrote the laws of life. The Favourites whisper that it is the very essence of Heaven. But if that is so, why does it set itself afire the moment it touches the world?

Corrosion:

The price of power is decay. Those who draw on it, notably through Crimson Stones, invite a slow, irreversible decay. Flesh blackens. Bones weaken. The soul frays. This is Corrosion, the silent death.

Rejection:

Where Corrosion is slow, Rejection is violent. The body knows what the mind denies; this power is not yours.

Crimson Stones:

Crimson power, when crystallised, becomes stones of boundless energy. They buzz with celestial vibrations; to possess such is to feel the heartbeat of the heavens. To use one is to gamble with your life.

Humans:

Humanity, once whole, is now divided by the touch of the outbreak.

* Mortals

* Cursed

* Favourites

* Mortals

The untouched. They continue as they ever did, fragile and transient. To them, the supernatural is a fable, until it isn't.

* Cursed

The desperate. They tap into Crimson Stones for temporary supernatural powers. But there is poison in every gift. They burn bright and die young.

* Favourites

The chosen or the damned. Infected with a rare crimson parasite and yet living, they no longer have blood in their veins, but something much older. They are feared, worshipped, and hunted. 

The Favourite Clans:

Their age is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. Others say a number of them are older than the outbreak. Others say they caused it. Their bloodlines are sacred. Their rituals are forbidden. They don't answer to kings or governments. The Way of Heaven is all they own allegiance to.

Crimson Creatures:

The tainted Beasts of the Outbreak; they are not natural creatures, but rather creatures of corrosion. They are divided into three groups:

*Newborn

*Infant

*Demon

*Newborn

Mindless and unstable. They are devoid of soul cores and require Crimson Stones to exhibit supernatural abilities. They are the front line of the crimson plague.

*Infant

They are the first to awaken a soul core (infant core). Cunning, dangerous, and they can make Promises.

*Demon

The apex. With two soul cores, "demon cores". They are both smart and strategic, almost godly. They are the Kings of the Astral World and whisper to the stars.

Promises:

These are weapons of blood and memory. Made from the corpses of Infants and Demons, it is not mere weaponry. They are contracts... alive, smitten with blood and signed by intent. To have a Promise is to bear the will of the slain. And they remember.

Oath mark:

Binds promises with divine weight; breaking them brings misfortune.

The Divine Pathways:

Ascension is not a myth; it is a system etched into the bones of the world. There are three known paths to divinity. Each is perilous. Each is absolute.

* The Ancient pathway

*The Savage pathway

*The lost pathway

The Ancient Pathway:

Humans follow this pathway. It constitutes ten steps towards divinity.

*God

*Angel

*Saint

*Luminary

*Paragon

*Seeker

*Child of Destiny

*Guardian

*Judge

*Initiate

The Savage Pathway:

Crimson creatures follow this pathway. 

* Abyss

* Divinity's End

* Damnation

* Desecrant

* Doom

* Dread

* Corrupter

* Deviant

* Defiler

* Wretch

The Savage Pathway is a ten-tiered path, with each name reflecting the creature's unraveling identity and growing defiance of cosmic order, from the wretches to the world-consuming Abyss.

Revelations:

Are divine gifts, echoes from the Heavens themselves, visions, truths, or curses, granted upon those who walk the sacred routes, ascending, descending, and delving into the unknown. Whether offered to the precious few of the Ancient Pathway or the monstrous elected of the Savage Pathway, every Revelation represents the moment in which they changed for good or ill. It's not just an insight, but a truth that does bind, carved so deep into their soul and flesh that it remakes what they are and what they should be. What the heavens reveals are the ways of heaven.

Trials:

Are sacred ordeals imposed by the Heavens upon their dearest, be they ascending Ancients or descending Savages. They are not penalties, but crucibles of change. A way to gauge worth, will, and purpose. No one rises, falls, or dares to live in the unknown without surpassing these divine thresholds. To experience a Trial is to look into the Heavens and remember them, to face a Trial is to feel the Heavens and be changed by them.

The Lost Pathway:

It calls to the Favourites. It haunts the dreams of crimson beasts. No one has walked it in recorded history. But it exists. And it waits.

The Unknown:

Are those who walk the lost pathway.

Crimson Bloodline:

It is the blood of Heaven that runs in some. It is the arbiter not only of power, but of destiny. It has different grades based on purity.

*Divine blood: blood purity ranges 75-100%

*Mixed blood: blood purity ranges 50-74%

*Mortal blood: blood purity ranges 0-49%

Bloodline Resonance/ blood resonance:

The instinctive recognition among those who possess crimson blood.

Bloodline Suppression:

The pressure exerted by purer bloodlines upon the impure. 

Soul Cores:

Crystalline vessels of spirit and essence. The source of supernatural power.

The Diary:

A mysterious system embedded in the world's fabric. It guides, records, and sometimes… it judges.

The Astral World:

A realm beyond the veil. Here, the mighty dead rest. Here, Demons rule. Humans can come in astral projection or spirit-walking, but few come back whole.

The Nameless:

They are the forgotten. The background souls. They don't mould the world so much as inhabit it. And at times, their narrative is perhaps more important, if not even more so, than the myth. (For more information about them, visit my thoughts at the end of chapter three.)

The Travelers:

Reborn from other galaxies, they come with fragmented memories and alien impulses. Some are saviors. Some are destroyers. All are anomalies, especially the Ancient Ones.